Chapter 59 – Cultural Difference in Cooking Techniques
Early in the morning.
The clergy of the domus would cleanse themselves before gathering for a short morning prayer in the main hall. Afterward, they went about their duties – mostly arranging the day’s schedule and tasks. A simple breakfast, usually a few pieces of bread with a bowl of plain simple soup, would be ready within minutes.
After breakfast, Jade would normally take her place at the gate. It gave her a chance to exchange a few words with parents dropping off their children before heading to work – though in winter, far fewer parents appeared, as many were forced into idleness.
Then, she would head to her classroom, take attendance, note the reasons for any absence – these kids had their ways of spreading news, so she always knew who was missing and why – and begin her lessons.
That was her routine.
And today, she was already off track because her pupil had dragged her into the kitchen.
“Now, I’m only going to spend a few minutes here,” Jade said with a sigh. “I need to be at the gate.”
“Sensei, hardly any parents stop to talk in this weather,” Josh replied, rolling his eyes. “I’d say they’re more eager to skip pleasantries and warm their frozen fingers by a fire at work.”
“But it’s my only chance to learn more about them,” Jade said. “Good communication leads to good education. It’s no use teaching well here if the students behave completely differently at home.”
“...” Josh gave his master a complicated look.
There were plenty of ragged schools scattered around the town. Most were poorly organised – run by traders or working men who taught in their spare time, gathering small groups of children in whatever space they could find: a shed behind a shop, a corner of a warehouse yard. They taught fewer than twenty students little more than basic words, fragments of the Lumen Codex, and simple counting.
Most lasted only a few months.
Some did not even last a fortnight.
Running a ragged school, even a small one, was difficult.
Many of these teachers had neither the time nor the resources to communicate with students or their families. Their lessons were inconsistent, they could not provide materials, and they had little guidance to offer when problems arose. The children saw no clear future in such education. Learning became something they muddled through only when they had time – and most of the time, they did not. Time was better spent earning coins to fill their bellies than learning how to read.
Josh did not blame those teachers. They were not wealthy men like Lord Ashborne. They taught out of pity, out of goodwill and passion. But without support, that goodwill and passion withered away easily.
Miss Jade was different.
From the very first day, she had been thinking about how to sustain the school. She planned, organized, communicated. She was knowledgeable, and resourceful. The most resourceful person Josh had ever met, aside from Father Rochester, who had secured the school’s initial funding from a noble patron.
Miss Jade was… strange.
At times, Josh found himself wondering if she might be something more – a radiant, perhaps, or even a saint sent to guide the ignorant.
Well – when she wasn’t muttering under her breath, scratching her head and growling silently in frustration when she thought no one was watching, or rolling her eyes to suppress the urge to speak out.
If she truly were a radiant, then she was an unusually crude one, lacking in refinement and proper manners.
Josh let out a quiet chuckle at the thought. Deciding not to argue further about a teacher’s duties, he waved her along. “Quick, Sensei, while Sister Geenia still has some broth left!”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming…” Jade greeted the surprised nuns and asked for a small pot of the leftover broth.
“Ooh, new seasoning ideas?” Sister Geenia asked, already preparing it as requested. She even pulled the seasoning rack closer for Jade to choose from.
“No, I need an egg,” Jade paused. “Um… and some starch water too.”
Sister Geenia immediately understood her intention. “Thicken it into a proper soup, eh? Then what is the egg for?”
“To make soup… oh.” Jade suddenly remembered: people here did not make egg drop soup when it comes to using eggs and broth. Instead, they used eggs to clarify broth, gathering suspended impurities so the liquid would taste cleaner, or they tempered the eggs to thicken the soup with a creamy texture. Since she had asked for starch, Sister Geenia was naturally confused as to why she needed another thickening agent.
Jade could wryly predict she would receive a very different reaction once she demonstrated the strange technique.
They watched as Jade took another small pot and ladled in a portion of clear broth – what she, as a Southern Chinese woman, would have simply called soup. She brought it to a boil, then lowered the flame to let it simmer before adding starch water to one of the pots.
The broth thickened quickly into a light, glossy consistency.
Jade cracked an egg into a bowl, beat it until the colour was uniform, then slowly drizzled it into the thick slurry while stirring briskly. The liquid formed silky ribbons – petal-like strands of egg suspended evenly throughout.
Josh stared in fascination. Sister Geenia and Sister Lucy, however, raised their brows.
Jade only poured half the egg into the thickened pot. Then she turned to the second pot where the broth simmered without starch. Using the same technique, she drizzled in the remaining egg while stirring.
This time, the result was very different. Instead of neat, delicate strands, the eggs formed loose fragments that drifted and sank if not stirred. The broth also turned slightly cloudy, lacking the sheen of the thickened version.
Josh leaned closer, intrigued. The two nuns, on the other hand, looked distinctly unconvinced.
“Miss Jade, my dear,” Sister Geenia said carefully, “you have suggested many useful techniques, and I am certain this method of adding eggs may have its place. But this… I fear it looks quite improper.”
Cultural difference, here we go again, Jade thought, letting out a quiet, dry chuckle. “You know, Sister, to me, both of these look fine. And they taste fine too.”
They each took a spoonful from both pots.
