Chapter 38
The first chef selection competition began more quietly than I expected.
The nobles who had come to watch sat in the viewing area prepared behind the annex of Marquis Reinfeld's estate.
Count Kleber, the Marchioness Reinfeld, several counts and barons, and even a representative of the Rosenhart family were there.
It wasn't a large crowd, but that was actually more troublesome. The fewer people there were, the sharper their gazes became.
There were six applicants.
Two came from inns in the capital, one from a restaurant run by a southern merchant guild, one was a noble household's assistant chef, one came from a village restaurant, and one was a wandering chef.
They all looked nervous.
With me in front of them, nobles behind them, and magitech recording equipment running beside them, it would have been strange not to be nervous.
If someone wasn't nervous in this situation, they were either a veteran among veterans who had seen absolutely everything or simply a crazy bastard.
The former had no reason to come to our kitchen, and I didn't want to work with the latter.
I washed my hands and stood at the front.
“Today's test has three stages: preparation, cooking on the spot, and staff-meal adaptation. There's no need for fancy words. I'll be looking at four things: knives, fire, seasoning, and hygiene.”
The applicants swallowed, and the viewing area fell silent.
The mood had been set.
“First. Preparation.”
On the cutting boards lay chickens, root vegetables, and two fish each in different conditions.
One was fresh, and the other was questionable.
I'd chosen them that way deliberately.
Being able to handle good ingredients well was important, but so was knowing when to stop after seeing a bad ingredient.
“Look at the ingredients and decide what to use and what to throw away. Time is short. If your hands are slow, you won't even have a chance to make excuses in a kitchen.”
The applicants moved as soon as the signal to begin was given.
They all had the basics, so things went fairly well at first.
As expected, no one had made it this far without some ability.
But as time passed, the differences began to show.
Some moved their knives quickly, but left their ingredients messy, while others were overly cautious and let their hands slow down.
The assistant chef from the noble household had elegant movements, but he didn't check the smell of the fish.
I immediately stood in front of him.
“Are you going to use that fish?”
He froze.
“Yes, I think it's usable.”
“Did you smell it?”
“Ah…”
“You didn't smell it, did you?”
His face turned pale.
I picked up the fish, brought it right under my nose, and immediately put it back down.
If he'd been working in my kitchen, I would have made him smell it right away. What a waste.
“This isn't even worth roasting. If you hide it in a sauce, the customer will notice something is wrong after one bite. You can't stand in front of them and say you worked hard on it. Customers don't judge a head chef's effort. They judge only the result.”
A very faint breath came from the viewing area.
“Throw it away.”
He lowered his head.
“Yes.”
The next applicant left a great deal of meat around the bones while preparing the chicken.
I lifted the bones.
“Is this a bone, or did you leave the meat there because you were planning to bring it back to life with black magic?”
The kitchen froze.
Marie clamped her mouth shut behind me, and Thomas hunched his shoulders even though it had nothing to do with him.
The crystal sphere of the recording equipment gave off a faint glow.
The applicant spoke in a trembling voice.
“I'm sorry.”
“Save your apologies for later. Change the angle of your knife now. You're leaving meat behind because you're afraid and pulling the knife outward. Lay your wrist flat and follow the bone. Don't try to defeat the ingredient. Follow it.”
He took hold of the knife again.
This time, he improved a little.
I nodded.
“That's better than before. Keep going.”
The viewing area fell completely silent.
Nobles only ever saw the finished plates brought out in banquet halls. They didn't know how a head chef pushed people from behind the plates.
This scene was probably stranger to them than a duel.
And I continued throwing words into the middle of it all.
“That pan isn't ready yet. If you put the ingredients in while it's cold, you're not stir-frying them. You're soaking them.”
“You can tell when someone is afraid of salt and throws it in recklessly. If you're not confident, add less and adjust it at the end. Don't close your eyes and pour from the start.”
“You there, wipe your hands. You just touched fish and were about to grab the vegetables with those hands. Is making the vegetables smell like the sea some new technique?”
Every time I spoke, the applicants' faces stiffened.
But strangely, the nobles in the viewing area became even more focused.
No one laughed.
At least in that moment, this wasn't funny entertainment. It was a scene of a person being stripped bare in front of the fire.
Their bluster, habits, laziness, strengths, and weaknesses were all exposed.
The second stage was cooking on the spot.
The theme was leftover poultry and mushrooms.
I gave them very little time.
That was where the young man from the inn in the capital fell apart.
His initial preparation had been fine, but he got greedy during the cooking.
He tried to make two sauces and ruined both, the meat was undercooked, and the mushrooms absorbed far too much oil.
I looked at the plate and asked,
“Could you eat this yourself?”
He couldn't answer.
“Answer me.”
“I can eat it.”
“Don't lie.”
His eyes wavered.
“Just honestly admit that you ruined it and make it again. If there's no time to start over, decide what to give up. Trying to do everything and ruining everything is the worst option.”
In the end, he lowered his head.
He was eliminated.
A noble in the back let out a long breath.
He probably thought it was too brutal.
I thought it was unfortunate, too.
But a kitchen was a fucking brutal place by nature.
The third stage was staff-meal adaptation.
This was the real test.
They had to make a hot meal for five people using the remaining ingredients.
Not an elegant plate, but food that someone who had worked could sit down and eat.
“It doesn't need to look pretty. Instead, the person who eats it needs to be able to go back to work afterward.”
The applicants were briefly confused.
A staff meal, in front of noble spectators.
But this was where they separated.
The woman from the village restaurant quickly made broth from mushrooms and chicken bones, then added scraps of meat and root vegetables to make a thick porridge.
