Maydare Volume 2 Chapter 4 - The New Semester and the Potato Report (Part 2)

 The obligatory food chapter every shojo isekai seems to need

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The Kingdom of Ruschia was beginning to be dyed by autumn colors as the harvest time of various crops approached.

At this time of year, motifs of wheat, pumpkins, potatoes, grapes, apples and pears proliferated the royal capital Miladriede, not just as ingredients, but also as seasonal sweets and dishes.

And next month, there would be a big festival to celebrate the harvest.

The crops harvested at this time of the year and the wine made from this time of the year would be exported to various foreign countries. Agriculture and wine brewing were two of our country’s major industries that made good use of our abundant nature and the power of spirits and magic.

That was why we first-year students were in the potato fields owned by Lune Ruschia Magic School, as part of a joint class of 【Potions】, 【Magical World History】, and 【Magical Home Economics】.

The Garnet first-years were sitting in their dirt-stained farm clothes, completely exhausted.

“Okay, everyone, did you dig up plenty of potatoes? Are you exhausted after all that digging? We’re going to announce a new assignment, so please stay where you are.”

Professor Medite of 【Potions】announced over a megaphone, looking over the weary students with an irritating smile.

And then, he passed the megaphone to Professor Erlich of【Magical World History】next to him.

Professor Erlich raised a large potato overhead.

“The potato is a very important crop to Maydare. As you’ve learned in 【Magical World History】, it was said to be the first crop created by the goddess of fertility 〈Para Demetris〉in mythology. This is why it is a ‘sacred food’ that is seen as more important than wheat, pumpkins, and grapes at the harvest festival.”

With this explanation, Professor Erlich handed the megaphone to Professor Medite again.

“From the perspective of 【Potions】, potato sprouts are poisonous and can be magically enhanced or altered to make a variety of magical potions. However, when used as a food ingredient, they are mainly made of starch, easy to digest, and quite rich in magical mass, which is the source of magical power. So, as I’m sure all of you are insightful enough to have noticed, our next assignment is concerned with the potato.”

“Huh, potatoes?”

The students raised their faces.

How were potatoes useful to magic school classes?

Professor Medite passed the megaphone to another person, a plump female teacher standing by.

That teacher was Sara Ponette, who taught the supplementary subject of 【Magical Home Economics】. How should I put it, she was a soft and fluffy teacher who felt motherly.

“Until the harvest festival, I want everyone to eat as many potatoes as they can from today’s harvest to give thanks to them~”

Professor Ponette continued in that tone that was as fluffy as she looked.

“This assignment will require you to use the potatoes in your own meals and study them~. Some of you here may have never cooked on your own before~. But that must not be~. Cooking contains a lot of the primitive elements of magic~.”

The students looked at each other.

There were a lot of people from good families at Lune Ruschia Magic School, and there were probably a lot of rich boys and young ladies who had never cooked properly before.

However, it was true that magic and cooking went hand in hand. Magicians who were good at magic tended to be good at cooking as well.

That’s right, mixing ingredients, boiling, and baking were common tasks in magic.

For that reason, the first team activity of the semester, which combined the three subjects of 【Magical World History】, 【Potions】, and 【Magical Home Economics】, was announced as the “Potato Report.”

It was a research report that was due on the day of the harvest festival next month and would take about a month to complete. 

The conditions were as follows.

• Make three meals a day using potatoes. No eating out. No using the cafeteria.

• Buy ingredients at the school store using the provided school currency, “lunes.” Students are expected to pay for food outside of school themselves. Specify daily expenses.

• Check the amount of magical mass in your meals on a daily basis, take pictures of your food and summarize your findings in a report.

Each team was provided with a sack full of potatoes and a magic camera, and we carried it back to the empty-bottle atelier.

The four of us sat down at the desks, facing each other, and had a quick meeting.

“This assignment seems pretty tough just trying to complete it. Where are the evaluation points…”

Nero had a complicated expression on his face, his brow furrowed.

Nero was an excellent student, but this kind of assignment didn’t seem to be his strong suit.

“When we use the cafeteria, our daily meals are managed by others to an extent, but for this month, we’re told to try to do everything ourselves. It will be a good learning experience for us to know the amount of magical matter in our meals.”

