009. Misunderstanding. (2)
“That knight named Beriant must have been truly incredible.”
“Yes. He’ll probably make a name for himself across the entire continent in a few years.”
We spent time talking about Chico and the mercenaries, and before we knew it, dawn had broken.
While wondering what to eat for breakfast, Joy, who had woken up early, took something out of his bag.
It resembled a khaki-colored water pouch, but perhaps because of the color, it looked like a plastic pack containing cow dung.
When I showed interest, Joy, seemingly pleased, began his explanation.
“Back home, we call this haggis. It’s only been two days since it was made, so it looks a bit off, but once it’s properly aged, it’s quite delicious.”
At Joy’s words, I carefully examined the food called haggis placed on the table; its appearance was very peculiar.
It looked exactly like a collection of things a cow had chewed up and spat out.
“It’s made by finely chopping the innards of cattle or sheep, then adding oats, onions, carrots, and radishes.”
From Joy’s explanation, haggis seemed to be a type of black pudding—that is, a type of soondae—but it appeared to be made differently from ordinary black pudding.
The process of stuffing filling when making ordinary black pudding, that is, soondae, is called casing; most of the parts used for soondae casing are the long intestinal sections like the small and large intestines.
In modern times, edible plastic is used instead of intestines to hold the filling; it was unavoidable for mass production.
And this haggis that Joy had taken out was a sausage that did not use those long intestines for casing, but rather the stomach.
So even though it was a black pudding type of sausage, it did not have the elongated, intestine-shaped form we typically imagine. Instead, it looked like food garbage stuffed inside a flat plastic bag.
The taste would probably be similar since it was a sausage, but because it was encased in a stomach, which has excellent elasticity unlike intestines, the filling inside shifted around, so it didn’t look like a sausage at all.
Its appearance was so unappetizing that I couldn’t easily work up the courage to eat it.
“Can I see inside?”
“Yes. Of course.”
Joy cut the top with a dagger, and peering through the gap, the haggis filling was sloshing around like goblin porridge.
“You just scoop this out and eat it?”
“Yes. If it hasn’t been long since it was made, you scoop out the contents and dip it on bread like a sauce. And if it’s been over a month, it hardens like other black pudding; then you can eat it like other black pudding.”
Joy demonstrated by dipping it in dry bread himself, but the sight of khaki-colored porridge smeared on the bread was enough to kill one’s appetite.
It seemed I wasn’t the only one thinking that, as the others also couldn’t work up the appetite to eat it.
“Joy, that kid’s from the grassland regions of the northwest, so he sure eats weird things.”
“Right. He says you eat it like black pudding, but it’s completely different.”
“It looks like something you’d vomit up after a night of heavy drinking—who would eat that!”
As everyone harshly criticized and disparaged the haggis, Joy’s face turned red.
He had made his hometown food thinking he could save money and eat something tasty, but since everyone only looked at it unfavorably, he couldn’t help but feel crestfallen.
‘Tch. This is how we eat it back home.’
Joy was angry inside, but since everyone kept saying bad things, he resolved not to make haggis anymore.
Jinwoo felt pity as he watched Joy’s expression and the food called haggis.
Because when rare, indigenous foods that existed only in certain regions were rejected and shunned by outsiders for looking unpleasant, they would disappear entirely.
In Korea, too, there was Jayeom (boiled salt) that had nearly disappeared due to being pushed out by solar salt, and there was the example of Jinju Naengmyeon, which had lost its original recipe.
When Jayeom was in danger of having its lineage severed, they hastily restored the Jayeom manufacturing method, and with protection from the local government, Jayeom continued to this day like a cultural asset.
However, Jinju Naengmyeon, which had lost its cooking methods and had its lineage severed due to being pushed out by Pyeongyang Naengmyeon and Busan Milmyeon, had no choice but to be restored with entirely new cooking methods.
Although Jinju Naengmyeon was later restored, no one knew if that restoration had truly brought back the original taste.
It seemed this food called haggis would end up the same.
If people stopped making it just because it didn’t look good, the recipe would be lost, and it would be forgotten without anyone even knowing such a food had existed.
Even if records were later found stating such a food had existed, if there was no one who knew the recipe, it would be over.
No one knew how many indigenous foods had disappeared without anyone remembering them.
‘Ah, no way, is this a quest too?’
It felt like one of those quests given to characters who took cooking as their side job, like [Save the Traditional Food in Crisis of Not Being Passed Down!].
Although it was a game where quest windows didn’t pop up, it was a sufficiently clichéd event.
He racked his brain to somehow utilize this food called haggis.
And once he had roughly decided what to make with the haggis, he took out the biggest pot.
“Scoop out all the haggis filling and put it in this pot.”
“Huh? Sir Wizard, do you intend to try it?”
“Yes. I’ll try to make the haggis more delicious, so hurry and scoop out the filling.”
Joy, excited by the promise that the haggis would be made delicious, eagerly scooped out the filling.
Since three days had passed since it was made, the oats, onions, carrots, and radishes that had been added seemed to have fermented and mixed well.
To the scooped-out filling, he added flour, eggs, salt, and pepper, and kneaded it into a stiff dough.
Joy and the other mercenaries thought that although he had kneaded it stiffly, it was still more or less the same.
“The color has lightened a bit, but do you eat it like this?”
“No, I’m thinking of frying this.”
He intended to try frying a savory pancake made with haggis filling, something those Westerners wouldn’t know about.
‘It would have been better if I had chives or kimchi, but it’s a shame.’
He set the kneaded dough aside, then roasted pork fat to render oil in the frying pan.
