Chapter 40

'A spicy flavor and aroma.'

It was exactly what Jio had been looking for.

"..."

Of course, there was more to the Weeping Hem's description.

"..."

But it was too long.

He just skipped it.

'I need spices, not medicine.'

In the end, the only part that caught his eye was "spicy flavor and aroma." It said something about optic nerve recovery or whatever, but he was doing this to eat delicious sausage, not because he needed medicine.

"Does it look similar to a morning glory?"

It was not exactly the same, but the lace-like fluttering leaves and the fact that it was a vine twining around a tree made its shape fairly similar. The only thing was, the leaves were much bigger than a morning glory's...

"They're almost the size of my hand."

"Gurgle?"

"Yeah, pretty big."

Jio's hands were not on the small side, but the Weeping Hem was large enough to slightly exceed his palm.

"It's unusual that the vine is such an intense white too."

The leaf called the "Weeping Hem" boasted a gradient that grew darker green toward the tips. The vine connected to the leaves was an opaque white, and it seemed like it would really stand out in the evening.

"Anyway..."

He had acquired chili peppers.

'I'll try making chili powder with this.'

He was very pleased.

"Let's check its condition."

He picked a Weeping Hem, tore it, and smelled it, and sure enough, its sharp, spicy aroma was excellent.

It was not exactly the same as Earth's chili peppers, but it was close enough, and with its strangely mellow aroma, it seemed like it would pair well with this meat that smelled of nuts. Its complex scent almost made his head spin.

'Is it a scent that's a little like chili, mala... and star anise mixed together? I think there's also a mellow sweetness like pandan leaves... The meat happens to smell similar to walnuts or hazelnuts, so if I make this right, I could whip up a sausage that tastes like dan dan noodles.'

After thinking that far, Jio muttered.

"But..."

There was a problem.

"I think using too much of this would be overwhelming."

As Jio, who ate just about anything, he did not mind if the chili scent was as strong as it wanted to be, but the scents of mala, star anise, and pandan leaves were a little too strong.

The mala gave a numbing sensation, and the heavy sweetness of the pandan leaves was only at a passing level, so he could overlook those, but star anise.

"This is a bit too strong."

"Gurgle..."

"..."

After tearing off a small piece and putting it in his mouth, that became even more true.

"Yeah, it's too strong."

The aroma was on the verge of going past his nose and stabbing into his brain.

"Is this assassination?"

Strictly speaking, it would be suicide, but it was an incredibly intense aroma.

Star anise was a spice mainly used to remove the gamey smell from pork, and its defining feature was a sharp yet somehow bittersweet aroma.

The problem was that the "sweet" part combined with the mysterious sweetness of the pandan leaves and gave it an excessive heaviness.

"I can't use too much of this."

Looking at the description from earlier, it said that if this little guy was handled this way and that, it would become outrageously sweet, and seeing the strange sweetness mixed in here and there among the aromas, he could vaguely understand it. If one did something to it somehow, it seemed like it could become that sweet.

"But it's not bad."

"Gurgle..."

"I won't give it to you to eat raw, so you don't need to worry, Honey."

They were all going into sausage anyway.

"..."

Around then, a thought suddenly occurred to him.

"... Are all the ingredients going in medicinal herbs?"

"Glup."

"What kind of sausage am I trying to make?"

Anyway, if there was too much, he would pack the leftovers for Yu Seongun.

* * *

After the long adventure ended.

Jio returned to the cabin and proudly declared.

"I did it."

He had found ginger.

"It's very different from the ginger I know, but the aroma and flavor are similar, so let's call it ginger."

"Glug glug."

"I'm not fudging it. It's really because they're similar."

"Right?"

"Gurgle..."

There was not only one kind of ginger on Earth anyway.

"There's something called galangal. It has a more complex aroma and a smoother taste than the ginger mainly used in the hometown where I stayed..."

"..."

"If you're bored, it's all right to say you're bored."

"Glup."

"All right, then."

The "Arum" he had found this time was exactly to Jio's liking.

Its taste was quite spicy, but rather than a numbing sensation, it was closer to a hot, fiery feeling. Its aroma had a strong bite, similar to the ginger mainly used in Korea, and if used well, it seemed like it could be used as a spicy, pungent spice.

"Ta-da."

He had found many other things this time too.

"This is nutmeg..."

"Sir, am I not speaking right now?"

"What a stubborn friend."

"Gurgle..."

"I'm glad you agree too."

Honey seemed to acknowledge it as well.

Anyway, he had found nutmeg called Ravn walnut, or in other words, nutmeg. Even on Earth, it was a popular spice because it was not irritating, removed unpleasant smells, and made dishes feel much more refined.

And the biggest gain.

"Discovering vinegar was truly an incredible discovery."

Wow, the mystery of nature!