Magical matter. That was the matter contained in this world’s food that became the source of magical power in one’s body.

Potatoes were considered a holy food because they were known to be very high in this magical matter.

In order to a magician to regain their decreased magical power, they must take in magical matter through food, resting their body through sleep, and convert all that to magical power within their bodies.

There were potions that could allow you to recover quickly, but those kinds of things were also made from the magical matter of crops that existed in the magical world. Therefore, it was important to input into your mind which crops had what amount of magical matter.

“By the way, we learned in our previous magical home ec class that a magician’s required magical matter intake is about 200 magis a day.”

“So, you’re saying that we have to take that in three meals while calculating it?”

Nero and I nodded at each other. I’m sure that would lead to big evaluation points. 

Although it was purposely not mentioned in the conditions, I’m sure they would check in the report if you were intaking more than 200 magis daily.

“Um, I’m sorry about going off topic, but what is the school currency? It seems that I will have to go to the administration building to pick it up later.”

“Oh, it’s these. This is a currency called ‘lune.’”

In response to Lapis’ question, Frey pulled out his wallet from his pocket and pulled coins and bills that were different from the currency of Lune Ruschia.

“Lune is the currency issued by the school and can be used starting in the second semester of the first year. It can be used in any store on the school island, but particularly when students set up stores, they aren’t allowed to buy or sell anything with any currency other than lunes. Buyers of course must also use lunes. This is the time of the year when more and more upperclassmen set up stores, as they can get the lunes converted into real money when they graduate. It’s also to rip off lunes from the first-years.”

I see. In other words, this lesson was for the students to get used to the school currency, lune.

Magicians were researchers, but they also say you have to be good at business in order to make it in the future, so this also helped the upperclassmen with their businesses.

Well, at any rate, this group meeting helped us see the direction of the assignment and the evaluation points.

One, were all the members able to work together to prepare the daily meals?

Two, were we able to consume 200 magis of magical mass with potatoes in a day’s meals?

Three, have we become familiar with the school’s currency, lune, and were we able to manage our money wisely for a month?

Those things would be judged in the report and an overall evaluation score would be given.

“Don’t worry. This will be a relatively advantageous assignment for us. Lune Ruschia is full of young masters and ladies, so many of them have never cooked before. Who here can cook!”

I can, I said and raised my hand. My teammates were completely silent.

“There’s no way I’d be able to cook,” Frey said.

“I’m not very...no, I’m really bad at cooking,” Nero said.

“Actually, I am the same,” Lapis said.

Everyone was like that except for me.

“Nnn, wait a minute. I’m not that good at cooking either. I can’t make anything without a recipe. Wait, you’re all magicians in training. You never had any opportunities to cook?”

All three of them nodded. Good lord.

However, the three of them must have been raised in the city, unlike me, a country girl who had to prepare her own meals. Delicious food was sold everywhere in the city.

The people of Miladriede said that they basically buy prepared foods at stores and put them on the table.

“Ugugu...I feel a bit frustrated for some reason. I’m the noble lady here! But it’s fine!”

Though I was a bit shaken, I put the 〈Scarlet Witch’s〉recipe book down on the table with a thump.

The team members looked into the recipe book.

“They’re all old, but my ancestor’s recipes are nutritious, rich, and delicious, and they use a variety of ingredients.”

“Geh. The Scarlet Witch’s recipes? I feel like I’ll get cursed.”

“Frey. Those salt apple sweets you’ve been stealing are all from the Scarlet Witch’s recipes.”

“Can we make them too…?”

“Don’t worry, Lapis. If we share all the work, it’ll be a piece of cake.”

We weren’t going to cook anything difficult. 

We needed to spend as little as possible, and we had a limited amount of lunes on hand.

“But it’ll be tough to keep making three meals a day…”

In response to Nero’s unease, I said, “It is, but it’s a good idea to make several days worth of side dishes so that we can easily get through with breakfast and lunch. Mornings are hectic, and the break time at noon is short. Do you understand?”

“...Understood.”

The three all nodded, like little kids.

It was funny how even though they were all quite promising as magicians in training, they couldn’t hide their anxiety in the face of this assignment…

And that was how Garnet Team 9’s relentless challenge on the “Potato Report” began by fumbling around.

