Chapter 39
The Imperial Newspaper sent a reporter.
At first, I thought I'd misheard him.
If he meant the Imperial Newspaper, it was the one read by capital nobles, high-ranking officials, and wealthy merchants.
They occasionally posted summaries on bulletin boards outside village taverns or government offices, but it was fundamentally a publication for the upper class.
And someone from a place like that had come to report on Maison Monbel.
The reporter's name was Leon Verck.
He was a young man in neat clothes, carrying a notebook and pen, and his gaze was fairly sharp.
Judging by his expression, which was full of a sense of mission, he didn't seem to have come to write a food-tour piece.
As soon as he sat down in the drawing room, he bowed politely.
“Stories about Maison Monbel have recently spread all the way to the capital. If possible, I'd like to spend a day reporting on how the kitchen operates.”
I thought about that for a moment.
I understood the purpose of the interview itself.
The problem was that whenever people said they wanted to see the kitchen, what they wanted to see was generally just the flames and knife work.
Scenes of fire blazing over a pan, a knife gliding along a fish, or sauce being elegantly drawn across a plate were pleasant to watch and good to write about.
But a kitchen didn't run on scenes like that alone.
A kitchen was also a place where hands got burned by hot water, eyes turned red while peeling onions, backs began to ache while washing potatoes, and people spent all day washing dishes in front of the sink.
Especially for assistants who weren't allowed to touch the cooking, it meant carrying heavy boxes, wiping oil off the floor, and washing their hands over and over again.
Before a single plate could be quietly set in front of a guest, people were ground down behind the scenes by work that was anything but romantic.
“Do you really want to know how the kitchen operates?”
“Yes.”
“Then simply observing won't be enough.”
Leon raised his head.
“Then what should I do?”
“Work as a daily kitchen assistant.”
Leon stopped with his pen in hand.
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“I've never received professional culinary training.”
“That's fine. I won't have you cook.”
“Then what will I…”
“Wash your hands, peel onions, peel potatoes, wash dishes, wipe the floor, carry supplies, take out the trash, boil water, wash herbs, and wash your hands again.”
Leon grew just slightly pale, but he didn't back down.
That was certainly reporter-like of him.
“If I do that, I should be able to write a better article.”
“You'll probably never want to come back.”
“That might be necessary for the article, too.”
I nodded.
“Then come before sunrise tomorrow. If you're late, the reporting is over.”
“Before sunrise? Exactly what time would that be?”
“Come as early as the size of your passion for reporting demands.”
Marie spoke quietly behind me.
“Isn't that a little much?”
I pretended not to hear her.
The next day, Leon really did arrive before sunrise.
Honestly, I thought he wouldn't come, or at least that he'd be a little late.
Yet he was standing in front of the mansion's back door while it was still dark.
He was wearing much plainer clothes than the day before, and instead of a notebook, he held an apron in his hands.
I was a little impressed when I saw him.
“You came.”
“Yes.”
“Do you regret it?”
“Not yet.”
“You will soon.”
His first task was onions.
I set a large basket down in front of him.
They were a slightly small variety, but intensely fragrant.
Their skins were thin and stuck to your fingertips, and the longer you peeled them, the more fiercely your eyes began to sting.
At first, Leon peeled the onions very carefully.
He peeled off one layer, checked its condition, then peeled off another.
He looked as though he wanted to write something in his notebook, but I stopped him with a gesture.
“Don't write right now.”
“But…”
“The onions won't wait for you.”
In the end, he put his pen down.
I watched his hands and said,
“At that speed, you'll never finish in time for lunch prep.”
“I'll go faster.”
“Yes. Peel them twice as fast.”
Marie struggled not to laugh behind me.
After about an hour, Leon's eyes were red, and the smell of onions had seeped into his fingertips.
He blinked several times, and eventually tears began to fall.
“My eyes…”
“That's normal.”
“I didn't know they'd be this pungent.”
“You'll be taking home a new lesson.”
After the onions came the potatoes.
We washed them, peeled them, and cut out the sprouts and spoiled parts.
It was simple work, but if you did it for too long, your wrists and back began screaming first.
Leon tried to be thorough at first, but his pace soon slowed.
I picked up one of his potatoes.
“You've cut away too much.”
“I thought that part was spoiled.”
“For a spoiled part, just dig it out with the knife. Like this.”
After I showed him how to prepare a potato right in front of him, Leon nodded.
He did a little better after that.
Once lunch preparation properly got underway, the kitchen's pace changed completely.
Today's lunch was the Kitchen Table.
Because the Kitchen Table could be made in large quantities at once, we served several tables, unlike dinner, where we accepted only one table.
The guests thought they had come for a light meal, but from the kitchen's side, there was nothing light about making it.
A large pot went onto the stove, followed by meat and root vegetables, then red spices and fermented paste were stirred in.
When the broth began to boil, a spicy smell spread throughout the kitchen.
Leon coughed when he smelled it.
“Is this for the guests?”
“Yes.”
“It's quite strong.”
“That's why they pay.”
“Because it's strong?”
“Because we let them eat something strong safely.”
He wore a look as though he were trying to engrave those words in his mind.
But he soon lost the leisure to do that.
The dishes had started piling up.
At first, he tried to wash them with dignity.
