Hokuou Kizoku to Moukinzuma no Yukiguni Karigurashi

Chapter 110: Canned Food War! — Second Half

Volume 3 — The Northern Nobleman and the Raptor Wife’s Village, Great Renovation Plan!?

Mother prepared dinner.

Vegetable soups with plenty of root vegetables, triangular cheese pie made with potato and bacon, white fillet fish and mushroom grilled with herbs and butter. In the basket, there were thinly sliced rye bread.

After praying to the spirit, we started eating.

Since it had become very cold in the past few days, the warm soup healed the body greatly. The simple taste of vegetables boiled for a long time was good.

The triangular pie was split into two with a knife so that we can share.

The crust was crispy! The cheese was thi~ck, the potatoes were soft, and the bacon full of pepper was just irresistible.

The white fillet fish and the grilled mushrooms were eaten with bread. Fish from early autumn have plenty of fat so they’re very tasty. I think that the combination of buttered mushrooms, fish and bread is justice.

“Ritchan, is it good?”

“Delicious.”

“How glad~”

She asked a similar question to Sieg and smiled happily.

It was a peaceful dinner table.

After dinner, we started tasting the canned foods.

While mother was lulling my son, I took out the canned foods from the shelf.

Sieg silently stared at the cans laid out on the table.

It seems that they look different from the ones she had from her days in the military.

The ones we bought from the merchant are ones that just started getting mass-produced. They’re products made with the latest technology.

“Sieg, what do you have in the military?”

“……”

Sieglinde suddenly made a sour expression.

Oh no, how wonderful!! No, I mean, I apologised if I shouldn’t have brought it up, but she said it was alright.

“The food in the military was terrible.”

Combat rations are foods that can be stored for long periods of time over great distances, that the food was more for getting the nutrients quickly rather than for enjoying meals, or so she said.

“Our main diet was hard bread called hardtack……”

Made with flour and water, the hardtacks were also called ‘iron plate crackers’. They’re small biscuits smaller than one’s hand, but they had a scary solidity, probably hard enough to block bullets.

There were also canned baked beans, cans of fried nuts, coffee and black tea, but since they were all made with low funds they were mostly disappointments.

Sieg bitterly said that the food in the military were extremely disappointing.

Even in the dining halls the food was just warm, not too different from the food she had in the field, Sieg recalled with a sad expression.

If it didn’t hurt her diet too much, she even had just canned food in her room, she said.

“Back then, just opening a can was hard.”

Of course, there are no tools to open cans on the fields of battle. So, apparently, she had to open then with her sword.

“So, I was surprised to see these.”

Sieg was staring at the part attached on the cans with a serious expression.

I heard from the merchant that they are called ‘winding keys’. The shape is similar to the clock keys.

Apparently, by winding the notch attached to the can, the can can be opened easily.

“They invented something great overseas.”

“Indeed.”

The age of opening cans through force is over, Sieg was murmuring.

Also, she murmured that it was really fortunate that she came here.

“If I had rejected the marriage, I might have been having cold canned food along in the barracks.”

“N-No way!”

How nice……

It really was nice that I met Sieg at the ball.

“The battlefields were very desolate.”

“Uu, Sieg!”

Maybe because she remembered the painful days in the military, Sieg made a melancholy expression. She looked sad, so I hugged her tightly.

Sieg silently accepted my embrace.

“The food here was dreamy. The reindeer meat that foreigners apparently can’t handle was very delicious too.”

“I’ll continue to prepare great food!”

“Thank you, Ritzhard.”

I never knew that the diet in the military was that bad. It was unimaginable for me.

Come to think of it, when I first met Sieg she was much thinner.

I have to give her even more delicious meals and make her put on some weight, I thought as I patted her head.

“This really is paradise. It is breathtakingly beautiful, the food is great, my husband and child are cute, and my mother-in-law is diligent and kind.”

“……Yeah.”

I felt as though I heard me being included in the list of cute things, but I just thought that I just misheard.

◇ ◆ ◇

To change the mood, we started trying the canned foods.

Today, we are opening corned beef, which is meat cured in salt.

It seems that these are being mass-produced in a foreign country, and are a hit product.

Since I didn’t have beef that much, I was excited.

We decided to quickly open the keyed can.

I grabbed the key attached on the notch at the side of can, and wound it around the can to open the can. Inside, there was a lump of meat.

Since it could be opened easily, it was good for elderly people and children too.

Corned beef is beef cured with large grains of salt, and then sliced into small pieces, after which they are spiced.

In foreign countries, it seems that they usually don’t slice the beef beforehand.

Sieg recalled that Sieg sometimes had corned beef as a part of her combat rations.

“They’re not that delicious. They were greasy and the smell was hard to bear.”

“I see~”

I placed the beef on a dish. Even if they were split into many pieces, there was quite the proper chunk.

I sliced some with a knife and had some.

“……Mm.”

Well, it wasn’t especially delicious. As Sieg said, it tasted like meat processed in salt and grease.

Thought I thought that it was amazing how it didn’t have a strong taste like wild game. Indeed, it was meat from livestock.

Sieg said that they were much tastier than the ones she had in the military.

I got it!

“Well, if we cook it, it might become delicious, I think?”

“Indeed.”

It was rather salty, so I thought that it would go well with potatoes. After adjusting the flavour slightly, it might be nice to grill them with cheese.

I decided to try it out right away at the fireplace.

I brought a pot, potatoes and spices from the kitchen and started cooking.

The potatoes were chopped finely so that they could be cooked easily then were cooked until they were crispy. Afterwards, I added in diced corned beef. After adding a bit of salt and pepper, the whole thing was done.

First, I tasted the thing myself.

“Ah, as I thought, potatoes go well with it!”

Since it was unexpectedly delicious, I recommended Sieg to have some as well.

“I can’t believe that such a taste comes from corned beef.”

Nice. Sieg also said that it was delicious.

Afterwards, we had fish, oysters preserved in oil and other things, but unexpectedly all of them were rather nice.

It seems like we can have canned foods.

I checked the period for how long the canned foods could be stored, which was three years.

I thought that these might change the lifestyle of us hunting people.

Since we could take care of the food, the next problem was deciding on the spot for the pub.

Well, I am the lord, so I can build wherever I want though.

If possible, I’m thinking of somewhere near the square or the gift store. For that, I have the consult the shop lady and her husband.

First, building an establishment with a cellar is the top priority.

While consulting Captain Artonen, I wrote down the plans for the pub on a paper.

Every time something was decided, I reported to Sieg and mother.

I told Sieg the contents of today’s discussion.

“Come to think of it,”

“Nn?”

“Did you decide on a name for the pub?”

I completely forgot about it.

Store name, eh……

“How about ‘Wonderful Sieglinde’?”

“Rejected.”

“……”

As I thought. But I think it’s a great name.

Even when I asked if she had a good idea, she merely crossed her arms and frowned without moving. It seems that she couldn’t think up anything good.

“Then, how about ‘The Crimson Eagle’?”

“……”

“Well, hey, when it’s the tourist season, Sieg’s fan ladies might come over?”

“……Well, then,”

“Alright?”

Sieg looked sour, but accepted in the end.

Frontier pub ‘The Crimson Eagle’.

Yup, it’s a great name!