The Cooking Princess - Chapter 109

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

Chloe thought hard, but to her tongue, nothing tasted good except what she made herself and dishes from people who had learned cooking from her.

‘Then maybe those emergency rations I made, claiming they were tasteless, might actually be somewhat edible.’

Although cooking hadn’t developed much, people’s taste buds were normal, but one couldn’t ignore palates that had been conditioned to tasteless food for so long. When hungry, the gap between ‘somewhat edible’ food and ‘wouldn’t eat unless it’s an emergency’ food was very large.

“Wait. But isn’t my mother good at that kind of thing?”

She could feed food to her mother and father,

and find foods that mother likes but father dislikes!

To find even worse food, she could look for dishes that even such a mother would dislike, but would that even be at a level humans could consume?

Though she was her own mother, honestly speaking objectively, the Duchess’s taste buds were somewhat strange.

After all, the very incident that awakened Chloe’s memories of her past life was fainting after eating the Duchess’s ‘extremely tasteless’ food.

But there was a problem.

‘Serving food to my parents to test how tasteless it is would be slightly unfilial, wouldn’t it?’

However, no matter how much she thought about it, she had never met anyone with taste buds more peculiar than her mother, the Duchess.

Most people she had met either had more discerning palates than others but forced themselves to endure the tasteless food of the Luzhiere Empire.

Or they had normal taste but thought cooking was naturally supposed to be tasteless and lived contentedly enough.

And this matter was directly related to war, so she couldn’t just entrust it to anyone and handle it carelessly.

In the end, after much deliberation, Chloe asked her mother for help.

“Well, Shuel has requested our family to supply food provisions for wartime, including emergency rations.”

Upon hearing this joyful news, both the Count and Duchess’s faces brightened.

The brightness was brief, and seeing their daughter showing signs of hesitation, the Duchess spoke first in a gentle tone.

“What’s troubling you now, our daughter?”

“Well… emergency rations should only be eaten in real emergencies, so they need to be made deliberately tasteless. But to my palate, everything tastes bad so I can’t tell the difference.”

So if it was really alright, could mother and father taste-test for her, Chloe added in a shrinking voice.

Thinking it was an embarrassing request, she hung her head so low she seemed ready to burrow into the ground. Seeing their daughter like this, the Count and Duchess looked at each other with gentle smiles before responding to Chloe’s words.

“Oh my. I never knew my sense of taste could be useful to our daughter.”

“I’ll taste everything carefully and give you honest reviews.”

At their unwavering support, Chloe’s eyes welled up with tears.

“Even if it’s not tasty, it’s healthy and nutritious food. I’ll make it so you can eat it as quickly as possible without suffering!”

Chloe, who felt it was a bit strange even as she said it, laughed heartily without formality, and the Count and Duchess watched their daughter’s bright expression fondly.

Chloe immediately went into the kitchen and thought carefully.

She had already obtained cacao seeds, the raw material for chocolate. Liquid chocolate already existed, but solid chocolate had to be made from scratch.

‘First, I should put only cacao mass and cocoa butter in the chocolate without adding sugar. Then at least it won’t be sweet.’

Chocolate roughly mixed and hardened without proper emulsifiers didn’t look refined from its very appearance.

Chloe first brought this incomplete chocolate to her mother and father.

The Count objectively evaluated the chocolate’s taste.

“For your cooking, it’s hard and rough, but by this Empire’s standards, the texture is relatively soft, so it would be good to pop one in your mouth when bored.”

Mother was silently tasting the chocolate.

Hearing her father’s words, Chloe nodded and responded enthusiastically.

“There’s that problem!”

Without emulsifiers, it was embarrassingly incomparable to 21st-century chocolate in smoothness and had a rough surface, but with butter included, the solid chocolate’s texture didn’t feel entirely coarse.

‘Or should I adjust the cocoa butter ratio to make it completely hard?’

First, let’s adjust the chocolate’s ingredient ratios to make it harder.

And bread becomes extremely hard when gluten is strongly developed, fats like dairy products are removed, then it’s dried and baked for a long time.

‘Making hardtack would work for supplies.’

If hardtack received other treatments it would be too tasty, so it needed to feel like baked flour eaten purely for survival.

‘If I make it so they can carry small amounts of flour to bake on the spot.’

Since it’s emergency rations and troublesome, they wouldn’t think to bake it during peacetime, but in emergencies they’d force themselves to bake it or even eat the flour whole.

If it seemed too wasteful, Shuel, who had expertise in supply and strategy, would adjust it accordingly.

Chloe just needed to focus on developing emergency rations.

She diligently pondered various things and made snacks similar to the famous Digestive from the 21st century, combining chocolate and biscuits.

‘Hmm, without emulsifiers and reducing the butter ratio, the texture is definitely rougher and worse.’

Chloe adjusted the ratios and asked her mother and father to try the chocolate and hardtack—pretending to be baked flour—separately.

Without even waiting for the Duchess’s evaluation, the Count answered matter-of-factly.

“This time it’s not bad either.”

…Rather, the Count honestly evaluated that it seemed to have only this ambiguous taste because he lacked a sense for ‘tasteless’ cooking.

At this point, she thought that slightly modifying her mother’s cooking might better suit the purpose of emergency rations.

‘No, then the soldiers might faint.’

It wouldn’t just be eaten only in emergencies but might be completely inedible, causing major problems for the military.

Realizing that would be a disaster in a different sense, this time she asked her father what aspects of this food were acceptable.

Father’s answer was concise.

“This solid chocolate you made—it’s bitter and hard, but edible.”

Surprised that foods her father found tasteless were rarer than expected, Chloe asked back.

“If it felt like your teeth might break when eating, wouldn’t you want to avoid it?”

At those words, the Count pondered briefly then answered earnestly.

“If this were hard, I’d probably try to melt it and eat it.”

“You’d go that far to eat it…?”

“Yes. If I were hungry, I wouldn’t hesitate to eat it.”

Chloe was momentarily bewildered, then realized that being hungry and unable to eat was the default for people of this era.

The conscripted soldiers wouldn’t be much different in their circumstances, so she needed to change direction slightly.

While Chloe organized her thoughts, the Duchess devoured the flour hardtack and chocolate in the blink of an eye and whispered in a gentle tone.

“I told you, Chloe. Your food is fundamentally delicious.”

Who would have thought that the advantage of making relatively tasty food regardless of what she cooked would become a disadvantage in such an unexpected area.

She never imagined she’d have to worry so much about how to make food with good preservation that tastes bad.

She returned to the kitchen once again and pondered deeply.

‘First, I definitely need to remove moisture. If I remove moisture and make it hard… Ah. Have I been making things only hard enough to be somewhat edible?’

Thinking about it, even people on Earth before the 21st century used to tear off pieces of bread that was difficult to break even with hammers and force themselves to soak and eat it.

Would she really need to make food that strange to meet the standards?

Chloe, who had pursued only delicious food her entire life, squeezed her eyes shut, unable to overcome her terrible feelings.

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