He placed the haggis dough in the generously oiled frying pan in round bindaetteok shapes.
[Sizzle—]
The sound of frying in oil spread in all directions, and even those who had been drowsy, unable to shake off their morning sleep, came flocking over at the sound.
“Captain Chico. If we cook and eat, it’ll take time; is that alright?”
“Yes. It’s not a schedule that requires us to move urgently. I don’t think it’s bad to spend time on breakfast.”
“Then, bring out the plates.”
The dough, which had been close to khaki in color, began to produce the Maillard reaction as it fried in the oil.
As the burdensome khaki color cooked into an appetizing brown, curious about the taste, I tore off a piece to try first.
I blew on it because it was hot, then took a bite; it wasn’t bad.
‘There’s a chewy meat flavor, and vegetables like onions and carrots that have been aged for three days are soft to chew.’
Especially since grains like oats were included, it had a slight hint of the savory taste of nurungji.
‘It’s more like bindaetteok than jeon.’
And the more I chewed, the more I tasted something familiar.
It was a taste I had experienced from a different food, not black pudding or blood sausage.
‘It’s a taste I ate often, but where have I tasted this before?’
As I fried the pancake and searched my memory, I remembered where I had eaten it.
‘It was mandu.’
The taste of the pancake fried with haggis was exactly like the taste of removing dumpling filling and frying it.
I felt that if you removed mandu filling with chives and meat, added flour and egg, and fried it, it would taste exactly like this.
The khaki color was also similar to dumpling filling with chives, so it was a perfect match.
‘Come to think of it, when I removed the dumpling filling and fried it separately, it was outdoors like this too. Is that why the taste feels even more similar?’
During a college club retreat I had gone to as a student, I had removed dumpling filling and fried pancakes to make a unique side dish.
And with the remaining pancakes, I had made rice burgers the next day.
I microwaved instant rice and pressed it firmly to make ‘rice bread,’ then put the mandu filling pancakes in as patties to make rice burgers.
Of course, the ketchup on the patty accounted for more than half the taste, but it had received decent reviews.
Since there was no instant rice, I lightly toasted the hardtack bread the mercenaries had in the frying pan to soften it.
When I put the haggis pancake in as a patty between the bread, it more or less looked like a hamburger.
It would have been better if there had been vegetables like lettuce or tomato, and sauces like ketchup or mayonnaise, but it couldn’t be helped.
I made patty burgers for Yanne and Chico and told them to try them.
Both received the hamburger of a shape they had never seen before on their plates and looked it over with serious expressions.
I laughed as I wondered why they were acting like that.
It turned out they were bewildered because they didn’t know how to eat it, having never seen a hamburger before.
I couldn’t help but laugh, thinking that people must have worried like that when hamburgers first came out too.
As if to show everyone, I grabbed the hamburger with both hands first and demonstrated eating it.
“Just hold it well so the filling doesn’t fall out, and eat.”
Yanne, now knowing how to eat it, grabbed it with both hands and took a bite.
“Ooh! Master! This is a taste I’ve never had before! And it’s delicious!”
With the fragrant aroma of bread and pancake fried in oil filling her mouth, there was no way it couldn’t be delicious.
The amino acid taste of Maillard created by frying in oil was one of the ultimate tastes, both in the past and present.
Chico also took a bite, but before he could properly savor the taste, he passed it to Joy, who was hovering beside him drooling.
Joy too, having smelled the appetizing aroma as it cooked, took a large bite, then passed it along.
“S-Sir Wizard. Is this really made from my haggis?”
With just one bite, Joy felt that this was a completely different taste from any haggis he had eaten until now.
“Of course. Didn’t you see it yourself?”
Even the same blood sausage or haggis would produce a different taste thanks to the Maillard flavor created by frying with fire and oil.
He made about thirty haggis patty burgers so the other mercenaries could eat as well.
Everyone said they had never tasted anything like this, and they seemed ready to eat all three that had been given to each of them for breakfast.
“There will be enough left even after giving three per person, so you’ll have to eat them until dinner.”
He thought he could make mandu using the haggis filling dough as the stuffing, but since it wasn’t a proper kitchen, he just ended with pancakes.
No matter how much he had lived alone and liked cooking, making portions for nine people was hard labor, and without proper equipment, cooking once a day was enough.
“But, Sir Wizard. Yanne isn’t cooking, and you’re doing it instead; is there a reason for that?”
Usually, one of the reasons high-status people took in young girls was to have them do this kind of cooking and various menial services.
However, since Jinwoo never made Yanne do such things, Joy was asking.
“I lived alone for nine years, so cooking became a hobby.”
“Ahh. Such…”
“Such…”
The mercenaries grew solemn in an instant at Jinwoo’s words.
‘Huh? Is living alone for nine years a sad thing?’
He found the mercenaries’ suddenly changed reaction puzzling, but he just let it go, thinking it might be because a man’s hobby was cooking.
“Sir Wizard, I thought he was just a refined noble or from a high noble’s bloodline, but hearing that he lived alone for nine years for magic training, he looks impressive.”
“Right. Having gone through such training, that’s why they treat him as a noble who became a wizard. Could you do it if you were told to train alone for nine years?”
“I don’t think I could. There was a reason for wizards’ cranky personalities. Living alone for nine years. Impressive.”
“Right. Telling someone to live without smelling a woman for nine years is like telling them to die.”
The mercenaries couldn’t help but send Jinwoo gazes of respect and pity, and the courtesy they showed Jinwoo couldn’t help but deepen.