Chapter 446: Beyond the Ultimate Cuisine
Since the start of the final four round of the God of Cooking Cup, the performances of these three individuals had been so stunning that the competition gradually intensified into a white-hot state. The five judges on the top floor also expressed their growing anticipation, and there was a high volume of feedback on television and online.
"Truly a magnificent competition. I certainly did not misjudge them. By connecting regions together, different culinary cultures will nurture the radiance of new delicacies. In the hands of these humans, it will become even more brilliant," Caesar said, spreading out one hand and sighing in admiration.
"As expected of Caesar-sama~!" Cleopatra said, clasping her hands and praising him.
"Hehehe, Batra, no need to praise me like that. It is the effort of the contestants that made such a spectacular competition possible. Although, that beer... I would like a portion too~!" Caesar said with a laugh, waving his hand.
"Lady Boudica, quickly tell that female pirate captain to drink a little less and leave some for us," the King of Conquerors, Iskandar, also said greedily.
"Ahaha, a barrel this large probably can't be finished," Boudica said with a gentle smile.
At this moment, Captain Francis, her face flushed red from drinking, stretched out her own arms to hug the beer barrel, turned the tap, and filled another mug. Facing the camera, she held the draft beer mug high and said cheerfully: "Cheers~!"
The viewers online were chatting using bullet comments.
"All the dishes look so delicious." "I'm definitely on the fugu sashimi side. Wild pufferfish—that's a rare delicacy limited every year." "I grew up by the seaside. The seafood rice bowl made by mixing leftovers of small fish is both cheap and delicious; it's particularly nostalgic. Although I've never eaten the glowing cuisine before." "Fugu sashimi, age-of-discovery seafood rice, but the next one is a beer set! Is something wrong here!" "Hahaha, I didn't expect Masked X to make a beer set." "But I didn't expect the gatekeeper sister this time to be such a heavy drinker." "It really looks delicious, though. I suddenly want to go sit in a bar." "I kind of miss the taste of stir-fried snails from the street food stalls." "Let's go to an izakaya. Is anyone in Shinjuku meeting up? Let's drink until we're wasted tonight~!"
It is said that the layman looks at the fun, while the expert looks at the technique; Shirou's cooking made the audience laugh lightheartedly. But in the eyes of experts, the significance was completely different.
Although Shirou relied on the power of ice-cold beer to break the stalemate, he had indeed succeeded in making the gatekeeper Francis Drake, who had already eaten her fill, eat and drink heartily once again.
One must know that the sensory suppression caused by the glowing cuisine meticulously prepared by the Chinese old God of Cooking is not something an ordinary person can bypass just by saying so.
"Ho oh, I didn't expect such an unconventional approach. It is not the ultimate expression of one's own inner path, but rather allowing the other party to have the warmest and most thoughtful experience. A truly gentle method. Though, you have indeed stepped onto a path unique to you..." The old man of the Liu family looked at the masked man with great surprise, sighing with a contemplative look.
"I just want everyone who has eaten my cooking to feel happy." Shirou nodded toward the old man of the Liu family. This was his answer. This dish was not the "King's Road" that combines worldly logic and is fair and balanced, nor was it the "Tyrant's Road" that conquers the world with ultimate deliciousness.
It was the most common, ordinary "Humanity's Road"—using empathy to embrace the hearts of others, allowing those who miss their native cuisine to taste the flavors of their hometown, and making home-cooked meals for those who yearn for family warmth.
Cities are developing; they are torn down and rebuilt, changing their appearance every year. Prices are skyrocketing, the quality of ingredients is declining, vegetables have lost their luster, and the swamp eels and shrimp in the creeks have all disappeared.
Yet, food prices have gone from single digits that rarely garnered interest to triple digits that everyone scrambles for, in short supply. Everything is changing; even the varieties of gutter oil and the blending formulas have changed dozens of times.
When people look back and want to find that taste they savored so much over a decade ago, they can never find it again.
Popsicles sold from thermal boxes made of foam, pies that crunched when bitten, street snacks, the variety of cheap and delicious snacks at school kiosks—with ten yuan in your pocket, you were considered rich, surrounded by all your classmates in the center, begged to treat everyone.