On the same day, the school’s currency was issued. It was a total of 4800 lunes.

We had to make do with this and prepare enough food for a month.

The school island was like a town, with just enough stores to live on. There was a bakery, a vegetable and fruit store, a butcher’s, a fish market, a spice shop, and so on.

But this time of the year, as Frey said, the upperclassmen were holding maniacal bazaars everywhere. In busy plazas, under bridges, along the walls of buildings, and in every atelier.

“Come on by and take a look. Hey, freshman, how about some cheese? The spread ability of our cheese is different!”

“Oh my, how curious. Just by sprinkling this seasoning, everyone can make something that tastes like a pro’s. What spices do we use? That’s a trade secret.”

“Paprika and zucchinis for a great value! We’ll give you an extra orange free of charge!”

“The number one reason for fights during the Potato Report is dishwashing! This magic dishwasher is now available at a price of 1500 lunes!”

Processed food made in respective laboratories, seasoning that were the result of months of research, fruits and vegetables picked in fields, tableware and cookware for cooking, and useful magical goods were being put on sale right now.

There were also shops that specialized in yogurt, pickles, coffee beans, canned foods…

There seemed to be an ethnic seasoning shop run by an international student from the East, which I was interested in, but I couldn’t find where the bazaar was being held.

We were drawn to many shops, but we bought all the ingredients that the team members wanted and that I thought we would need, and then returned to our atelier.

So, just for today, we decided to check the taste and the magical matter content of the ingredients themselves, steamed the potatoes, topped them with garlic butter, and sprinkled salt on them to make a classic garlic butter potato dish. We also had a bowl full of boiled broccoli, wieners with herbs, boiled eggs, and baked salt apples.

After taking pictures with the magic camera, we ate the dishes while experimenting with different seasonings. Mayonnaise, salt and pepper, honey, ketchup, mustard…

“These go well together, don’t they?”

I used a knife and fork to elegantly eat the crispy potatoes with melted garlic butter. Mmm, the new potatoes were sweet.

“Potatoes contain about 23 magis of magical mass each. That’s pretty high for a vegetable.”

“Mr. Nero, can you measure that with those contact lenses?”

Lapis asked.

“Yeah, I went through the book that listed the magical matter content for foods earlier. I already recorded everything.”

“Oh...you’re so dependable…”

I never expected Nero’s useful feature could be useful in this situation…

Normally, we would have to check all the ingredients one by one, but with this, we could check the total magical mass of a dish just by having Nero take a look at it.

“Then, what about the broccoli?”

Frey said as he dipped a boiled broccoli in mayonnaise and tossed it into his mouth.

“One broccoli has 7 magis. One herb weiner has 5 magis. Eggs are 10 magis each. ...Oh, there are 30 magis in one salt apple. That’s amazing.”

I see. It seems that the amount of magical mass varied considerably depending on the ingredients.

Potatoes were known for their high content, and the eggs were also quite good, but the salt apples stood out. As expected of a product of the ‘Salt Forest,’ which was said to be a reservoir of magical power.

“The amount of magical matter a magician needs to intake in a day is more than 200 magis...it seems that we should eat plenty of potatoes and salt apples. If we try to get 200 magis some other way, it’d be pretty hard.”

“But we have to eat potatoes three meals a day, right? My tall and slim frame is my selling point, so I don’t want to get fat.”

“I don’t care about Mr. Frey’s selling point, but...it is true that potatoes are a mass of starch.”

As Lapis said, I didn’t care about Frey’s physique, but if we ate too much, we risked getting fat.

That was going to affect our assessment.

“I don’t think we need to use potatoes in every main dish. Also, if we eat too many potatoes, we’ll have to cut back on the bread and pasta.”

“Whaaaaa, but pasta is the soul food for Miladriedians!? If I don’t eat one pasta dish every day, I’ll die!” Frey said. 

“I want to eat bread every day too,” Nero said.

“I’m an oatmeal in the morning person…” Lapis said.

Thanks to their earnest appeals, I was able to see their eating habits.

That’s right, each of us had our own familiar foods, our own likes and dislikes.

