Volume 1, Chapter 11: How the girl grew up.
Once I got back to the Claude mansion, I hulled and polished the rice I got from Alex…manually. I prepared a large jar and dumped the unhulled rice in. Then I stuck a wooden stick into the middle and stabbed the rice repeatedly. I was basically using a makeshift mortar and pestle to hull the rice.
You ask me why I know this? I was raised in the countryside, in a small town along the coastline in a valley. While it had been a very popular port in the Edo era, time left it to settle, forgotten, in the dust. The town was suffering from depopulation as more people left for the city.
I was born in that town as the youngest of four. My grandmother was a brave woman who lost her husband and eldest son to the war and raised the rest of her children by herself. Fortunately our family had land in the mountains as well as a vegetable garden and a paddy field, so we did not lack any food, but my grandmother would often tell me raising the children and trying to get by after the war was very hard.
In a devastated post-war Japan, she survived by her motto, “use what you can and make what you can’t.” It became the family motto and was passed down to me. All of the vegetables, rice, tsukemono, umeboshi, miso and soy sauce were homemade.
My father, who was the second eldest, became the head of the family as the eldest had passed away early. He became a public servant to support the family once he graduated from high school. Following my grandmother’s footsteps, he refused to partake in any hobbies or habits that involved money, including smoking and gambling. Instead, he became obsessed with food.
While working as a public servant, my father also kept the farm going. He insisted on bringing in some previously unheard of vegetable sprouts and seeds home and researching them. That included growing the plant and trying to process and cook it. One day, he suddenly said he would raise some chickens and built a chicken coop in the corner of the garden. Of course, the chicken and the egg both ended up on the dining table. When I first saw how a chicken was prepared, I couldn’t eat meat for a while…
Children adapt so quickly…
As I was the youngest of my siblings, I was doted on by both my grandmother and father in their own way. I was made witness to many things as they taught me everything they knew. Well, I also wanted the allowance they gave me for helping.
The most amazing part of this was that I thought this was the norm until I went to Tokyo for vocational school. I mean, most of the people in the town also farmed, fished or had some type of livestock on the side. I also thought it was the norm to barter for things you couldn’t make yourself.
Every day, conversations like “We received so many just the other day… here, this is just a little bit… oh my, oh my! Thank you so much, ohohohoho!” would happen on repeat at the foyer of our house.
By the way, my mother’s place was a fruit farm, so our relatives were all birds of a feather. That was how I grew up.
My father was the one who taught me the rice hulling method I am using right now. While we did have the actual rice huller at home, this is the easiest method to hull rice in a modern home.
I sifted through nostalgic memories of the things my grandmother and my father taught me and our adventures in the fields as I mindlessly stabbed the rice with the wooden stick.
Similarly, my hobby is trying out restaurants and eating food. Maybe it’s because I was raised surrounded by fresh food ingredients, but I am a sucker for food. Even when I became a working adult and started making my own money, my reward for working hard would be to eat out. I would go with friends, colleagues or even just by myself. Japanese, Western, Chinese, innovative, fusion, sweets, I would try anything from popular stores to holes in the wall.
Of course, I wouldn’t eat out every day, my salary as an average worker in their second year couldn’t pay for that. I also lived alone, so I had to make do with home cooking most of the time. I was very particular about my cooking, too, so not only were the fresh vegetables and seafood regularly sent to my apartment helping my budget, they were also absolutely necessary for the good food.
It might be inconceivable to girls who put their money into prettying and bettering themselves, but everyone has different values. To me, good food makes the world go round.
That’s why it is so important to me that the food of this world must be good too.
I was come over with homesickness as I reflected over the happenings of the previous world, all the while stabbing the rice with the wooden stick. Is everyone okay? Is Grandma starting to forget things? Dad’s hair is getting thinner, I wonder if any survived this year? Is Mom still a natural airhead? Are my married siblings doing okay with their partners? What about the brother right above me, he became a NEET after he graduated from university…did he manage to find a job? If he didn’t, he should just inherit the family business.
Well, to my family. The food is bad, but I’m doing okay here in another world.
Am I depressed? Well, I’m way past the age to be homesick. I’m not the type to disappear without warning or commit suicide, so I’m sure they think I’m doing all right somewhere.
If only I could go back, then I would eat my fill of my mother’s cooking, especially after understanding the food situation in this world…
But there’s no use wishing for something that won’t happen. I just want some white rice as soon as possible.