And those traditional snacks at street stalls have gradually disappeared, replaced by milk tea, cakes, and Western fast food. These foods will also become the homogenized national memories of the next generation and the generation after that.
Even if you go to great lengths in the old districts to find a similar small shop, the taste is no longer the taste of that year. The flavor of the most delicious food eaten in childhood—the meals made by Mom, the dishes made by Grandma—all contained a mysterious power that makes one miss it for a lifetime. People want to seek out certain things forgotten in the depths of their soul's memory through cooking, but they can never find them again.
Shirou did not want to let such things happen. The so-called basic necessities of life—clothing, food, housing, and transportation—are the basic needs that humans rely on to
survive and are indispensable. Basically, as long as humans can be satisfied in these four points, they will not trigger major disputes. At the very least, every change of dynasty and change of power in history has inevitably been accompanied by peasant uprisings; if they can survive and thrive, there will be no trouble.
But survival has been a difficult matter since ancient times. Facing the ruthlessness of nature and the laws of birth, aging, illness, and death, it is unavoidable and helpless. Even in modern society, which has changed drastically from the past, countless tragedies still happen every day. Once encountered, people can only bear it in their own ways.
Therefore, the clothing, food, housing, and transportation that people need are not just the basics—being warm and full, having a place to live that doesn't leak, or being able to squeeze into the subway. They also need to constantly improve quality, bringing some kind of comfort and encouragement to the wounded soul. Even if it is only a little bit, he hoped it could be of help to some people.
Just as a professional hero must put the lives of the people before their own, Shirou believed from the bottom of his heart that as a professional chef, the dishes one makes should also be based on the premise of being able to bring happiness to people.
Even if this happiness might seem insignificant, in fact, if one loses even these insignificant little happinesses, people will then feel incomparably painful and regretful.
Yes, this red-masked chef was not a pure chef like the old man of the Liu family who only pursued the ultimate in culinary arts, nor was he a great educator like Nakiri Senzaemon who founded a culinary academic empire, expanding his influence and working diligently to spread the cuisine of the Japanese nation to the world.
He was just a small chef rooted in the most ordinary small cafeteria, wholeheartedly making dishes that bring a sense of happiness to ordinary people who work plainly and laboriously every day.
"..." Nakiri Senzaemon folded his arms and looked at Shirou in silence, as if seeing him for the first time. In fact, his own heart had also suffered a violent impact. The fugu sashimi he had meticulously prepared for three months, exerting all his strength, was clearly outclassed when compared to the old God of Cooking's seafood rice bowl—the expression of the person tasting it made the difference between superior and inferior immediately obvious.
Of course, if the opponent was the old God of Cooking, he was convinced by his defeat; it was just that Shirou's beer set had also received praise from the gatekeeper.
Nakiri Senzaemon thought to himself: "I thought I had already valued young Shirou more than others, but it seems I still misjudged him. Young Shirou is indeed not the same kind of person as me from the beginning. That is why his culinary art is so unique, and that is why he could reach the ultimate above the ultimate."
Shirou's cooking style was actually just a common home-cooked style, but it was precisely this ordinariness that created the person he was now. One hundred dishes a day, without interruption, brought people warm cooking as if cared for by a mother.
This was the "people-oriented" culinary heart—in English, One-for-All!!! Or Everyone's Mom. In the pirate world, it is BIG MOM!
At this very moment, in Nakiri Senzaemon's eyes, he had turned into a rising star, a person with the hope of potentially catching up to the footsteps of the old God of Cooking, Master Liu.
"Then, it should be the turn of the French chef," Francis said.
At this time, Pablo, who had completed his cooking last, finally pushed the serving cart up. Since returning from the lounge, he had become unexpectedly low-profile.
Francis Drake looked at Pablo and said with a smile: "Your eyes are quite good; they are full of ambition, with a fierce and menacing gaze."
For a pirate, observing the concept of the survival of the fittest in the ocean and carrying out expeditions in an era when navigation technology was imperfect, everything was in accordance with destiny. If one had the protection of God, one would turn danger into safety when encountering storms, tornadoes, and massive waves.
If one was unlucky, a small storm would capsize the ship, sending it to the bottom of the sea to feed the sharks.
