Alright, I'm not certain where I wrote this, but I know for a fact I have before, so I'm just putting this here. THIS IS NOT FOLLOWING CANON. CANON, NO. This is, by my own words, exploring the world of Toriko without the Shonen bullshit. Since that seems to trip up a lot of you, let me use this chapter as an example of what that means so we can move onto other things again, shall we?
The funny thing is that I already had this chapter idea from basically the start anyway, so while it serves a purpose, I also enjoy it quite a bit. Now, I hope you enjoy.
Chapter 10: Shipping Foreign Ingredients
OR
Let Nothing Go To Waste? To Much For Just Yourself? Sell The Rest.
It is said, that somewhere within this world, lies a crevice 12 miles wide and thousands of feet deep. Maybe have traveled to the bottom of this crevice, hoping to find some hidden treat or species, but these same people miss the forest for the trees! The walls of this crevice, hidden by shadow and single-mindedness, are made of a beautiful marbling! Thick, smooth dark and white chocolate ripples through solid and creamy cool buttercream in these, THE TUXEDO CAKE BREAK!
It was a short trip back home with the Sugar Minks, with thankfully the only complication to come out of it being that I had missed the provided dinner and had to go the night chewing on bear jerky, which, fine, it happens, but I was looking forward to trying their 700-Alarm Chili they had been cooking before I started loading up my 'cargo'. Ah well, I could try the recipe myself if I ever get some Iron Turtle cutlery, but that shit was expensive.
Speaking of expensive though, that was certainly a word for the area we were setting up for the Minks. Because while we had some forms of prep set to go in terms of me coming back with them, the reality showed that we were quite unprepared. The snow we had set aside had to be constantly changed out due to their sugar settling into it, and their much smaller home as compared to the massive ice-wastes they were used to meant that there were constant little escape artists trying to get out and explore, or trick their way out only to swelter in the comparatively much hotter environment than they were used too.
It wasn't until nearly 2 weeks in that we actually thought of just trimming their fur thin so they wouldn't get as hot, as well as not brush off as much of their sugar, but that was our bad for trying to adapt the existing animal perfectly to a sub-perfect enclosure. This, however, lead to our secondary 'problem', which really wouldn't have been to any other situation, but was turning up to be.
The Sugar Minks got along shockingly well with the Chocosquirrels. Rather, the Chocosquirrels LOVED, the Sugar Minks, and it seemed to be a sentiment said minks shared. We had been debating attempting crossbreeding the two at some point once they were more settled in, but they seemed to have decided to take that step themselves in the few times we tried shared training. Even outside of the 4 new mated pairs we had though, the rest seemed thick as thieves, and that analogy was saddeningly literal, which was where the problem came in.
After the two species...became acquainted with one another, they seemed to waste no time with setting up a crude 'barter' system between themselves, with the Chocosquirrels putting forward fruits, buttons, saplings, and their own special mixes in exchange for the Minks fur, marshmallow goo, and shiny clumps of ice. They then tended to be VERY territorial towards the items that suddenly had such value to them, which was itself very interesting.
I was mostly wondering if I could swing writing some kind of research paper on the topic and if it was possible for rodents to discover capitalism, but that was for later. Right now, I was taking a break from said rodent capitalism in favor of good ol' regular capitalism.
By which I mean reading the silver-embroidered letter I had just received from the NEO-Acacia Group, better known today as the Beautiful Foods Organization.
Following after the passing of Acacia, the group was originally formed by high-ranked members of royalties and influencers of industry who felt that the IGO as it existed was ignoring the wish of Acacia, dedicating all their efforts and attentions to 'flashy' foods and the next world changing breakthrough, completely ignoring what was already within reach. Thus, acting as a 'second coming of Acacia', the group dedicated their immense resources towards the advancement of 'lesser' and 'forgotten' ingredients, to show the world that nothing should be wasted on the road to flavor.
Nearly two and a half generations since its inception, and the group was still going strong, having expanded from its original deep roots to include more and more of the common working men and their parent-child companies. And heading this group? Masters of their craft, each having perfected their craft to produce incredible results with foods others would throw away.
'Kreepy Krawly King' Kuromado, who showed the inner beauty lurking within every insect. Bogie Woods, who could make dishes from bones as succulent and rich as any meat dish. Anything and everything was put before these juggernauts of food, and all of them were polished to a diamond hue.
And they were asking us for Sugar Mink hybrids. I don't know how they knew some were already breeding, or if they just inferred it as a natural course of action given our previous habitants, but it still make my hands shake when I saw the amount of money they were offering. Maybe if this was some shifty or no-name agency asking for such, I would hesitate, but these people...were good.
They did good things, they treated the creatures they bought well, often times better than the IGO facilities depending on the beast in question, and the money could do so much.
So, I didn't. I sent them a letter telling them that there wouldn't be any births till at least 6 months from now, and even then they'd need another month or so to both make sure they could live without their parents and to make sure the breeding didn't lead to any kind of defect.
Then I continued on with life, nursing my little Melon Soda-bulb I had growing in my room. They grew back bigger if you regularly drank a few sips to half of it before letting it grow again, which suited me just fine. The fizz always helped clear my head.
