Chapter 99

Entering the kitchen, I pondered with a stern expression.

Although I entered the kitchen as if fleeing, the idea of serving a meal wasn’t bad.

After all, I had thought about serving food at least once.

It’s human instinct that when one eats delicious food, even a nervous and angry attitude tends to calm down.

Therefore, a delicious meal sometimes has the effect of unlocking a person’s heart more easily than a hundred eloquent speeches.

So, what I’m pondering is not how to persuade Mari’s mother, but what dish to prepare.

First, since there wasn’t enough time to prepare today’s meal, using various ingredients or complex dishes requiring a long time is impossible.

Fortunately, the Elf’s culinary culture rarely uses difficult and complex dishes.

By not using fire, the variation and complexity of recipes that can actually be used are reduced.

This time, the Elf’s culinary culture has worked to my advantage.

In that sense, the Elf-style recipe I chose is a salad.

A dish where fruits and vegetables are prepared, trimmed, and mixed.

Extremely speaking, it’s a dish that can be completed by just gathering prepared vegetables and roughly mixing them.

Of course, I don’t plan to serve such a dish.

Generally, salads are not the main dish but accompany the main course, but in Elf’s culinary culture, salads are considered the staple.

No. It’s closer to the fact that since they can’t eat meat, there are extremely few dishes that can be called staples other than salads.

At best, it’s bread obtained through exchanges with nearby human villages.

What’s important in a salad is the harmony of the vegetables and fruits used.

And the dressing.

Here, the harmony of vegetables and fruits themselves mostly isn’t a big problem.

Despite appearances, having eaten numerous ingredients in both past and present lives, I can somewhat grasp which combinations make a harmonious salad.

However, the problem is that there are ingredients I’ve never eaten in either life, and whose taste cannot be imagined.

Especially since this world’s fantastical elements influence the ingredients, ingredients unimaginable in my past life keep popping up.

Yes.

For example, the fruit right in front of me.

The Fruit of the World Tree.

Naturally, I’ve never eaten it in my past life, and since I’ve never lived near the World Tree in this world, it’s an ingredient I’ve never handled before.

The life and culture of Elves revolve around the World Tree.

Then, why have they developed a culture that rarely uses fire, centered around the World Tree, and why do they not venture outside the World Tree’s domain?

It’s not just because Elves love nature too much or have a romantic religion that venerates the World Tree.

Rather, there’s an astonishingly practical reason.

Elves cannot consume animal proteins, including meat, fish, eggs, or even dairy products.

Therefore, the Elf’s culinary culture is aligned with vegetarianism, but unlike humans in this medieval-level world, as someone who dreamed of being a chef and studied nutrition in my past life, a question naturally arises.

How do Elves intake protein?

When I first heard about Elves, I vaguely imagined they might use beans or other plant-based substitutes to obtain protein.

Of course, that’s nonsense.

Even in my past life, where food was incomparably abundant, most people who held vegetarianism as a belief suffered from nutritional imbalances.

Muscle mass drops to less than half of an average person’s, skin turns yellow, they become emaciated, and the function of various organs significantly declines.

Moreover, children, not getting the necessary nutrients, grow up with smaller and weaker bodies compared to their peers.

Therefore, even among vegetarians in my past life, only a few maintained a nutritionally verified vegetarian diet.

Rich nutritional knowledge, a diet that requires several times more effort or cost than ordinary people, and the environment to maintain such a lifestyle.

Only when all these complex factors are satisfied can one healthily maintain vegetarianism.

Most vegetarians, to maintain their health, limit their intake of ingredients like dairy or eggs, or only lift dietary restrictions on specific days, and in the case of children, let them eat like normal people until a certain age before switching to vegetarianism.

It was the same in my past life, and this world is no different.

Then, how do Elves, who cannot consume animal protein, supplement their protein?

The answer is the Fruit of the World Tree.

Containing more protein than beans, called the meat of the forest, the Fruit of the World Tree is the solution that allows Elves, who cannot eat meat, to live without suffering from nutritional imbalances.

Known to be fewer than twenty in the entire world.

Although the number is very small, each tree starts at a minimum height of 20m, with the largest exceeding 100m, and its branches easily cover an entire village. This giant tree bears protein-rich fruits all year round, regardless of the season.

It’s literally a single tree that can sustain a village, perhaps even a city, of Elves.

That’s why Elves can only live where the World Tree grows.

By the way, the Fruit of the World Tree is quite fascinating.

A fruit with seeds only bears one fruit every ten years, while all other times it bears seedless, nutrient-rich fruits.

What biological significance does that have?

Moreover, it affects surrounding trees, making them grow larger, bear more fruit, and improve the quality of those fruits.

It’s an incredibly useful plant from the Elves’ perspective.

So much so that they haven’t even developed a culture of using fire to protect a single World Tree.