Even if one didn't die and drifted to an island, there were no conditions to ask the motherland for help at the time. There would be no steamships passing by outside, nor would there be planes coming to search. Even if you accepted your fate and were ready to learn from Bear Grylls to survive on the deserted island, you might not necessarily become Robinson Crusoe. After all, the uncultivated island might not only be inhabited by Friday; there might be a bunch of ferocious cannibals.
Pirates are incomparably cunning and cruel, just like sharks—sometimes they surround and attack prey in groups, and sometimes they fight each other, mercilessly biting old companions to death.
If, conversely, she were the one with slightly inferior strength, being killed or captured, that would be her own fault. No matter how she was treated—whether eaten by cannibals or captured by enemies as a slave to do hard labor—that was fate. Whether laughing or crying, one could only accept it.
If it were Francis, she might actually understand Pablo's ambition. Unfortunately, Pablo did not appreciate it.
"I don't know what you are talking about, please taste it quickly," Pablo said coldly. He had no good feelings toward these Englishmen.
The dish Pablo brought was French steak, accompanied by a few slices of onion and broccoli, and served with a glass of high-end red wine.
The steak was dipped in egg wash, fried in a frying pan until medium-rare, the color just right—the exterior turning from red to a slightly scorched yellow, leaving beautiful diamond-shaped grill marks. Finally, it was drizzled with a layer of bright red tomato sauce.
Pablo even specially used tomato sauce on the bottom right of the steak to draw four red dots, adding to the visual artistic beauty of the food.
"Alright, alright, I'll eat now." Francis agreed, picked up the knife and fork, and began to taste Pablo's steak. She sliced open the steak with the table knife, and immediately, blood-colored myoglobin flowed out from the inner wall, mixing with the tomato sauce.
After the female captain tasted a piece of beef, she put down the knife and fork, raised her eyebrows, and said: "Hmm, how should I put it? Your cooking this time feels like it's missing something."
Francis Drake's judgment was not wrong; Pablo's performance felt as if it were a level lower, actually weaker than the previous rounds.
"What! Are you trying to say my cooking isn't good?" Pablo asked furiously.
"Well, it's tasty enough, just that I've eaten too much before, so my stomach is too full. But it's not a lie to say it feels like it's missing a bit of flavor. Is it that I can't feel the chef's heart, or how should I put it? I can't explain it clearly.
Alright, alright! I tasted the dishes you made before when I was on the top floor; they were indeed very good. I'll let you pass this time! Looking forward to your future performance! Make more delicious things!" Sister Francis laughed heartily, patted Pablo on the shoulder, and said.
"Hmph! That's more like it!" Pablo said with a snort, but in his heart, he had already made a decision. This woman had a scar on her face, and while she looked decent, she was not his type. Since she was so unappreciative, it seemed she was only fit to be a slave.
"Then I can go upstairs to the next level, right?" Pablo asked coldly.
"Oh, all contestants, go upstairs," the female captain said with a smile.
At this moment, on the top floor, the great beauty with long black-brown hair, Yu Mei-ren, stood up. She crossed her arms, looked down at the scene below, and sneered: "Hmph! It's finally my turn. I've brought the most cruel and devastating existence! Let's see if he doesn't eliminate all these humans!"
Shirou and the others walked upstairs and arrived in a black palace with an ancient Chinese style. They saw a figure already standing there, standing tall and magnificent, with an aura like a pine tree.
Looking closely, it turned out to be a lean old man with short gray hair and sunglasses. He was only 1.66 meters tall, slim, and one could hardly see any excess flesh. He was wearing a red changshan (long gown) jacket, black trousers, and gray cloth shoes.
Incredibly, he seemed to possess a unique aura; to the eye, he appeared much taller and sturdier than he actually was. Even a 1.8-meter-tall man with thick arms and a broad waist seemed to have a much weaker presence in front of him, making it impossible for people to look down on him. Just standing there without moving, it was impossible to ignore his existence.
"During my time at the Enmatei, because of the bond formed through massage, I accepted that fairy lady's invitation to come and serve as the gatekeeper for this round," the lean old man with short gray-white hair, wearing small round sunglasses and a red jacket, said.
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