Jade nodded. The flavour was exactly what she expected – the simple, cheaply made kind of egg drop soup, perfectly acceptable for any mother who needed to stretch her ingredients to quiet her crying kids.
Josh said nothing, though his brow furrowed slightly, as if unsure what to make of the texture.
The two nuns, however, had clearer opinions.
Sister Lucy gestured toward the thickened soup. “This, though unusual in appearance, would be suitable for the sick or the weak. It is quick to prepare and could serve well when provisions are scarce. With careful measurement, a few eggs could be distributed across a large pot, allowing everyone a taste.”
She had a point. The domus relied heavily on donations. Sometimes abundant, like the current surplus of meat, and sometimes painfully lacking. The kitchen had to adapt constantly.
“But it still looks wrong. As though the egg had curdled from carelessness. Some might mistake it for scum!” Sister Geenia had her pride as a cook, and a cook must never make such a silly mistake when making soup. “I know – we all know – this is not careless, but others won’t. They would very likely find it unappetising.”
“Well, I think it’s fine,” Josh said, speaking as the only one who represents the ragged students. “It’s egg, after all. Having egg in a savoury soup is already a luxury for most street children, Sisters.”
Jade stepped back from the discussion. “I’m just offering another way to use eggs. But we’re running low on water-glassed eggs, right? We can put this technique aside since we aren’t going to use it anyway. As for the boiling water… I’m pretty sure it will thicken eventually as long as we keep boiling the penny skewers, so no starch is needed.”
She paused, and continued. “I suggest we bring two large pots: one to keep the thickened broth and another with fresh water to boil the second batch. We can serve the broth to customers who bring their own bowls – extra coins are coins, after all… Oh, right, we’ll need a water source near the stall to adjust the level in the pot. Anyway, that’s for Sisters and Brothers to decide. Josh, come; we need to prepare for class now.”
“Yes, Sensei.” Josh followed after her, giving both nuns a slight bow. “See you after class, Sister Geenia, Sister Lucy.”
Jade soon busied herself with teaching and running the tuition class, leaving her little time to attend to the stall beyond offering recipes and occasionally assisting Sister Miriam in the bakehouse. Now that Jade was no longer present there most of the time, Sister Miriam had taken over managing the baking schedule and supervising the students.
The domus bakehouse, aside from preparing pies for the students and chips for the winter chips project, had begun supplying working newsboys and girls as well. These children now doubled as pie hawkers – going door to door, selling the domus’s offal or meat pies while promoting the chips stall, and at the same time trying to sell the newspapers they carried.
To them, it was killing three birds with one stone.
Their tidy appearance and proud smiles gradually earned the domus ragged schoolchildren a good reputation – though they themselves likely remained unaware of it.
Anyway. That same afternoon, after Jade’s demonstration of egg drop soup in the kitchen, Josh gathered two more older students from Mr. Anderson’s class – Carlson and Andrew – along with Raymond and Matt. The five of them took turns pushing the handcart loaded with supplies toward their stall.
“Blimey, I never thought our selling team would grow in winter,” Matt said, stepping aside to let Carlson take over the cart. “And more food to sell, too! This must be beyond Miss Jade’s original plan for the winter chips project.”
“Well, going by her naming style, this would be the ‘skewer project’,” Josh said lightly. “With a note at the bottom: Temporary, while stocks last.”
The others chuckled, the five of them forming a relaxed yet motivated atmosphere.
He turned to Andrew, who was walking beside him. “Though I’m sure selling at the stall would be a better choice, would you and Carlson be alright skipping the coal yard? Two pennies a day isn’t bad.”
“That’s only if we sell everything in the sacks,” Andrew sneered. “Going door to door, the fine ladies wrinkle their noses at our smoke-stained hands. Most days, it’s just a penny. Sometimes half.”
“And that’s already one of the better jobs we can get at our age,” Carlson added from behind the cart. “Most people don’t want skinny lads. They want strong men.”
Josh let out a quiet sigh. Winter was always harsh on poor teenagers.
He quickly shook off the gloom and turned to the two newcomers at the stall. “I’ll show you how to sell the penny skewers later. One of you handles the boiling, the other deals with customers. Make sure the one handling coins doesn’t touch the food – coins aren’t clean, and Miss Jade is very strict about hygiene. I’ll go join the newsboys to help sell pies.”
“Why?” Andrew quickened his pace, taking over the cart as Carlson stepped back. “My brother’s a newsboy. They sell well enough.”
“Just making sure our lads and lasses don’t get bullied,” Josh replied. “Miss Jade’s always worried about our safety. She dared not pay us too much, you know, in case it makes us targets for theft or trouble. Thus, I wager I should check the streets near the stall where the newsboys would go – making sure the kids aren’t just putting on a brave face while actually being scared.”
“‘Kids’, huh?” Carlson chuckled, “Sounds better than ‘urchins’. Street urchins sound nasty. Street kids sound… almost adorable.”
Andrew laughed. “Kids! Well, those younger ones are sometimes as stubborn as goats, charging ahead no matter how many times we warn them.”
Even Matt and Raymond, taking turns pulling the cart from the front, joined the laughter.
Truth be told, this had been the best winter they had ever known.
Warm meals everyday from the domus. Skills and knowledge learned at school. And a teacher who was doing everything she could to help them.