Chapter 37
After the idea of recording the chef selection competition came up, I felt strange for several days.
For one thing, I couldn't deny that it would be entertaining.
Chefs would come, take tests in the kitchen, and some would be chosen while others would be eliminated.
Honestly, there was no way watching that process could be anything but fun.
People like watching others struggle in front of a fire.
Especially when they can sit in a comfortable chair, drink wine, and watch without burning even a fingertip.
I knew that all too well because I'd already experienced it in my previous life.
Even when we filmed variety shows, the kitchen was a battlefield, and the cameras made people even crazier.
Even a perfectly reasonable mission became a setup designed to grind away at people's sanity once it passed through the broadcasting station.
That was why it left an even stronger impression on me.
For something like this, you couldn't just show the cooking. You had to show the people.
Whether their hands trembled, whether they were frightened in front of the fire, whether their eyes changed when they picked up a knife, and whether they made excuses first when they ruined a plate or immediately started over.
Anyone who didn't understand those things could look as good as they wanted on the broadcast, but I could never use them in my kitchen.
Count Kleber brought in magitech recording equipment.
It was a small object resembling a crystal sphere.
He said that when placed on a metal stand, it could record the surrounding sights and sounds for a set period, then display them again later.
So this world did have something like a camera after all.
It seemed humans wanted to record other people suffering no matter where they were.
“If we put it here, we'll be able to see the entire kitchen.”
I immediately shook my head.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“If you can see the entire kitchen, you won't be able to see anything. We need to see the hands. The knife work, the fire control, and the condition of the ingredients all need to show, and we have to capture their faces when they fail.”
Count Kleber's eyes gleamed.
“You certainly have experience.”
“It wasn't exactly a good experience.”
“Still, it was useful, wasn't it?”
I divided the crystal spheres among three positions.
In front of the cutting board, in front of the fire, and in front of the finished plate.
If possible, we also needed a position that would capture the applicants' faces.
The magitech technicians looked flustered when I directed the angles, but Count Kleber looked utterly delighted.
“Kyle Pratt, you speak more like a theater director than a head chef.”
“A head chef is a director by nature. The customers just don't know it.”
And a warden managing hell, too.
I kept that part to myself.
There had been a famous British chef in my previous life.
He was a truly incredible person, and he was also the reason I set foot on the path of becoming a chef.
He was one of the greatest chefs of his time, outstanding in every way: cooking ability, career, restaurant management, and the ability to develop people.
Yet people often remembered him as the chef who shouted.
He was good at deliberately using exaggerated expressions in front of the cameras.
He'd say that a fish was so undercooked it would start swimming again if you put it in water, or that something hadn't thawed and was probably still singing Let It Go, or that so much damn oil had pooled there that America might try to invade.
Of course, it probably hadn't all been mere showmanship.
Getting angry in a kitchen was perfectly natural, and a chef who never got angry was about as rare as a woman whose armpits smelled of peaches.
But he knew very well that there was a way to show anger, that profanity had rhythm, and that rage could become a character.
When a skilled person gets angry, it becomes instruction; when there's a camera, it becomes a scene.
I learned from him even while disliking it.
I was used to getting angry in restaurants, too.
It obviously wasn't a good thing, but it was necessary.
The kitchen is a place where demons live.
Fire, knives, blood, oil, salt, boiling water, cold ingredients, a flood of orders, sensitive customers, exhausted staff, the pride of people who believe their cooking is the best, and the pressure of getting all of it done on time.
If you stay in that environment for long enough, the ugliness inside you rises to the surface.
Even kind people become sharp in a kitchen, and even quiet people start wanting to smash the head of some idiot who won't listen with a frying pan.
A head chef is, in the end, someone who works with the devil inside him.
Whether you use that devil as a minion, get eaten by it, or become the devil itself is decided much later, but usually, the third option is the most common.
“How much are you planning to let the applicants get angry? I mean, in terms of how far they can go.”
Marie immediately cut in from beside me.
“That's true. You're really scary sometimes.”
“Me?”
“Yeah.”
Thomas quietly nodded as well.
I felt betrayed.
“I tend to give reasonable instructions.”
“Kyle, don't you remember what you said last time Thomas undercooked the beef that went into a salad?”
“I don't go around remembering everything I've said. What did I say?”
“You said the cow was so undercooked, it might come back to life and chow down on the salad.”
Thomas looked away, and Marie sighed.
“But you can't avoid getting angry in a kitchen.”
I immediately got angry whenever someone held a knife dangerously, ruined a fish, or stood blankly in front of the fire.
At first, I warned them in a low voice, but if they repeated the same mistake more than once, I tended to spend the rest of the day showering them with profanity.
Not loudly, of course. I swore in a low, rumbling voice.
Since our restaurant had an open kitchen, I couldn't hurl the worst abuse where the customers could hear it.
‘Of course, I did shout pretty damn loudly. Why else would our pantry have had soundproof walls?’
Still, I had my own line—I couldn't get angry with the intention of breaking someone.