He picked up a plate, wet it, wiped it slowly, and checked it again.
But when pots, wooden bowls, spoons, knives, cutting boards, and cooking vessels continued piling up, his dignity didn't last long.
Human elegance was weaker than expected in front of hot water.
“Do they keep coming out like this?”
Leon asked.
“Yes.”
“When does it end?”
“When all the guests have eaten, all the staff have eaten, and tomorrow's preparations are finished.”
“Then it's almost…”
“It should end around nine or ten at night.”
He couldn't answer.
The kitchen didn't rest even after the lunch guests had finished eating and left.
We put away the Kitchen Table's pots, sorted the remaining broth, and separated the ingredients that could be used for the staff meal from those that had to be discarded.
Leon watched the process with surprise.
“You check the ingredients left over from the guests' meals, too?”
“Of course.”
“I thought you threw everything away.”
“That would let money slip away. And it would be disrespectful to the ingredients.”
“Disrespectful to the ingredients…”
“Don't write that sentence too poetically. A big part of it is simply that it would be wasteful.”
Leon smiled despite his exhausted face.
But by afternoon, he had even less energy left for smiling.
Dinner was the marquis's course.
Unlike lunch, the plates had to be delicate.
We had to check every herb leaf by leaf, and the sauce couldn't reduce too quickly or remain too thin.
The fish had to be cleaned, and the meat had to reach the right temperature before it was grilled.
Leon washed herbs, shook off the water, carried vegetable crates, and wiped up water that had fallen onto the floor.
At one point, he nearly dropped a crate.
I immediately shouted,
“Don't lift with your back. Use the strength in your arms and thighs. You'll herniate a disk if you lift like that.”
“Yes!”
His answer came out like a soldier's.
Marie nearly burst out laughing when she saw that.
“Marie, don't laugh.”
“Ah, sorry.”
“I'll hit you if you laugh, so behave.”
“Could you hit me on the butt, while you're at it?”
“What?”
“Just kidding, just kidding.”
The other employees laughed, but Leon didn't seem to have the energy for that.
As the afternoon grew late, he spoke less and less.
His eyes were still red from the onions, and his hands were waterlogged.
His clothes were smeared with flour and vegetable juice, and his hair was disheveled.
The Imperial Newspaper reporter from the day before had vanished, and a rookie kitchen assistant stood in a corner of the kitchen.
When the dinner guests arrived, he was leaning against the corner of the kitchen with a glass of water in his hand.
In the drawing room, silver tableware, candlelight, and wineglasses sparkled.
The guests sat quietly and received the first course.
Uncle Bernard explained it in a gentle voice, and Marie set down the plate.
Everything looked elegant.
Leon stared blankly at the scene.
He probably understood only now.
Elegance didn't appear by itself.
Someone had to peel the onions, wash the potatoes, wipe the dishes, and mop up the water on the floor behind the scenes.
The silence placed before the guests was made from the noise behind the kitchen.
The work didn't end even after dinner was over.
We washed the dishes, organized the knives, sorted the remaining ingredients, washed the tablecloths, and wiped the floor again.
At the end, Leon slumped down on an empty potato crate rather than a chair.
His hands hung limply over his knees.
“Did the reporting go well?”
He caught his breath for a long while, then smiled.
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I think a good article will come out of this.”
His voice was completely exhausted, but his eyes were still bright.
“Today, I expected to see Maison Monbel's glamorous kitchen.”
“Are you disappointed?”
“No. I saw something better.”
“What did you see?”
Leon looked down at his own hands.
They smelled of onions, were waterlogged, and still had dirt from scrubbing potatoes beneath the nails.
“I saw the hands behind the plates.”
I was silent for a moment.
This reporter knew how to talk.
Still, it looked like he had earned his keep by getting worked over all day.
Leon barely managed to stand and took off his apron.
His clothes were a mess, and his steps were slightly unsteady.
He picked up his notebook and bowed to us.
“Thank you for today. I think I understand, at least a little, why Maison Monbel's food is so expensive.”
“If you only understand a little, that's for the best. If you understood all of it, you could never come back.”
Leon smiled with a tired face.
“May I put that in the article, too?”
“Just don't write my name strangely.”
“I'll do my best.”
He left through the mansion's back door.
Marie watched him go and said,
“That man won't be getting up tomorrow.”
“He probably won't. Tomorrow's going to be a real struggle for him.”
I looked around the kitchen, where the dishes had all been washed.
What Leon had seen in a day wasn't everything Maison Monbel had to offer.
Still, he had at least seen the hands behind the plates.
The people who peeled onions, washed potatoes, and wiped bowls with hands waterlogged from soaking in water.
That was enough to make it a decent report.
I didn't know how the article would turn out.
But at least for one day, an Imperial Newspaper reporter had learned firsthand that a kitchen was labor, not romance.
I looked at the basket of onions and muttered,
“Tomorrow's lunch is the Kitchen Table again, right? Guess I'll be peeling onions again.”
Marie said with an evil expression,
“Should we call our reporter back and put him to work again?”
“Should we? It was nice saving on labor costs.”
The reporter writes a good article, while Maison Monbel gets one person's worth of labor for an entire day without paying them.
Wouldn't that be a win-win for everyone?