Was it because they were competing in the quarterfinals? There was a deep sense of tension on the participants’ faces, which could not be compared with theirs before.
Janet muttered at Havier in a quiet voice, “Thank you, Havier.”
“What do you mean suddenly?”
“Thanks for helping me come as far as here. I know I’ve been rude to you until now. So, thanks for accepting me.”
“Hey, you make me embarrassed if you are saying so.”
Havier turned his eyes from her as if he was a bit embarrassed. Janet smiled at him warmly then turned to the other participants. Enzo and Theo seemed to be very determined as if they wanted to surprise everyone, and there was nothing playful in Dobby’s behavior now unlike before. To a greater or lesser extent, other participants were taking a deep breath, nervous about the upcoming competition. The team members of Rose Island were no exception. In fact, the results of their competition would determine their fate when they were back to Rose Island in Los Angeles.
“Which one of us will take over the position of a sous chef?” Havier asked in a small voice.
He didn’t expect any answer from his team members. Janet wanted to say she would take over that position, but she didn’t want to gloss over her determination by being too pretentious.
She opened her mouth in a calm voice.
“The position of the sous chef is a secondary matter now.”
“So, what’s the No. 1 matter?
“Well, I want to show I’m not the one who always lags behind somebody.”
Janet hesitated for a moment, but she said that without any hesitation.
She felt it a bit shameful to say so, but she knew it was time she had to take even shame as her nourishment for improvement. Feeling he was surprised by her unexpected remarks, she continued, “I want to prove that to her.”
“To Chef Rachel?”
“To anyone.”
“… Yeah, me, too. Hope I’m in your great hands today.”
Havier hesitated for a moment then immediately held out his hand, grinning at her.
She looked at his hand quietly then grabbed it slowly and waved.
Chloe smiled, watching them shaking hands, and said, “You guys are getting along better than before!”
“We used to get along well, though Janet often complained about me.”
“Really? It looks like you guys have drifted apart until now.”
Anderson glanced at Janet and Havier. To be honest, if the relationship between the two suddenly got better, it would not be very welcome because they were his rivals anyway.
Chloe narrowed her eyes and said, watching Anderson taking the sharpened blade back to the whetstone, “Anderson, don’t be too nervous. We’ve done well so far. We can do well today.”
“But we haven’t won until now,” he said in a low, heavy voice. Chloe could not help but keep silent at that.
Anderson made a sad expression then slowly loosened his grip on the knife he was about to sharpen over the whetstone.
“I’m that guy’s friend. I can’t just lose to him. A one-sided relationship between friends can’t be called a friendship.”
“You can still be friends,” Chloe said, making a distressed expression as if she hurt his soft spot. “Your relationship with him is not one-sided. Just because Min-joon’s score is higher than you, it doesn’t mean you are behind him. You have your own dish. There is something unique in your dish that Min-joon doesn’t have.”
“What matters is the judges’ evaluation.”
“Well, what you believe in is also important. Don’t underestimate the value of your own dishes. I don’t think that’s the right attitude as a chef.”
When she pointed it out like that, Anderson looked at her blankly.
Chloe opened her mouth with a stern expression, “So, what do you think?”
“Got it.”
When Anderson backed off and relented, Chloe immediately smiled.
At that moment, the judges stepped forward and looked at them.
They opened their mouths in a calm voice, “Good morning, everyone. While I was driving here, I was wondering how I could congratulate you who have made it to the quarterfinals, but when I arrived at the venue, I suddenly thought that adding a few empty words to praise you would be just silly. Welcome, everyone! You have succeeded in coming up to the quarterfinals, and you have shown how good chefs you are with your dishes. As a chef myself, I would like to thank you for that. Let me announce your mission today. As everyone knows, France is not only famous for its gourmet food, but also for its strange food. That’s right. We get cruel and weird in front of delicious food. We glorify it under the name of delicious food when we push 0.5kg of feed into a goose’s snout in less than a second, or hunt tens of thousands of Ortolans and have them eat food before drowning them in an Armagnac brand.”
Min-joon nodded at his remarks. For example, the Chinese show their insane obsession with Shark’s Fin while the French were crazy about foie gras or ortolans, which was controversial in some countries where foie gras had already been banned.
In the case of the ortolans, living ortolans were confined in a dark box then forced to feed for more than a week before being drowned in an Armagnac or apple brand with its feathers plucked then cooked. There were even cases where their eyeballs are pulled out to make them focus on the feed. When Min-joon heard it first, he could not support any dish like that.
But at the same time, he understood it to some extent. He thought that pulling out the eyeballs of ortolans was too cruel, but the real taste could be brought out by doing so. After all, ortolans was also a dish with French tradition. No chef couldn’t rationalize their food because it was an authentic way of cooking, but Min-joon felt it rather sad if such a dish would disappear.