Once you crossed that line, the kitchen became a real hell.
“Let's establish some standards. If they do something dangerous, I scold them immediately. The same goes for hygiene issues. If they make excuses, I scold them even more. But I won't insult someone solely for lacking skill.”
Count Kleber asked,
“Wouldn't that make it less entertaining?”
“If you plan to sell people breaking down as entertainment, I'm out.”
Count Kleber fell silent for a moment, then laughed.
“Very well. We'll respect that line.”
“Really?”
“That will actually make it last longer. Something cruel to watch is amusing for a moment, but a good structure can be repeated.”
As expected of someone who could smell money, he calculated quickly.
We decided to use Nina's training as the first demonstration recording.
We needed to make sure the equipment worked properly before the official selection competition.
Nina had only joined us a few days earlier, but her knife work was quite good.
She was slow but accurate, and most importantly, she tried to correct herself immediately whenever she received criticism.
That was a major advantage in a kitchen.
“Nina, let's get ready.”
“Yes, Chef.”
“Today's a test of the recording equipment. Don't get too nervous.”
Nina looked at the crystal sphere and stiffened.
“Is that thing watching me?”
“Yeah.”
“Is telling me not to get nervous really something you can say right now?”
“No. But don't get nervous anyway. Just endure it.”
Nina stiffened even further.
I placed a fish on the cutting board.
It was a white-fleshed fish in somewhat questionable condition for use in The Sea's Duel.
It would be fine cooked, but it wouldn't do for sashimi.
“Clean it.”
Nina picked up the knife, scaled the fish, gutted it, and wiped away the moisture.
At first, she did fine.
But when she started filleting it, the knife went slightly wrong, leaving a lot of meat on the bones.
“Stop.”
Nina froze.
I held up the fish just as it was.
“You left too much meat on the bones. If you put this in water like this, it might even come back to life.”
Marie covered her mouth behind me.
The technician checked the crystal sphere, and Count Kleber smiled in satisfaction.
Nina's face turned bright red.
“I'm sorry.”
“Saying sorry won't bring the fish back. Look again at where your knife went in.”
Rather than scold her further, I showed her the tip of the knife.
“The angle didn't lie flat here. Your wrist was stiff, and you were afraid the fish would slip, weren't you?”
Nina swallowed.
“Yes.”
“It's okay to be afraid. But when the person holding the knife gets scared, the ingredient dies instead.”
Marie muttered under her breath,
“It's already a dead fish…”
“Marie.”
“Yeah. I'll be quiet.”
When I told Nina to work on the other side again, she did a little better this time.
It still wasn't perfect, but her wrist had loosened, and the knife moved along the bones.
I nodded.
“Good. That's better than before. Remember it.”
Nina let out a small breath, and at that moment, the crystal sphere gave off a faint glow.
Apparently, it had recorded properly.
Count Kleber looked as though he were about to applaud.
“Excellent.”
“What is?”
“That scene just now. A mistake, criticism, correction, and improvement all fit into one scene. It's excellent.”
Hearing that made me feel strange.
That scene would be good on a broadcast.
It wasn't too cruel, it was tense, and there was something to learn from it.
Viewers would laugh when they saw the cook fail, then feel satisfied when they saw the mistake corrected.
I had Nina drink some water and rest for a moment while we watched the scene recorded in the crystal sphere again.
I hadn't meant the part about the fish coming back to life as a joke, but it was pretty funny when I watched it again.
Count Kleber was satisfied.
“This will do.”
“We haven't started anything yet.”
“We've confirmed that we can start.”
He had already pulled out a proposal.
He was a man with truly insane levels of preparedness.
“Let's keep the first public selection competition small. Six applicants. Three tasks: ingredient preparation, cooking on the spot, and staff-meal adaptation. No more than ten people in the live audience. The recording will be screened separately.”
“Will we get the applicants' consent?”
“Of course. In return, we'll provide the contestants with room, board, and ingredients, and arrange for the outstanding ones to be placed in the kitchen at Maison Monbel or one of my hotels.”
“We can't mock the eliminated contestants.”
“Understood.”
This was gradually becoming a real show.
This other world still had no broadcasting stations, no airwaves, and no advertising.
But it already had the entire structure.
Audiences, recording equipment, sponsors, contestants, judges, and screenings could all somehow function.
Humans ended up doing similar things even without the technology.
Nina asked cautiously,
“Chef, does that mean a lot of chefs like me will be coming here from now on?”
“Probably.”
“There will be people better than me among them, right?”
“Of course.”
Nina stiffened slightly.
I added,
“That's why you need to improve quickly.”
“I'll try. What should I remember?”
“It's okay to be afraid. But never freeze up. If you keep getting scolded, correcting yourself, getting scolded, and correcting yourself, then one day, you'll be the one doing the scolding.”
The kitchen was, by nature, a place where demons lived.
That devil shouted, spat fire, wielded knives, and tested anyone who voluntarily stepped into hell.
But those who endured it grew.
And at some point, they became demons themselves.
That was the hell called food service.