“Then, let’s decide on bread or oatmeal for breakfast and pasta for lunch. It’ll be easy. We can make jams, sauces, and side dishes of potatoes and vegetables in advance for a quick meal.”

For example, we could make soup with potatoes and toast in the morning, our favorite pasta with a small bowl of potato salad for lunch, and a hearty main dish with potatoes for dinner.

“If we make a menu for the week at the start, we’ll know exactly what ingredients to buy and won’t waste money.”

“Yeah! That’s a good idea, Nero.”

Perhaps this assignment also tested our planning skills.

At any rate, we thought that it would be a good idea to have three side dishes to eat every day, so we later made some for tomorrow morning and lunch.

The first thing we made was potato salad dressed with salted lemon mayonnaise.

Full of vegetables and ham, this would be a good dish to garnish with when we didn’t have potatoes or vegetables for our main dish.

The next dish we prepared was ratatouille, a countryside dish that was a staple in the Kingdom of Ruschia.

It was a dish of eggplant, zucchini, and bell peppers, fried with garlic and olive oil to bring out the sweetness, then simmered with tomatoes. I suppose it could be eaten as a pre-made dish when we don’t have enough vegetables.

The next thing we prepared was a dessert rather than a side dish, strained yogurt.

If we strained the yogurt we got at the school bazaar with a cloth, it turned into a hard and thick yogurt. Yogurt had a high magical matter content of 9 magis per serving, so it was good to eat when you wanted to make up for a lack of magical matter in a day. I had some salted apple jam and honey lemon that I made during the summer, so I’ll pour them over the yogurt and consume that. Let’s do that.

Now. The “Potato Report” had finally begun in earnest.

Day 1: Gratin with potatoes and meat sauce (tastes great with plenty of cheese)

Day 2: Pot-au-feu with diced bacon, cabbage, and potatoes (healthy)

Day 3: Frittata (an omelet of eggs and potatoes)

Day 4: fish and chips (a sinful but amazing food)

Gratin, omelets, and pot-au-feu were traditional dishes from the 〈Scarlet Witch〉.

In any case, the first three days went reasonably well..

On the fourth day, Frey went out with some female upperclassman, so Lapis, Nero, and I happily deep-fried some sliced potatoes and cod fish. It was called fish and chips. It was junk food, but young people loved it. It was very tasty. And very satisfying.

We didn’t leave any fish and chips for Frey, who had abandoned his duties to help us, and left him only a steamed potato for dinner. He became more serious the next day.

Day 5: Grilled chicken and potatoes with herb lemon (delicious by anyone’s standards)

Day 6: Fried potatoes and corn with garlic butter (if only we had soy sauce…)

This was how we recorded our daily meals in the report.

We made sure to take pictures and measure the magical matter content.

We worked together by utilizing our respective areas of expertise.

For example, Nero was able to make wrapping paper and storage containers to preserve the deliciousness of the food, and even a dishwasher like the one our upperclassmen were selling for a high price. Lapis was extremely bad at peeling vegetables, but she was good at opening the lids of tough canned foods and never got salt and sugar wrong. Frey often got salt and sugar mixed up, but he was surprisingly good at peeling vegetables and had a knack for presentation.

There were times when we clashed, argued, and had sudden scuffles with each other, but we managed to get through the week. It was time to get used to group work.

Day 10…

After only a little over a week, we were already tired of potatoes.

We hated looking at those ochre lumps, and that soft and flaky texture can go to hell.

And as the days went by, the one thing we started having trouble with was our cooking repertoire. Since we were students and not chefs, we ran out of ideas after a week.

We had been working very hard with the help of the〈Scarlet Witch’s〉recipe book, but maybe my ancestor didn’t like potatoes very much, as there were not many potato recipes.

As we gathered in the atelier in the evening and had a dispirited discussion about what to make with potatoes, Frey, who had been playing with my ham-chans, said something.

“Hey, aren’t ‘gnocchis’ made of potatoes…? Ow, this hamster* bit me!”

(TN: Frey calls the hamster ハム公 in the original. 公 is a familiar or derogatory suffix after a name)

We were startled by Frey’s unexpected suggestion.

“Gnocchis are a type of pasta that’s made by crushing potatoes and stirring them into wheat flour. Then, let’s try making some tonight?”