It’s as if the plant exists solely for the Elves.

…

No, such thoughts aren’t important now.

I tore the Fruit of the World Tree with my hands and put it in my mouth.

Yes. I tore it with my hands.

The Fruit of the World Tree, containing a large amount of protein, had a texture different from other fruits or vegetables.

To compare it to another food, it reminded me of fresh mozzarella cheese.

Not the kind processed into small pieces for pizza cheese at the supermarket, but the kind sold in large chunks.

It was a strange texture somewhere between springy and fluffy.

Moreover, the fruit’s aroma was as distinct as its texture, with a taste best described as plain.

It was plainness itself.

Usually, among plants, those that aren’t sweet have a bland or bitter taste, but the Fruit of the World Tree had no sweetness, yet no blandness or bitterness either.

Instead, it was filled with an overwhelming plainness.

It felt like eating incredibly high-quality, freshly made tofu.

So, to summarize, a flavor with the texture of mozzarella cheese and the plainness of tofu concentrated several times over.

It seems like mozzarella cheese made from beans grows on the World Tree.

With this feeling, it shouldn’t be a problem to add it to a salad.

Having decided, I prepared the Fruit of the World Tree and suitable vegetables, arranging them beautifully on a plate.

Actually, deciding on the salad ingredients was only a problem with the Fruit of the World Tree; the rest wasn’t difficult.

The truly important part is the next step, the dressing, which determines the salad’s taste.

Ultimately, while the taste of the ingredients themselves is important, the type of dressing determines the nationality and flavor of the salad.

What dressing would suit it best?

Mayonnaise?

First, the greasy taste doesn’t suit the Fruit of the World Tree, and since it uses eggs, it’s impossible.

Eggs also contain animal protein.

Thousand Island dressing?

It has a sour, salty, and subtly sweet taste, which I personally quite like.

But since it’s based on mayonnaise, it’s also out of the question.

Coleslaw?

Not bad, but it doesn’t seem to pair well with the Fruit of the World Tree.

Coleslaw has a strong fresh and sweet nature, which doesn’t blend well with a plain taste.

Instead, finely chopped ham would suit it better.

The sweetness and greasiness of ham are nicely covered by the freshness of apples.

Then, sour cream? Ranch?

No, both are dairy-based, so impossible.

Yogurt? Also out.

Balsamic vinegar? Time-wise, impossible.

As I pondered over suitable dressings, I soon thought of the dressing that would best suit a salad with the Fruit of the World Tree as the main ingredient and smiled.

Yes. That sauce would suit this salad better than anything else.

Moreover, it’s a type of dressing that could never be tasted in an Elf village, so the evaluation should be good.

Having made up my mind, I immediately started making the dressing.

.

.

.

Thus, Aisia looked at the salad Kurt had brought.

First, the composition of the salad itself wasn’t particularly unusual.

Lettuce and other green leafy vegetables were washed cleanly without bruising, mixed with tomatoes, the Fruit of the World Tree, and others in a visually and gustatorily pleasing ratio.

The proportion of the salad was also excellent, with no single vegetable’s taste standing out too much.

Considering that a salad isn’t a particularly difficult dish to make, this was quite a good preparation for a Lizardman.

‘Hmph. So, you’re confident enough to enter the kitchen, huh?’

But that was about it.

Aisia, looking at the salad Kurt handed over, raised one corner of her mouth as if she had found an excuse to kick them out.

‘After all, a Lizardman is a Lizardman. Covering a salad with such filth-like liquid.’

It was a mysterious brown liquid with a glossy sheen from the oil.

Without even putting it in her mouth, just the smell suggested something fishy, and the dressing poured over the salad seemed certain to taste bizarre.

“It’s my first time trying the Fruit of the World Tree… I’m sure it will suit well. There’s plenty, so eat to your heart’s content.”

And then Kurt, unaware of what Aisia was thinking, casually made a strange remark.

‘What? It’s your first time using the Fruit of the World Tree?’

Then, this story is already over before even tasting it.

The Fruit of the World Tree, unlike other vegetables or fruits, has a distinctly different texture and taste.

Thus, the dressing that suits it is different in direction from typical salad ingredients.

Especially for a Lizardman, whose sense of taste is significantly degraded compared to the average human…

“Yes. Good. Sometimes it’s nice to be served a meal by a guest.”

At Kurt’s words, Aisia smiled as if genuinely pleased.

No, not ‘as if,’ but Aisia was actually pleased.

All that remained for her was to push a bite of the salad Kurt had brought into her mouth and immediately show anger at being served the worst dish, then kick them out.

Compared to that, putting an unknown strange dish in her mouth was a cheap price to pay.

Hiding such sinister intentions behind a cheerful exterior, Aisia picked up a fork, dipped it into the salad Kurt had made, covered in the mysterious brown liquid, and put it in her mouth.

Determined to give a bad review.