‘I hope they won’t make Ortolans the theme of today’s mission,’ Min-joon thought.
If they would bring up this theme, as he feared, they would be crazy. Ortolans were what many animal conservation associations were watching closely, and they were banned from trading by law. Of course, countless ortolans were still being hunted and cooked at the same time, but it was not something that the organizers could bring up publicly in such a big competition.
Fortunately, what Min-joon was worried about did not happen.
One of the judges, Bastien, opened his mouth.
“The theme of this quarterfinals match is Escargot. When they talk about French cuisine abroad, this is the dish whose taste lots of people are most curious about.”
“Oh my God…” Kaya muttered, frowning hard.
But Min-joon did not pick her up on it, nor he could because he felt the same way as her.
“I don’t know anything about Escargot cuisine.”
That was the biggest headache for Kaya and Min-joon now. Escargot or snail, in general, it wasn’t an ingredient that one could come across often, nor did one bother to find it.
Of course, there were some dishes that used Escargot on the menu of Rose Island, but since Min-joon was in charge of the molecular cooking section, he couldn’t cook such a dish very often. Of course, he knew enough about it.
“What should we do?”
“The thing is whether we can come up with a good recipe. We don’t understand Escargot’s characteristics properly.”
“That’s the problem. I know something about it, so I can come up with some sort of recipe…”
The two agonized for a moment. And they were the only ones who were embarrassed by the ingredient called Escargot right now. Escargot was mainly used for appetizers, so Janet was the only one who had the opportunity to cook Escargot on Rose Island most often. Anderson also had enough experience with making it at his parents’ restaurant, Gluto, not Rose Island.
Chloe, who specialized in the Chinese dish featuring diversity, also had some understanding of snail cuisine, though she was not familiar with cooking it. Havier also had some experience in the restaurant he used to work at, so it was not difficult for him, either. So, it was only Min-joon and Kaya who felt they were not familiar with the material called snails right now.
“Kaya, you’ve cooked all kinds of dishes in the market. Why can’t you cook snails?”
“How many people do you think there are buying snail dishes? Who would cook dishes that don’t sell?”
“You’re right.”
Even without hearing what they were talking about, Min-joon and Kaya were quite embarrassed at the moment.
Bastien opened his mouth, a little worried about them.
“They don’t seem to be very familiar with Escargot cuisine.”
“Well, it’s nothing strange. Unless you’re a French chef, you don’t deal with it often. In fact, it’s rather surprising that other chefs from Rose Island are not embarrassed.”
“But at the same time, I’m also relieved. As you know, the pair has beaten all others in this contest until now. It’s not bad to see such a star pair emerging here, but if they keep standing out like that, people will question the prestige of this competition in the next contest.”
“Well, they don’t have to care about the prestige of this competition. Anyway, French chefs here must be full of energy like fish in the water at least in the quarterfinals because nobody can cook Escargot better than French chefs.”
As they say, men were blind for their own causes. It was natural that the judges felt nervous and sorry for Enzo and Theo when they were pushed out by Min-joon and Kaya. The judges looked at Kaya and Min-joon. Even in the face of this embarrassing obstacle, the pair seemed to work on the best recipe they could come up with by talking and discussing seriously. The pair didn’t stop talking until they were done devising one.
The judges were curious about what they discussed, so they wanted to approach the pair and ask, but they didn’t, because it would only interfere with them.
“Okay, everyone, please start cooking!”
As soon as Bastien announced it, Min-joon and Kaya ran to the pantry where the ingredients were piled up. They were in a more tense and urgent mood than before. While looking at the pair with a smile, the judges got even more curious after confirming the ingredients they picked up.
“They’re taking various types of Escargot. Turkish snail, Helix Pomatia, Petitgrain. What the heck? Why are they bringing so many ingredients?”
“I don’t understand. Isn’t it true they had little experience cooking Escargot cuisine? If they want to bring out all the flavors of so many ingredients at once, they should have had a lot of experiences first…”
“Let’s see what kind of dish the pair will make.”
The judges looked at Kaya and Min-joon with more disbelief and curiosity than ever before.
Actually, what the pair was doing was simple. Min-joon was boiling black tea on one side and putting ingredients such as lemon zest in it, while Kaya put down several pans on the stove and grilled snails one by one there. The judges, who were curious about what they were trying to cook, got to know the answer. And they had no choice but to shake their heads after finding it out. The reason the pair brought several types of snails was simple, namely sampling them.
Kaya was eating the different kinds of snails with Min-joon one by one.
At this venue where the participants were more tense and anxious than ever, the pair were sampling and analyzing the roasted snails!
Asher said, groaning, “What the heck are they doing now? Are they idiots?”