Kays Translations
Just another Isekai Lover~
Chapter 133: Creating a Specialty Product for the Mountain Village
　With the village chief’s permission, Tauro toured the settlement to see what resources it possessed.
　At the rear of the village, a cave in the mountainside had been sealed with a door and converted into a storehouse.
　It was nearly empty, but its temperature remained stable throughout the year, making it a useful storage space.
“What’s inside this jar?”
　Tauro’s attention fell on a container at the back of the cave.
“That’s vinegar. Most of what’s stored beside it’s livestock feed.”
“You make vinegar in the village? Oh, and this is rice! It’s treated as animal feed here too, then.”
　Tauro was disappointed to discover that rice was valued so poorly in this region as well.
“We use the vinegar to prepare preserved foods. Rice is inexpensive, so we purchase it in bulk for our livestock. We still have quite a lot left.”
　Bandi lifted the woven straw covering the pile of grain.
“There’s a way to make this rice delicious. I’ll show you later.”
“You intend to eat livestock feed?”
　Bandi stared at him in confusion. Tauro had now suggested eating both jagamo and rice, two things the villagers had always excluded from their own diet.
“Yes. Before that, what kinds of livestock does the village raise?”
　Tauro noticed Bandi’s bewilderment but decided that tasting the finished dishes would explain matters better than words.
“The village jointly owns five mountain moo-moos. We keep them for milk rather than meat and use most of the milk to make cheese. We also have twenty mountain chickens, which are raised for their eggs.”
　Mountain moo-moos resembled the cows from Tauro’s previous life, although their bodies were covered in thick coats of hair. Their bellies were naturally bare, and the surrounding hair had to be trimmed before milking.
　Mountain chickens looked almost identical to ordinary chickens except for the distinctive green feathers covering their bodies. Tauro wondered whether the color helped them blend into the forest.
“Vinegar and eggs… Do you also have vegetable oil?”
“We have a small amount. The villagers produce it themselves.”
“Perfect!”
　Tauro wanted to create a specialty product that could provide the village with a reliable source of income.
　Tomoro, tomate, and karashin should sell well if the crops grew successfully. Better still, however, would be a product that merchants could obtain only from this village.
　That thought led Tauro to seasonings.
　Karashin seeds could be processed into mustard. Eggs, vinegar, and oil could be combined to produce mayonnaise, a condiment whose recipe Tauro had kept secret until now.
　The mustard and mayonnaise could then be blended into karashin mayonnaise, which would complement many different dishes.
　Tauro hadn’t been especially devoted to mayonnaise in his previous life, but he knew that few people disliked it. If the villagers could commercialize it, he was confident that it would sell.
　Most of the villagers didn’t know what to make of the proposal, but Leada immediately recognized its commercial potential.
　The mountain village lay along the route to O’Circus. Marches Trading Company could stop there during future journeys, purchase the products, and sell them in the port city for a profit.
　Tauro borrowed the kitchen in the village chief’s house and prepared several simple dishes.
　He steamed jagamo, cut more of the tubers into strips and fried them as French fries, and made tempura from wild mountain vegetables he had gathered while collecting medicinal herbs.
　He also cooked the rice, shaped it into salted rice balls, and prepared mayonnaise to serve with the steamed jagamo.
　The dishes were deliberately simple so the villagers could easily reproduce them.
　When Tauro invited everyone to eat, they hesitated. They had always believed jagamo to be poisonous, and the tempura looked like nothing more than fried weeds.
　Tauro therefore took a steamed jagamo, dipped it in mayonnaise, and ate it first.
“It’s delicious. Try the steamed jagamo with this mayonnaise. The French fries are already salted, so you can eat them as they’re or dip them in the mayonnaise. Have the salted rice balls with the wild-vegetable tempura.”
　The villagers still looked uncertain, but Bandi trusted Tauro and was the first to reach for the food.
“The jagamo is soft and filling, and the mayonnaise suits it perfectly. This is really good!”
　He continued with the French fries, tempura, and salted rice balls.
“Everything tastes wonderful! I thought the tempura was only weeds, but it’s crisp, and the slight bitterness makes me want another bite. The rice is pleasantly chewy, faintly sweet, and very filling!”
　Encouraged by Bandi’s reaction, the other villagers began to eat.
　After their first bites, surprise spread through the room. One enthusiastic compliment followed another as the villagers discovered that the foods they had dismissed could become satisfying meals.