Herald of Steel

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"I could have never imagined such a delicious drink was so simple to make. My lord is truly generous to reveal this precious recipe so frankly. Truly generous."

Taking a quick sip from the sweet drink that seemed to make her throat sing, Lady Nanazin chimed this with genuine adulation.

The reason for such alacrity was because usually, nobles tended to zealously guard their cookbooks and family recipes, treating them as culinary masterpieces worthy of being family heirlooms.

There seemed to be both pride and hospitality mixed into these dishes as the noble house could show off an item that their guest had never had before as well as prove they were being gracious hosts.

’Only we can make this dish in the whole world! And we are serving it to you, see!’ They would symbolically say.

While some of the larger and more established noble houses might even have a selection of local specialties designed specifically for the type of relationship they had with the guest- whether he was a lord, friend, acquaintance, rival, or even an enemy.

Meaning a guest lord might get a specially curated piece of meat cooked in a certain way, while a rival or enemy might find fried fish, mashed and cooked with chill and other spices.

Aside from being a status symbol, many recipes were also considered fond memorabilia by nobles, a piece of their life.

Typically, this was a thought shared by nobles who were foodies, who found their true joy in life in tasting all sorts of new and unknown delicacies.

With access to all the other luxuries of the world- beautiful houses, gorgeous women, an abundance of money, and enough guards to protect them, these men turned away from the hedonistic pleasures of the flesh and moved their interest in sating their stomachs.

These men would regularly look for new and unheard of delicacies, hunting for all types of rare and exotic ingredients and then employing a small army of cooks to come up with novel ways to prepare them.

These ingredients could range from the relatively normal such as an exotic and rare bird or meat of a lion or tiger, to questionable things like bull testicles and cow udders, to outright bizarre, like insects and bugs.

Sometimes these nobles would even try inedible things like hooves or tail hail, while some of the most depraved men would take part in the tasting of the most taboo of all meat.

Fortunately, due to Adhania being a theological country, that last example was an extreme one and even a pasha could be executed if he was truly proven guilty.

Hence the nobles tended to stick to the legal variety of ingredients, and whenever their kitchen produced a truly unique dish worth sharing, they would invite friends and family to show it off in great flashy feasts.

The guests would then judge this dish, making compliments and perhaps even adding criticisms or suggestions.

Some of the nobles might even be so impressed as to want to trade for the recipe.

’I really like this smoked quail egg! How about I exchange it for my technique of roasted crispy, crackling pork belly, my lord?’

Such ’bizarre’ phrases were not too uncommon in those parties.

All this Alexander had learned from Cambyses, as he never got the chance to participate in such events.

One of them was because given Adhania’s culinary acumen, there were few dishes that could catch his modern palate- he was basically not that interested.

And secondly, the more important of the two factors was that he was too busy with work and such parties happened in far away estates needing one or two days by carriage.

There was just not enough space in Zanzan city to hold those kinds of luxurious parties, and the immediate nobles around its surroundings were not that great fans of food.

So whenever he received those invitations, Alexander sent Cambyses to attend them, as a show of courtesy to his retainer.

And from what she told him, he was glad he did not have to go, for those kinds of parties were kind of like those snobbish art exhibitions- pretentious people throwing out all sorts of nonsensical jargon to sound sophisticated.

According to Cambyses herself, due to being relatively new to Azhak, she could not understand even a third of what was being said. And even the third she did understand was guesswork at best.

Lastly, as the last bad cherry on top- the food was not even that good!

Now, this was hardly surprising given there were only that many ways you could make something that tastes delicious with the same techniques and ingredients.

If something tasted good, chances are the people would have discovered it already.

But what Cambyses did not account for was just how bad it could be,

"Ahhh… Alex you should see some of the things they give. They are nothing like the ones you make, Alex. Ughhh… It’s so… just nasty. And they always have me take the first bite…. Aghh…I half starved there!’ The main wife retched her mouth in apparent disgust, finding even re telling some of the stories unpleasant.

In fact, her dislike for these parties grew so much that after a few such trips, the same Cambyses who had always whined to Alexander to let her go to those parties now whined to not be sent there.

It almost seemed like a punishment.

However the problem was although Cambyses did not want to go, the various retainers very much wanted her to come because it was a way for them to show off-

’The main wife of the Pasha comes to my parties’- it was a bragging right.

And Alexander knowing this, thus cajoled his wife to attend- for politics.

For Cambyses, instead of bad food, the only true good surprise she got was that one time when she saw a recipe being used as a dowry between the marriage of a son and daughter of two noble houses.

That had truly made her open her eyes, as forget hearing about it, she did not even think this was on the bingo cards.

But although not common, such exchanges did happen, showing the true extent some of these people were willing to go in search of the next best thing.

Sometimes a noble might even auction some of their recipes for a sky high price, such as if they thought they could get a good price or if they were short on money.

When that happened, the chef who created it might also get a great bonus.

And speaking of chefs, they were also one of the reasons why nobles could not babble out the recipe of their specialties whenever they liked.

These cooks, especially the highly trained ones, were treated with great respect within any noble’s household, as they would be the ones responsible for overseeing the lord’s food preparation- a very delicate and sensitive thing to be sure. So they were without doubt trusted men.

The skills of these men were also rare, usually only passed down from master to apprentice, hence many of them were treated almost like modern day celebrity chefs, their words and opinions carrying great weight within the kitchen and its related periphery.

Hence it was considered a basic courtesy for a noble lord to ask for their chef’s permission before divulging his secret recipe.

Which was totally understandable as that dish might be his lifetime’s achievement and no one would want to sell the fruit of decades of toil and effort for anything short of an exorbitant price.

All of which meant that for Alexander to so easily give out this precious drink….

"Hahaha, no, no, Your Highness, you are flattering me. I believe all food and drinks are best enjoyed when shared with friends and allies. I do not hoard recipes," The man lightly deflected the heavy praise, just like a nobleman of lower rank was supposed to do when facing someone higher than him.

So he then charmingly offered, "If you want, I can even write it all down for you. Many lords have taken my other recipes like this! You just need to ask."

Alexander thought this last addition would make Lady Nanazin happier, showing off his broad mindedness.

However it seemed to only make the Adhanian queen frown,

"You gave all the recipes for free! She exclaimed with great surprise, "How many?" She even put down the silver fork she was having the cheesecake with in shock.

"Ummm.. a few like puddings, pasta, spaghetti, ice cream, a few pies and meat dishes. Why? Is there a problem?" Alexander asked in a crisp, innocent voice, seemingly unable to detect the other side’s annoyance.

And this ’callousness’ seemed to rub Lady Nanazin in entirely the wrong way.

Hence in a very untypical and unladylike fashion, she placed both hands on the table and cried out with a slightly raised voice,

"Yo…why? These recipes are all so precious… they are like gifts from the gods. Why did you give them out for free? Surely you are clever enough to know that many noble houses would be willing to go to war for many of them."

"My daughters constantly ask me to get some of the dishes your kitchen makes! They are that popular!"

Let us say no to piracy! Don’t take part in a crime! Don’t patronize thieves!

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