It was rough, but delicious, and the seasoning was steady.
The wandering chef minced the remaining meat and vegetables, fried them into a thick patty, and served them with a sour sauce.
Its shape was rough, but he had good hands. It was the kind of cooking that knew how to fill people's bellies.
By contrast, the assistant chef from the noble household remained obsessed with making his plate look beautiful until the very end.
It didn't taste bad, but it went against the theme of a staff meal.
I said to him,
“You know how to decorate a plate. But today's task is to feed people.”
He bit his lip.
“Am I eliminated?”
“Maison Monbel is a demanding place.”
His face crumbled.
But then the Marchioness Reinfeld quietly raised her hand from the viewing area.
“May I interrupt for a moment?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“That chef's sense for decorating plates isn't bad. We were looking for a dessert assistant in our household kitchen. If it's all right with you, I'd like to give him a trial.”
The assistant chef's face went blank.
He had been eliminated, yet he'd received a job offer.
The air in the kitchen changed slightly, and Count Kleber's eyes gleamed.
‘Ah, I didn't expect this.’
The fact that elimination wasn't the end made the program even more scalable.
Someone might not be suited to Maison Monbel, but the nobles could take them in.
There were two final successful applicants.
Ria from the village restaurant and Baron, the wandering chef.
Neither of them was perfect.
But they had good hands and knew who their food was feeding.
That was difficult to teach. It had to be innate or learned somewhere along the way.
I stood in front of the two of them.
“Ria. Baron.”
Their faces stiffened.
“Starting tomorrow, you'll work in the Maison Monbel kitchen.”
A brief silence followed, and Ria burst into tears first.
She covered her mouth with one hand and lowered her head.
Baron pretended to hold it together at first, but soon the corners of his eyes grew wet.
He could only keep nodding.
“Thank you.”
“Thank you, Chef.”
Applause came from the back.
At first, only Count Kleber was clapping, but the marchioness joined him immediately afterward, and eventually the applause spread throughout the viewing area.
The nobles were applauding.
It was a strange sight.
Nobles were applauding the success of commoner chefs.
The people who had watched in breathless silence as the applicants were pressured were now reacting to the successful applicants' tears.
Some were genuinely moved, while others probably thought it was a wonderful story.
Whatever the reason, applause was applause.
“You have until today to cry. Starting tomorrow, there won't be time for it.”
Ria laughed through her tears, and Baron lowered his head as well.
“Yes.”
After the selection competition ended, the two eliminated applicants didn't simply go home, either.
One went to Count Kleber's hotel kitchen.
His hands were a little rough, but he was suited to mass cooking.
The other was connected to the Reinfeld household and would work on plate decoration and assist with desserts.
Only two people had been completely rejected.
I went to those two as well and told them,
“Start over with the basics. Start with washing your hands. If you're still cooking a year from now, come back.”
Count Kleber came to find me as soon as it ended.
“Excellent. I'm very satisfied.”
“I was fairly satisfied, too.”
“Next time, I'd like to make it a little bigger.”
I immediately narrowed my eyes.
“Your Excellency, how much is ‘a little’?”
“This time, there were six applicants and no more than ten spectators. Next time, we can increase the number of applicants to twelve and accept a few more spectators. If we separate the live audience from the screening of the recording, the profit structure will improve as well.”
It wasn't a bad structure.
The applicants gained an opportunity, and the nobles could choose talented chefs right before their eyes.
Maison Monbel secured good staff, while Count Kleber could sell the event.
Since everyone took something away from it, the structure seemed sustainable.
Elysia approached us as well.
She watched the direction in which the successful applicants had left and said,
“It's nice. People cried and applauded, and someone got a new job. We gained people, too.”
“It's rare for something to be good for everyone, but it is nice.”
“Still, I feel bad for the ones who were eliminated.”
I could see the two people with slumped shoulders quietly leaving.
I watched them and sighed.
This was the problem.
Choosing people had to be a cold process.
But whenever I saw the eyes of someone trying to endure in a kitchen, I kept remembering my past self and all the juniors I'd seen in my previous life.
People who got cursed at, burned their hands, ruined plates, and still came back the next day.
Chefs were generally foolish creatures.
So I couldn't help feeling a little attached.
Count Kleber spoke gently.
“We'll need a title next time, too.”
“A title?”
“Yes. An event needs a name if you want to sell it.”
I was about to reject the idea, but Elysia spoke first.
“Maison Monbel Kitchen Selection.”
“That's too ordinary,”
Count Kleber said.
The Marchioness Reinfeld smiled beside him and said,
“How about Qualification Before the Fire?”
Count Kleber's eyes lit up.
“Excellent, my lady.”
My head began to ache.
“Wait a moment. We haven't even confirmed that there will be a next time.”
The three of them stared at me silently at the same time.
“……”
They all wore the same expression: What kind of bullshit are you talking after already doing it?
‘Yeah, fuck. That's true.’
The magitech recording equipment now held the scenes from today.
It would definitely sell.
“All right. But…”
Count Kleber smiled.
“But?”
“Next time, let's make it only a little bigger. In return, I'll set the rules. Applicant protection, kitchen safety, and connections for eliminated contestants. Those three are mandatory.”
“I accept.”
“And we'll need more equipment. If we can't see their hands, there's no point.”
“I'll prepare it.”
Today's event ended there.
On the carriage ride home, I sighed deeply and thought,
‘Fuck, was I talented at broadcasting?’
I'd hated the people in broadcasting during my previous life, yet the fact that I was actually pretty good at it was truly ironic.
I suppose life is just like that.