"No, really, vinegar brewed directly by nature..."

"Gurgle?"

"I think trying to eat everything as soon as it looks like you can absorb it is a bad habit, my son. You might eat something strange later and get a stomachache, so let's cultivate some restraint."

"Gurgle..."

"Yes, vinegar isn't originally something that naturally forms on its own."

Life was truly interesting.

"I was already wondering whether I should try making vinegar or alcohol with Mangdung Fruit."

There were many ingredients that could be used to make vinegar.

"You can make vinegar from grains like rice, barley, or wheat... from fruits like jujubes or peaches, from flowers like lotus blossoms or roses, and even from honey."

But the method took quite a lot of care.

"That's just how fermented foods are."

The important thing about fermentation was that if you made one wrong move, it simply became spoiled mush. Only by maintaining the right temperature and quantities and raising exactly the right bacteria could a proper fermented food be completed.

And as he had already thought several times, this place was a paradise for chefs.

"Vinegar even comes out of some huge tree all by itself."

It was a rather peculiar-looking tree.

It was a tree whose lower trunk near the roots had swollen round like a bead, and among them, there was one tree that was especially harder and blackish-red in color.

A sour aroma came from it, so when he approached, vinegar was slowly leaking out of the swollen trunk.

"It was an amazing sight."

Jio had to cry out to the gods of heaven and earth once again.

'I should look for trees that contain juice or fruit wine too.'

Anyway, with all those miscellaneous ingredients gathered.

"The time has come."

He finished preparing to make sausage.

"This is true content."

"Glug?"

"You have fulfilled your usefulness by being cute. Watch."

Jio washed his hands.

"I wonder what condition the intestines I soaked in advance are in."

Jio walked over to the basin where he had soaked the deer's intestines.

Modern sausages usually used collagen casings. In that case, production would have been much easier, but since this was the middle of a forest completely removed from the modern world, Jio had no choice but to insist on the classical method.

"No matter how much I searched, I couldn't find any casings in the cabin."

"Glup?"

"Drawing casings is a bit much."

Casings made from paint somehow seemed like they would tear easily and felt unpleasant. He also thought it would be bothersome to draw thin, transparent casings one by one.

Honey looked at the intestines and gurgled. It seemed to be saying that they were in a different form from what it knew.

"They're different from what you know because I've already cleaned them. I removed all the fat and foreign matter that had filled the inside and left only the skin, so the shape changed a little from the beginning."

The intestines pickled in sour fruit did not smell gamey.

"Is it because the meat didn't have a musty smell to begin with?"

After checking the intestines that had been washed and deodorized, Jio lifted the basin containing them. Now he intended to go down to the kitchen and start by mincing the meat.

"When making sausage, it's best to use tough cuts with a strong aroma. Thinking about how tough a cut to use according to your tastes and what part to mix it with is one of the pleasures of cooking."

"Gurgle..."

"You can't eat it right now, so how about you step back a little?"

He immediately minced the meat.

"At this rate, the pig-birds will take it all."

He had to hurry and make sausage.

"It'd be fine to add a bit more of this part."

"Glug?"

"That way, the texture will be good."

How one minced the meat also had a major impact on a sausage's texture.

If the pieces were cut thick, they had a harder time clumping together, but produced a dense, bumpy texture, and if they were minced finely, they produced a soft texture that crumbled bit by bit in the mouth.

"It's even better if you mix them in moderation."

On Earth, issues would arise during drying, so the size of minced meat was kept uniform, but this was inside a painting overflowing with the mysteries of nature. Thanks to that, Jio could plan a sausage with a unique texture.

Some pieces slightly coarse, or completely minced.

'If I do this, the texture will be good, and it'll fill the casing without gaps, so the shape will look good too.'

After mincing all the meat, Jio brought over the ingredients to mix into it.

"Milky Way Mary," which would add the aroma of pepper and chili; "Weeping Hem," which would be responsible for an intense, stimulating taste and aroma; "Arum" from the ginger family, spicy like chili and pungent in scent.

"Ravn walnut," which would gently remove unpleasant smells and add a refined flavor, and the sweet-and-sour "Sugar Trap Tree vinegar," which would add variation to the taste...

"..."

He was excited.

"Nice."

He could not contain this excitement.

"Who else could have an experience like this?"

Mystical ingredients from a deep, silent forest where not a single human could be found. The experience of cooking with foodstuffs that held flavors he had never imagined, while breathing in refreshing phytoncides.

That day, Jio made roughly ten kilograms of sausage.

"..."

He had gotten a little too excited.

"I acknowledge my mistake."

He nodded.

"You don't need to worry."

"Glug."

"We have Yu Seongun."

"Gurgle."

The two of them were in agreement about the bad inventory.

* * *

"Jio, are you here?"