After dinner, Yoko came to me with a concern.
Her topic was the parties held in Village Five.
Nobles and merchants held frequent parties to make names for themselves. In those circles, the clothes you wore and the food you served were ways to flaunt your financial power and increase your social standing. Of course, it wasn't just about showing off; parties also served as vital hubs for exchanging information and arranging marriages. Their purpose and scale varied wildly.
In Village Five, however, they couldn't even manage small-scale gatherings. They simply weren't able to hold them.
The hurdle was the food.
Customarily, food was prepared in-house. One couldn't risk any mishaps or poisoning with the dishes provided to guests. Because of this, hosts relied on chefs they trusted implicitly, but...
It seemed the chefs they currently employed lacked the skill to satisfy guests who had grown accustomed to the high-quality food available in Village Five.
...
Even if she consulted me about that, it was a bit of a dilemma. Couldn't they just train the chefs they already had, or hire new, talented ones?
Naturally, the nobles and merchants had already thought of that. But that was where the real problems began.
First, the plan to train the current chefs. Usually, a chef’s techniques are their trade secrets, guarded jealously and never shared with outsiders. To learn new techniques, one had to become an apprentice to a master who knew them. However, since these were professional chefs already employed by the wealthy, they had a fair number of disciples of their own. Having disciples meant they couldn't exactly go off and apprentice themselves to another master. Furthermore, no master was willing to take in an entire kitchen staff all at once. So, that was a dead end.
Next, the plan to hire talented chefs from elsewhere. This would mean headhunting someone already working in Village Five, but those chefs had their own debts of gratitude and professional obligations. They couldn't simply sever their existing ties and jump ship just because someone waved a bag of gold in their faces. Thus, no one would accept the offers. On top of that, if the masters tried to hire someone else, their current chefs would look at them with heartbreakingly sorrowful eyes.
So, that had failed as well.
...
What did Yoko expect me to do about it? Wouldn't it be fine if they just didn't force themselves to hold parties?
She argued that social interactions between the nobles and merchants in Village Five weren't going smoothly as a result. Was it really that bad? I didn't know much about the nobles, but the merchants had been unified in their fashion choices a while back...
Wait, the fact that they were all dressed identically was proof that things weren't going well? Certainly, it resulted in a situation where no one stood out and no one was happy, but...
Apparently, they would normally discuss things beforehand and decide who would get to be the center of attention. I see. So they weren't even able to hold the meetings necessary to coordinate the "order" of who should stand out.
I understood now. Parties were necessary for the village's social health.
So, what was I supposed to do?
The result was a Special Cooking Class in Village Five.
The venue was an event facility at the foot of the mountain. Three of the High Ogre Maids served as instructors, with five Beastman girls and five Civil Official Girls acting as assistants. The students who gathered were the professional chefs working throughout Village Five.
...
Until now, the cooking classes held in Village Five had been aimed at adventurers and ordinary residents. We held them regularly, but professional chefs had never participated. Therefore, for this Special Cooking Class, I expected only those connected to the invited nobles and merchants to show up.
But isn't this a bit much? There were over three hundred of them.
I checked with the High Ogre Maids, and they assured me they could handle it. They said they were used to large groups from the regular classes. In that case, I would leave it to them. Still, I thought it best to call in some extra assistants.
Since there were so many participants, they were first divided into groups. Each group consisted of five to eight people, with the numbers varying based on the physical size of different races. Forty-three groups were formed in total.
Each group was provided with a hearth and cooking utensils. We didn't have enough hearths at first, but the High Elves built more in a great hurry. Thank you. I truly appreciate the hard work.
Then, the instruction began. But before any food was touched, the High Ogre Maids started with education on hygiene.
It wasn't complicated stuff. First, personal hygiene: the chef must be clean, bathe regularly, and wear clean clothes. Those with long hair had to tie it back. Hand washing was to be thorough and frequent.
Next was preparation: ensuring the water supply wasn't contaminated, keeping ingredients in clean areas, and making sure tableware was spotless. They were taught to boil their utensils and scrub the kitchen floor every single day.
Finally, precautions during the act of cooking: do not cook if you are feeling unwell, do not talk over the food, and never use a kitchen knife that touched raw meat on other ingredients without cleaning it.
To me, these were the absolute basics we enforced in the Village of the Great Tree and the other villages. In Village Five, these practices were already standard in Yoko's Mansion, the Village Council Hall Kitchen, Kuro and Yuki, Cafe Blue, Korin Sweets Shop, Sake & Meat Niz, and Noodle Shop Buritoa. Food poisoning is a terrifying thing, after all.
If those gathered here were professionals, I assumed there would be no problem.
...
Yet, most of them were tilting their heads in confusion.
Um, before moving on to the next stage, I really needed them to internalize these concepts.
Hygiene proved surprisingly difficult to teach. They needed a justification that made sense to their world-view before they would agree to it. However, once we explained it as "the ritual procedure to receive a blessing for stomach-safe food," they accepted it immediately.
Since it took a while to figure that out, the Special Cooking Class ended up stretching into a second day.
On the second day, the High Ogre Maids taught the four basic pillars: roasting, boiling, steaming, and frying.
I wondered if this was too basic. These people were professional chefs, weren't they?
...
Then again, cheers were rising from all over the room. It seemed to be going well. Come to think of it, even the High Ogre Maids who handled the cooking back home only knew roasting and boiling at first.
Wait? A few participants looked absolutely pale. What was wrong?
Ah, it turned out that things like steaming and frying were their shops' closely guarded secrets. My apologies.
I requested that the hygiene concepts and cooking techniques taught in this class be spread freely. These were the foundations of the craft, and I wanted the number of places where people could eat with peace of mind to increase. Besides, if the total number of people who knew how to cook grew, the chances of new, creative dishes being invented would also increase. I wanted them to do their best.
The ingredients provided by the cooperating merchants were steadily transformed into meals. As expected of a class for professionals, they were quick studies. After only a few failures, they seemed to have mastered the methods. The rest would be a matter of application. I hoped they would work hard to create new recipes using ingredients easily found in Village Five.
By the way, the food made during the class was consumed by the participants themselves. They were to eat what they made, even if it was a failure, to ensure the lesson stuck. Keep at it.
The Special Cooking Class, like the regular ones, was now scheduled to be held periodically. I fully supported this, as it was an effective way to spread hygiene standards.
However, the original goal—actually improving the chefs' high-level skills—seemed to be a long way off. In this class, we had only managed to solve the problems that existed before the cooking even started.
Hm? Yoko said that since they were first-class chefs, their skills would naturally skyrocket now that they had these new foundations?
...That was true. I certainly hoped so.
By the way, what was this new proposal she had?
A Cooking Tournament?
Um, isn't it a bit early for that?
She said the chefs were already getting competitive with each other, and even the regular class participants wanted a chance to show their results to the High Ogre Maids. Well, if that was the case, I didn't mind...
But why was I listed as a judge?
...
Fine, I would grant permission for the event. However, she had to make sure the preliminaries were handled properly. I would be happy to judge, but only at the very, very end.
Note: The master chefs with disciples had previously refused to attend the regular cooking classes due to their social standing. Similarly, their apprentices hadn't attended because doing so would risk them being fired for seeking outside instruction. This had created a strange situation where housewives and small, independent shopkeepers were improving their skills while the prestigious, large restaurants saw their reputations falter. This special class finally bridged that gap.