The Chef From the Apocalypse Enters the Food Industry - Chapter 79

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 79. Hearing the Story (2)
While Choi PD went to squeeze out a bitter tale that would cut off Jang On-gyu’s breath.
‘Time really does flow quickly.’
Already, several days had slipped away.
I leisurely awaited the massive storm that would unfold outside, visiting the store every late night.
Lee Seok-jin, the son of the Old Gentleman, not my store.
I continued intensive cooking training at his store.
It was training that continued day after day.
But the training proved more difficult than expected.
“Again!”
“Let’s try again!”
“That’s not it!”
“Again. This time it’s still exactly the same.”
At my criticism, Seok-jin paced in front of the pot, sweat pouring down his face.
Watching his cooking process unfold beside him was almost unbelievable.
‘What kind of hands does he have, exactly….’
It had been long since he discarded the electronic scale he relied on.
He threw away the measuring cups and spoons too.
Yet his hands moved with an almost supernatural precision, adding exactly the quantities written in the recipe.
A pinch of salt, two spoonfuls of soy sauce, three spoonfuls of red pepper powder.
It was mad hand movements that operated like a machine, without a single error.
‘That’s madness if anything is. To match it down to the gram….’
After boiling hundreds, thousands of times according to the same manual, his body had memorized the exact quantities down to the gram.
Like a robot that moves only according to programmed code.
His body was perfectly trapped in that harsh framework.
Within repeated failures, he feared creating taste on his own.
It was a sad compulsion created by the time he had chosen to become a slave to the franchise.
‘He must have worked incredibly hard to reach this point….’
But the direction of that effort was wrong.
Food is science.
But to express precise science, one also had to know how to improvise.
“Owner. I told you to feel taste with your tongue and imagine with your mind, not to blindly replay the recipe your body remembers.”
“That’s… I can’t help it. My hands move on their own.”
Even his learning posture was rigid with tension. Like a robot.
“…I try to do it differently in my head, but the moment I hold the ingredients, I get scared that the taste will change.”
He let out a deep sigh, frustrated at his inability to break through his own limits.
Then, just as he reached for the soy sauce to adjust the seasoning of the kimchi stew.
His hands, stiff with tension, slipped above the pot.
Splash!
“Oh!”
A desperate sigh burst from my son’s lips.
The precise measurement he’d memorized like a machine!
A far greater volume of soy sauce had poured into the pot.
He was greatly alarmed.
Then he stared blankly at the broth spreading dark and murky.
His hand holding the ladle trembled with fear.
“I’ve ruined it, ruined it! I’ll boil it again! I’ll dump it out.”
“No. This is good. Just go ahead and boil it. It looks like it’ll turn out very well.”
“What? But the measurements are completely off!”
“Didn’t I tell you to deviate from them?”
“Even so, this will be too salty to eat!”
“You won’t know until you boil it. Turn the heat up to maximum.”
“Sir?”
“Hurry!”
My firm instruction.
Despite his doubts, he cranked up the gas range flame.
Whoooosh!!
The fire blazed up dramatically.
‘…Did he manage the range like a robot too? Look at that heat.’
I stood beside him and let the stew reduce vigorously.
‘Sometimes a small mistake becomes the most certain key to shattering an obstinate framework. Now is exactly the moment.’
* * *
Shortly after, the fiercely boiling kimchi stew was ladled roughly into a bowl.
It looked completely different from the neat and clear stew he usually prepared so carefully.
It was rich, thick, and had a rough crimson hue.
I handed him a spoon.
“Try it.”
“How am I supposed to…?”
“Should I teach you how to hold a spoon first?”
“…Ah.”
“Go on.”
When I spoke sternly, he finally gave up.
He squeezed his eyes shut, his face full of dread.
Then he scooped up a small amount of broth and put it in his mouth, already convinced it would be unbearably salty.
But in that moment.
“Huh?”
His eyes widened like lanterns.
The broth that should have tasted salty.
But behind the strong salty taste that struck first, the rich umami that had seeped from the pork fat and the deeply cooked kimchi came flooding in explosively.
As if shabby but.
The kind of broth you’d find in a bustling neighborhood diner—rough, bold, and intensely flavorful!
That deep, satisfying taste that makes you devour a bowl of rice in seconds without thinking!
It was right there.
In the pot where I’d poured soy sauce without restraint!
A flavor I could never achieve when bound by precise measurements and bland seasoning ratios.
The taste of a stew made by human hands, not a machine.
“This… why is this…”
“You don’t believe it?”
“No, yes. Just a moment. There must be some error, or rather, some deviation.”
He took another large spoonful of broth, as if he couldn’t believe it.
This time he scooped up meat and kimchi along with it.
He chewed slowly, deliberately.
‘Delicious!’
Incomparably richer than the shallow, calculated taste of franchise perfection.
A genuine flavor that strikes the palate and fills the belly with true satisfaction!
His body trembled.
He turned to Seok-jin.