“Gnocchi...huh. That’s still a mystery food to me.”

Gnocchi was indeed a mysterious dish, so much that I could agree with Nero’s “still a mystery” comment.

“I picked a lot of basil and cherry tomatoes today, do you want to use them?”

Lapis had just finished picking the basil we were growing near the window of the atelier, and had harvested a lot of cherry tomatoes. She brought a basket full of them from the kitchen and showed them to us.

I plucked some basil leaves from the basket and checked their scent…

“I’ve got it! Let’s make Genovese gnocchi!”

“Oh. Genovese…”

“I’m cool with that.”

Genovese was a delicious sauce made from basil paste. It had many fans in our country. The reason was that it went well with pasta.

So, we quickly divided up the work and started cooking.

I asked the boys to mash the boiled potatoes on the first floor workbench, while the girls made the basil sauce in the basement kitchen.

We washed and drained the freshly picked basil, enclosed salt, minced garlic, dry roasted pine nuts, the basil leaves and powdered cheese with wind magic, and then stirred them together. We mixed in olive oil into the green and mushy sauce and let the flavors meld to finish the sauce.

If we bottled it, it would last for about a week, so we could enjoy dishes with Genovese this week.

“Have you guys finished mashing the potatoes yet?”

“We finished a long time ago.”

We went up to the first floor to check on the boys who had been entrusted with the job of mashing potatoes and found that they had even finished straining them. After mixing the strained potatoes with flour, olive oil, and salt, the dough for the gnocchi was ready.

I shaped this dough into cylinders and cut it into bite-sized pieces from the ends.

Then all the team members made them round. We made dents in them with the back of a fork and formed them into an elliptical shape.

We boiled them in hot water, then removed them immediately and cooled them with cold water.

Meanwhile, on a frying pan, we heated the basil sauce and the cherry tomatoes cut in half, and then added the gnocchi we just boiled.

Finally, we grated some cheese on top and tossed it with the basil sauce and tomatoes, and then it was done.

“We finished! Amazing, amazing!” I was excited.

“They look pretty good,” Even Nero was impressed.

“This is the first time I made gnocchi,” Lapis said, feeling a sense of accomplishment.

“I’m starving to death…” Frey was limp from hunger.

Genovese gnocchi with fresh tomatoes.

The team members immediately gathered around the table and prepared side dishes and herb water for the meal.

As expected, everyone started with the gnocchi, and their faces changed immediately at the surprisingly springy texture.

“The basil sauce and cheese are very tasty, and they blend well with the plain gnocchi.”

“The smell of fresh basil is drifting through my nose.”

“The tartness and the sweetness of the tomatoes brings together the delayed taste of the gnocchi in a fresh way. They go perfectly with the basil sauce.”

After Lapis’, Nero’s, and my food reports, Frey summarized our excitement about this dish.

“The best thing about them is that they don’t taste like potatoes at all, these gnocchi.”

Yes. That was more appreciated than anything.

For us, who were beginning to grow tired of potato dishes, the texture and taste of this dish was a relief, as it tasted like something else, not potatoes.

“I’m glad they turned out so well,” I said.

“It might be okay to make them during the assignment again,” Lapis said.

“It’s all thanks to my suggestion, wasn’t it? Be grateful to me,” Frey said patronizingly. 

“...Just as I thought, it’s a mystery food. Like the texture and stuff,” Nero was still finding it strange.

It was a tough task for the “Potato Report,” but I liked the moment when we encountered difficulties but racked our brains and worked together to come up with something delicious.

To tell the truth, since the beginning of this assignment, I had been consciously intaking magical matter, so my daily magic was also in good condition.

While realizing how important daily meals were for a magician, we spend time with our teammates while fostering bonds over food.

This was another act in our youth.

“Aaaaah!”

When we finished our meal with satisfaction and were enjoying some salt apple chips as an after-dinner snack, I remembered something terrible.

“What’s the matter, Makia?”

“This is bad, Lapis! We completely forgot to take pictures!”

“Ah.” “Ah…”

All the team members were so engrossed in eating that we forgot to take pictures for the report.

This was also another act in our youth...maybe.

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