Gluttons

While we picked the ingredients, I told Josh and Tim about the results of my experiments over the two days. I also conceded one jar of chocolate to them to 'try' when they asked for it. And they had the cheek to return back an empty jar.

Although when I asked for any criticism or suggestions, the two were of no help at all. The only words they had were delicious, tasty and yummy. Listening to their 'feedback', I shook my head and decided it was better to bring the chocolate to Caroline for criticism instead of these two.

Showing the list of ingredients that I wanted, Josh looked at it for a couple of seconds before consulting the map on his personal terminal.

"Since that's the case, we need to change our route a little. But it shouldn't take too long to gather them all. It should be near lunch time when we get back. Caroline and a majority of the camp members would not have arrived by then so you can use the cooking area until the time for dinner preparation. Caroline should have arrived at the camp by then. I'll tell her about this new schedule for you."

Josh said as he started typing away on his personal terminal while Tim started pestering me for the recipe for Chocolate.

"If you want to know so bad, you should come with me to the cooking area later. Learning by action is easier than me just telling you."

Successfully inviting someone to accompany me for the afternoon, the three of us turned to the east and walked some more to pick up some more ingredients. Most of the trees around us were cocoa bark trees so I quickly managed to gather sufficient cocoa bark for the chocolate, including the extra portion for Tim. We then followed what felt to me like a large circle before we reached the camp.

Josh, being the ever busy camp leader, couldn't join us in the cooking area. But he did promise to stop by several hours later before dinner time began. Most likely to steal some food.

Heading into the unusually quiet and empty cooking area, I laid out the ingredients on the table while Tim brought over a large number of plates and color ribbons. He also had his personal terminal permanently open beside him.

"To make chocolate, we need some cocoa bark as well as some seeds from the nuts that the Avis collect. First thing is to grind up the cocoa bark into a very fine brown powder. Make sure to avoid the outer darker layer of the bark as it has an unpleasant taste. Then, to the powder, slowly mix in half the amount of seeds, grinding as you add it. This is to ensure that the mixture is very nicely mixed in. If we put all the seeds in at once, they have a tendency to stick to each other when grinding and it makes it harder to mix them."

Slowing down my actions, I allowed Tim to copy me as we both made a batch of chocolate. Occasionally throughout the session, Tim would type in his personal terminal, taking notes on the instructions I gave him.

"Once we ensure the mixture is homogeneous, we can put them on the plate and steam it for around 10 minutes."

The both of us took a green ribbon each and tied it on our plates before we sent it to float. We then moved on to the experiment part of today's cooking session.

"Today I want to try several more fruit combinations, as well as create a sort of nutritional substitute for meat. Since that should be the easiest way to decrease the stress for meat for the Lupos. Chocolate is nice and all, but it isn't actually nutritious."

Taking some of the cherry agar and the sugar syrup to create our fake meat base, I set up more plates with different ingredients and combinations.

"This is the base for our fake meat that I made. It resembles the texture of meat when steamed for 10 minutes. The problem is that it's quite tasteless. So I need to either find a way to use ingredients to impart some flavor to the fake meat, or I have to make a sort of gravy or seasoning that can give the meat some additional taste when eating."

I also showed Tim the notes I made on their nutritional content and explained the type of ingredients I was looking for.

Placing a finger on his chin, Tim looked through the ingredients again and gave a low hum. Suddenly, his eyes lit up and he suggested using a list of ingredients that I had excluded due to them reacting with sugar syrup. And some ingredients I had never heard of before.

"Although these ingredients react with sugar syrup, they might not react with the base for your fake meat since these ingredients are more known to be selectively reactive."

But most of the ingredients were missing right now.

"We can try these tomorrow, but for now I'll send it to Josh to let him know."

Tim tapped on his personal terminal again before we continued our discussion.

"I think adding fruits to this mixture might not work. Fruits are quite sensitive, so we mostly only use them with sugar syrup and some selective ingredients. But we usually leave them out. Or eat them raw as a side dish."

Thinking about it a little, I agreed and we set the fruits aside as snacks to eat while we were working.

For the rest of the ingredients, Tim occasionally had suggestions but we didn't leave out any more ingredients.

We then set up several plates with several ingredients and sent them out to float. At the same time, we fished out the chocolate that we steamed. Tim then ate half before storing some for Josh.

Then we sat down next to the pool and talked while we waited.

"In my previous planet, we also cooked using steaming. Although not in large caves like this. Instead, we would dig wells in the ground in our backyard and place some pots and pans in them. The hot area below the ground was closer to the surface on my planet so we didn't have to dig too deep. Not compared to this cave at least."

"Our villages would have a well in the backyard of every house, and we would send our food down the well to be steamed by the hot steam at the bottom. The dishes we had were quite different too. A lot of our cuisine was made from grinding down the bones of animals and mixing them with other ingredients. We also had a wide variety of bone soup. When we left the planet though, we could not bring along any of the animals or any species not considered 'sentient' by ASCI. Sometimes I miss the food from my homeland."

In a slightly sentimental mood, Tim used the metal hook to bring in one dish.

"However, that happened so long ago that I fear I can't clearly recognize the flavors of any of my planet's cuisine anymore. The good thing is that on our new planet, my family has adapted quite well and together with the locals, we have remade some dishes. Although the taste isn't exactly the same, they still bring me back to those times when I eat them."

Bringing in the last dish, we placed it on the table before I hugged Tim in consolation. He then slapped his cheeks and forced himself to brighten up.

"Sorry for the sad tale. Sometimes when I see people cooking, it just brings me back to those times. Anyway! Time to taste test the dishes!"

Looking at the array of test dishes in front of us, we each took a chopstick and broke off a piece of each product to taste.

"They're fine but, I wouldn't call them a success."

Warping my face at the weird taste in my mouth, I took a bit of the fruit to cleanse my palate of the taste, before trying the next dish. Beside me, Tim was making a hesitant face.

"It's fine? I think? I can't quite put my finger on it, but it tastes good right until the end where I feel like I can taste raw leaf."

Going down the row, each of the dishes had their own issues, and we closed the experiment by calling it a failure.

"Maybe we should come back later after we think about it some more. I feel like the dishes aren't that bad. They're just missing something?"

Stacking up the dishes, we were talking about our opinions about each one when Josh arrived at the perfect timing.

Taking half of Tim's stack, the three of us walked to the cleaning station inside one of the side paths branching out from the main road to the cooking area. Tim briefed Josh on what we did, and Josh listened and then gave some of his own suggestions.

Cleaning the plates, we then returned them before we split up. More accurately, Josh and Tim left for Tim's house while I went to mine.

Hearing Josh's suggestions, I was suddenly reminded of the Morris parts that I was handed to...many days ago.

Bracing myself for a room that smelled like rotting organs, I opened the door while holding my breath and dashed inside to check on the organs that I left there. Unexpectedly, the pail that used to house them was empty.

[Before you left, I suddenly remembered about them and threw the organs out. They were quite close to going bad at that time, and stunk when I opened the pail lid.]

Sazzy explained as she saw my confused face. She then went to her usual position on the bed.

Heaving a huge sigh of relief not having to live in a house that smelled like rotting organs, I thanked Sazzy, before grabbing the Morris horns that were dumped onto me. Maybe I could use this as an ingredient for some dish? Tim did say that his people used to grind bones up and mix them with ingredients to create dishes. A horn is a type of bone right?