“How does it taste?”
“It tastes… delicious. Really, so delicious that…”
His voice began to quiver as he spoke.
Plop. Plink.
Fat teardrops rolled down his cheeks and wet the table.
‘At last. He’s finally broken free from the mold.’
A man who’d spent his entire life trapped in precise measurements and manuals set by others.
Someone who gnawed at himself and lived in self-reproach.
A person who sank deeper into the mire with every effort.
And now he clutched a single bowl of rough, magnificent stew born from his own mistake, and wept like a child.
“Ugh… hic…”
‘You’ve suffered so much.’
I stood quietly by his side while he purged all the anguish he’d held inside for so long.
I simply remained there with him.
This was the moment Lee Seok-jin shattered his robotic compulsion.
* * *
Lee Seok-jin, who had wept like a child for a long while.
He wiped his eyes with the rough, weathered back of a chef’s hand.
He gazed quietly at the crudely simmered red kimchi stew and opened his mouth.
“This is it.”
“What do you mean?”
“This is the taste I wanted to give people when I first opened my restaurant.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes!”
Seok-jin’s voice was thick with emotion.
Yet he appeared more relieved than ever before.
“Do you know what my first restaurant was?”
“What was it?”
“It was a Korean home-style meal restaurant. The kind that requires so much labor and offers such thin margins that everyone avoids it.”
“You, someone with such quick calculations, ran a home-style meal restaurant?”
“I know. But do you want to know why I insisted on running one anyway?”
The employee smiled faintly, staring into empty space.
“Because of a childhood memory.”
Memories. Sometimes a single trivial recollection captivates a person entirely.
What memory had captivated Seok-jin so completely?
I was curious.
“A memory, you say…?”
“When I was young, I was close with my father. Or rather, my father loved me very much.”
…Though I suspect he still does, come to think of it.
‘Truly a man who struggles to find his direction.’
Without understanding my own heart.
He let out a deep sigh and spoke.
“I often visited the factory where my father worked, as if it were a playground. Every time, my father—wearing work clothes stained with grease and sweating profusely—would eat food delivered on a shabby tray.”
“Was that home-style meal food?”
“Yes! It was the most delicious home-style meal in the world.”
His eyes grew distant as he recalled those days.
“Side dishes packed haphazardly in containers. Stew that had spilled and leaked everywhere. That rustic meal tray. You know it, don’t you?”
“I do. I know it well.”
“With just one spoonful of stew from that tray, my father would smile with such happiness.”
“He did?”
“Yes. Always. After eating, he’d regain his vigor and operate those heavy machines again. He always drew strength from it. Again and again… sigh…”
‘I see.’
I nodded quietly.
There was a reason the Old Gentleman had brought up his son’s story after eating my home-style meal.
“I loved that sight so much. Eating, finding happiness, drawing strength. It moved me deeply.”
“So that became your dream?”
“Yes. I wanted to give people as weary as my father that same strength through dishes I created with my own hands. That’s why I became a chef, but… ha. Haha…”
Seok-jin laughed hollowly.
A deep bitterness spread across his face once more.
“Reality was different. My first restaurant, which I opened after leaving a stable company, failed painfully.”
“And after that?”
“After one failure, then two failures piled up, I suddenly became afraid. I stopped trusting my own palate.”
“That’s when it started, then. Your obsession with recipes.”
“Yes. It was an obsession, to be honest. But at least… as long as I followed the recipe, I never heard complaints about the taste.”
Avoiding the worst, yet never quite reaching the best.
Falling, breaking, being criticized.
Sometimes there are heights that can only be reached by going through such trials.
Seok-jin seemed unable to move beyond that point.
Since he couldn’t abandon his efforts, he became obsessed instead.
Hearing him, I finally understood.
‘Now I see why he clung so desperately to the franchise.’
He wanted to hide behind a perfect manual and guarantee himself safety.
“If I joined a franchise, I’d follow the given manual flawlessly. Within that framework, I thought at least I wouldn’t fail. Stupid, right?”
I listened to Seok-jin without interrupting.
Then I answered in a calm voice.
“Not stupid at all. Someone like you, who follows precise measurements and rules perfectly, could actually succeed greatly as a franchise location manager.”
Consistently executing the same work with sincerity.
That too is an excellent weapon and talent.
So I had to acknowledge it.
At my calm acknowledgment, Seok-jin lifted his head.
“Really?”
“Yes. You could have ended up with a thriving store.”
I met his wavering eyes directly and asked.
“But even if you made money following that predetermined manual, would your heart have been fulfilled?”
“!!!”
“That original dream of yours—to make the warm home-style rice bowl your father used to eat.”
“….”
The employee bit his lips tightly.
After a moment of silence, he slowly shook his head.
“No. It would have remained empty forever. Never truly filled.”
A face that had finally, completely understood what he truly wanted.
Seeing that clarified expression, I let a leisurely smile grace my lips.
‘Finally! The preparation is complete.’

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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