Hospitality Comes with a Soufflé 6
“It’s a pumpkin soufflé. It smells sweet and nice.”
“I wanted to make some Halloween-themed sweets since it’s Halloween this month.”
“It’s nice to pay attention to the seasonality.”
As he handed her a spoon, she murmured a small ‘itadakimasu’ and gently inserted the spoon into the pumpkin soufflé.
The fluffy, soft soufflé was scooped up towards her mouth.
“…right.”
While savoring the taste, she stared into the void and lost in thought for a moment.
“The texture is wonderful. It’s fluffy, and there’s a lightness that seems to melt like bubbles in my mouth. This is something to be appreciated. I think it’s the result of carefully whipping the egg whites.”
“That’s crucial for a soufflé.”
He was genuinely pleased to hear her praise the effort he had put into whipping the meringue.
“However, it feels like you were too conscious of that. Did you worry too much about not crushing the meringue bubbles? The mixture of white sauce and meringue isn’t well combined. Look here.”
Pointing at the cross-section of the soufflé with a spoon, there was a clear marbled layer of orange and white.
“This will cause unevenness in flavor and texture, and it doesn’t look good either.”
“I see… you’re right. I might have been too concerned about the meringue.”
He felt a bit deflated as Chika nodded in agreement.
“Soufflés are all about being fluffy, so overmixing and deflating the bubbles is a big no-no. However, undermixing isn’t good either. If someone sees this cross-section, they’ll be disappointed.”
“I guess so. Still, it’s hard to get the balance just right.”
“I think that’s where experience comes in. I’ve seen Dad make it, and he mixed it quite boldly, you know?”
“Really? Maybe I’ll try mixing it more thoroughly next time.”
“Also, about the taste, it’s too sweet. The sweetness clings too much in the mouth.”
“Seriously?”
“Try it.”
Taken aback by her unexpected critique, Sōma watched as Chika scooped up some soufflé and brought it to his mouth.
“Here, ‘ahh’.”
Being fed sweets by a girl who was neither a lover nor anything of the sort—it was, upon reflection, an extraordinary thing to do.
When he did it in front of Miki, she scolded him, saying, ‘Don’t be so lovey-dovey in public!’
At first, Sōma was quite embarrassed. His heart wouldn’t stop pounding.
But now, it seemed like just a normal thing.
Sōma would feed Chika, and Chika would feed Sōma.
So what? That’s how it felt.
It’s frightening how one can get used to anything.
“Ah.”
Therefore, Sōma took the spoon that was offered to him into his mouth without any hesitation.
“…maybe it’s too sweet.”
As Chika pointed out, the sweetness lingered in the mouth for too long.
The essence of a soufflé is supposed to be like eating bubbles, and having the sweetness stick around was not ideal.
“You think so too, right?”
“Still, that’s strange. I made it according to the recipe’s measurements.”
Accepting failure and learning from it is essential, but it’s hard to improve without knowing the cause.
It wasn’t that he used strange ingredients, nor did he make any whimsical adjustments. Even when he retraced the steps of the process, he had no recollection of making any mistakes that would leave a lingering sweetness.
He pondered what could have gone wrong.
“Hmm…”
Chika, too, was munching on the remaining soufflé, thinking about the cause of the failure, when suddenly she looked up with a realization.
“Could it be, this soufflé recipe, isn’t it from the recipe book we were reading in the library the other day?”
“You’ve got a good memory. That’s right.”
From the pocket of his apron, he took out and showed a copied sheet of paper from that recipe book.
Attracted by the Showa retro vibe, he wanted to give it a try.
“I see. That’s the reason.”
Chika clapped her hands together as if she had an epiphany.
“Huh? Is the recipe defective or something?”
“It’s not that, but outdated.”
“…Meaning?”
His understanding couldn’t catch up with her brief explanation.
As he frowned, Chika put on a serious face and held up two fingers.
“There are two possible reasons. First, the level of sweetness that was acceptable when that recipe book was published might have been correct for that time. People’s tastes and preferences for sweetness change over time. At that time, it was considered good to be as sweet as possible, but now there’s a preference for healthier options and a focus on bringing out the natural flavors of the ingredients. It’s possible that people today, including me, don’t really like overpowering pumpkin’s natural flavor with too much sugar.”
“A trend in sweetness, huh? I hadn’t thought of that.”
“And then, there’s another possibility that it’s the pumpkin itself.”
“The pumpkin? It’s just a regular one I bought at the supermarket.”
Once again, she mentioned an unexpected cause.
“This is also due to changes over time. Thanks to breeding improvements and advancements in cultivation techniques, the sugar content in pumpkins now might significantly differ from those in the Showa period. Pumpkins back then weren’t very sweet, so they compensated for that with more sugar. However, modern pumpkins are sweet enough without needing much additional sugar.”
“…That was completely out of my blind spot.”
He sighed deeply upon hearing the explanation.
He had never considered the differences between pumpkins now and in the past.
“It’s not bad to refer to old recipes. However, you must also take into account that there are various differences between the time when the recipe was created and now.”
“You’re right, Chika. That makes sense.”
He had assumed everything written in the recipe was correct. But this experience taught him that might not always be the case.
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