END OF CHAPTER
So not a ton actually happened this chapter, but then that wasn't the point of it either. The point was to show you just what this story MEANS, and what I see would happen if there was no 'shonen' in Toriko. No antagonist organization? Toriko spends more of his time just hunting through the wild, IGO gets to focus on recloning extinct species that much earlier, this can get discovered like the other several thousand ingredients he apparently discovered before canon starts. Ya get me? Great, now we can get back to gushing over amazing food and the world it lives in. I'll also update the index, which I'll bring over to FF at some point once its past a certain size. Maybe 10 or 15k, see where we get with that.
Now, however, we go to a section I'm sure some of you have been waiting for,
TTOD PART 2: Holiday Side-Dishes
Now, obviously there are hundreds of possible foods you can do for a holiday, but I don't have time to list out possibilities and instructions for all of those, so I'll focus on the three things people seem to struggle with the most; Gravy, Vegetables, and Samplers. Curious? You don't need to be for long.
Gravy: Gravy is incredibly important for a large meal, especially one you've been cooking for awhile. If you've followed the previous chapters tips on the topic, you're birb or ham of choice should be nice and juicy so this can just be, literally, gravy, but maybe you have your own family recipe and it can come out a bit dry, and that's okay, that's what that the gravy is for. With this, I'll give you two recipe options, one the 'traditional' way to make gravy, and the other the personal one I use.
-Traditional gravy: The trick to this is your drippings. The fat are carries the flavor with the gravy, and you're essentially just re hydrating the meat your putting it over. Get around a cup and a hald of your dripping, drop in a tablespoonful of corn starch, and maybe a bit of extra spice before stirring it around in a serving dish. The corn starch will cause the mixture to thicken to a perfect gravy, ready to pour. Bam, zoom, everything tastes like ya meat.
-Mushroom Gravy: This one is my personal favorite, mostly because it can be nice to mix with other things on your plate, instead of it all tasting of the one thing, but that's just me. Take a can of mushroom soup, campbells or no-name, its all good so long as its a smaller can, add a splash of milk and mix the two together before popping it in the microwave for 10 minutes. Give it another stir when you take it out, and you have a desish cream sauce that works wonderfully one turkey, potatoes, or pasta. Yum.
Vegetables: These are the greens of the meal, to make sure your plate isn't just shades of grey, white, red, or brown. Today, I'm gonna talk about Broccoli and Brussel Sprouts, 2 ingredients that don't cost too much around the holidays or take too long to cook juu~st right.
-Broccoli: Everyone talks about boiling broccoli, but that's terrible, its garbage, it has no flavor and no purpose. You want good broccoli? You bake that shit. Treat it like chicken. Put it on a baking tray, spread a nice spice rub and some oil on it, then pop them in at 350 for around half an hour. They'll be nice and crisp with actual flavor of their own to add to a meal. You can do the same thing with potato slices as well, while your at it! Choice is yours.
Brussel Sprouts: The trick to brussel sprouts is high-heat and plenty of steam. Butter a sauce pan and drop those suckers in with some nice spices, maybe Greek or Cajun, mix them around and put a lid on it so all that good stuff really sticks in. Because of the trapped heat, they crisp right up, and it should only take 20 minutes to cook them all just right, with you moving them around every 2 or 3 minutes before re-lidding them to make sure nothing burns or gets stuck.
Samplers: Last up, we get Samplers. What're those you ask? They're the filler foods, the bits and chips we stick with other foods to make the others better. Thus, I'm showing you some nice Mashed Potatoes, and fluffy Puff Pastry.
-Mashed Potatoes: Potatoes trip up a lot of people, mostly because they struggle to make it fancier or harder for themselves than it needs to be. The only things you need to make amazing mashed potatoes are a bag of russet potatoes, a pot you can put water in, a bit of milk, and an egg-beater.
Wash and boil your potatoes before letting out all but a thin layer of the water, should take around half an hour to boil it all, then just add a splash of milk and start at em with the beater. In just a few minutes you have picture perfect creamy mashes potatoes, that you can always freeze if you have too much to eat for the next few days. Don't need to peel them either, that's where all the nutrients are, and so many less cuts from trying to get everything off.
-Puff Pastry: If you're making this from scratch, you're trying too damn hard. You want a meal addition that people will love and doesn't take much work? Here it is. Buy a roll of frozen puff pastry from your local grocery store, name brand or none doesn't matter cause its all pastry. Leave it sitting in your fridge for around and hour or two till its thawed enough that you can roll it out on your baking sheet, then brush it with a broken mixed egg. After that, just cut the sheet into small squares or rectangles, then pop them in for around 25 minutes, till it rises to a nice crispy golden sheen cause of the egg. Because you pre-cut it, you can just pull the pieces apart without making the cute tops crumble. Plate em up, and you have the perfect base for any kind of finger food you want to play around with.
END OF TTOD
Now you all know how to easily make a holiday meal that anyone would be thrilled to have. A majority of the advice you can apply to your regular life as well, there's no reason not to. Need more greens in your diet? Yo. And the Puff Pastry? That shits light and delish with any meat or fruit any time of the year. That's the fun of cooking, you take what you learn and extrapolate! Hope you all find some use from it. Oh, also the story, that's important too.
