Everyday Life Starting with Food Wars

That afternoon, like all explosive news, this message spread throughout the entire Far Moon region in a very short time.

"Have you heard? Those two transfer students are going to have a food war on the same day. The one with the red hair is going first, and he even bets with Mito Ikumi that he'll drop out of school! The other one is going to have five food wars in a row that afternoon, all of which are challenged by individuals!"

Someone in the corridor lowered their voice and spoke, though not deliberately loud, the disbelief in their rapid speech was undeniable.

Several layers of people had gathered in front of the bulletin board. Someone stood on tiptoe and read the words on the notice: "10:00 AM, Yukihira Soma vs. Mito Ikumi, main ingredient: beef, dish: rice bowl, wager: dropping out of school." When this was read, the crowd gasped in hushed surprise.

"At 1 p.m., Chen Yuxing will have five consecutive matches against José López Ruz from the Spanish Culinary Research Society, Henri Grondin from the French Culinary Research Society, Takumi Aldini from the Italian Culinary Research Society, Hiromi Sakurai from the Japanese Culinary Research Society, and Miyoko Hojo from the Chinese Dim Sum Research Society. He will fight five people in a row, with each match limited to one hour and a half-hour break in between."

"Wait a minute." Someone caught the key point. "Takumi Aldini? The older of the Aldini brothers?"

"And there's Hojo Miyoko? Didn't she win the Yokohama Chinatown cooking competition for two consecutive years?"

"Sakurai Yumi—that Sakurai Yumi from a family of master chefs? Her family's miso tofu was featured in the Michelin Guide!"

"José López Ruz is no ordinary man either. As the ace of the Spanish Culinary Research Society, I've heard that he can combine traditional Spanish cuisine with modern cooking techniques."

"Henri Grondin of the French Culinary Research Association is a tough opponent. He just won two food battles last month. This group of people are all here because he rejected Kuga-senpai. Fighting five people in one day, regardless of the outcome, just looking at this list is scary enough."

"And that redhead, his opponent is Mito Ikumi, known as the 'Meat Invader.' Competing with the heiress of the Mito Group for beef, isn't that just asking for trouble? And if he loses, he'll have to drop out of school. He's only been enrolled for less than a month and he's already pushed himself to this point. What is he thinking?"

"Are these two transfer students in this year crazy?"

I think so too.

This kind of dialogue was repeated in every corridor, every research club, and every dining table in Totsuki Dormitory. By evening, even the bulletin board at the entrance of the Polaris Dormitory was covered with handwritten support slogans—"Go, two transfer students from the Polaris Dormitory!"—signed by "All members of the Rice Bowl Research Club".

On the way back to Polaris Dormitory, Chen Yuxing and Yukihira Soma walked side by side on the ginkgo path. Most of the leaves had fallen, and they rustled underfoot. The setting sun cast long shadows of the two of them, trailing behind them like two black tails.

"Are you confident?" Soma Yukihira asked first.

“Yes,” Chen Yuxing said.

"Five games in a row?"

“I’ve looked at the list of opponents I’m facing. Henri Grondin from the French Culinary Research Association, Takumi Aldini from the Italian Culinary Research Association, Hiromi Sakurai from the Japanese Culinary Research Association, Miyoko Hojo from Yokohama Chinatown, and José López Ruz from the Spanish Culinary Research Society. All five of them are quite strong, but I can specify the challenges.” He pulled his hand out of his pocket and counted on his fingers, “I have dishes I’m proficient in both Chinese and French cuisine, and I also have a solution for Sakurai’s specialty, tofu, so I don’t need to cram at the last minute. I haven’t had much experience with Italian and Spanish cuisine, so I’ll have to think about a strategy when I get back.”

"What about you?"

Chen Yuxing countered with a question.

Soma Yukihira scratched his messy red hair and remained silent for a while.

"To be honest, not really."

He looked at a ginkgo leaf in front of his toes. "I've tried Mito Ikumi's A5 Wagyu once. In terms of meat quality alone, the best beef you can buy on the market is only passable in her hands. If we were to compare meat quality head-on, I would definitely lose."

So what do you plan to do?

"do not know."

Soma Yukihira put his hands behind his head and looked up at the bare ginkgo branches. "I came up with the idea of ​​a rice bowl myself. I think that rice bowls aren't just about the quality of the meat—the combination of rice and meat, the sauce, and the overall balance are all things that can be worked on. But I'm still thinking about how to do it. Right now, my only clue is that I need to use cheaper beef to compete with their A5 Wagyu beef and use processing techniques to make up for the difference in meat quality. But I haven't figured out what techniques to use yet."

"Cheap meat is used to buy high-quality meat."

"Correct."

Chen Yuxing thought for a moment and didn't continue. There's a characteristic to discussing cooking with Yukihira Soma—you can't just tell him the answer directly; you have to let him figure it out himself. Otherwise, the things he makes won't have that kind of tension that only he can give.

The two walked along the ginkgo path and turned onto the gravel road leading to the Polar Star Dormitory. The lights of the old wooden building shone faintly among the shadows of the trees, and the light coming through the windows of the canteen tinged the weeds in the front yard with a warm yellow hue.

"Let's go to the market tomorrow morning," Chen Yuxing suddenly said. "Are you coming?"

"go."

Chapter 11 Rice Bowl

The next morning, the two rushed into the market as soon as it opened.

This market is several times larger than the morning market in a typical commercial street. Food suppliers from all over the country have stalls here. The seafood section alone is divided into three areas: the Sea of ​​Japan, the Pacific Ocean, and imported products. As early as 5 a.m., the wholesale area has already started trading. Forklifts are going in and out of the cold chain warehouse. The air is filled with the fresh smell of seafood and the earthy smell of vegetables.

Soma Yukihira stood in front of the butcher shop for a long time, picking up piece after piece of beef to examine each one, then putting them down again. He didn't even glance at the A5 Wagyu beef—he couldn't afford it and didn't want to use it.

But he held the ordinary cuts of beef shank and shoulder in his hands, weighing, squeezing, and smelling them repeatedly.

"What are you thinking about?" Chen Yuxing asked, picking out his ducks and seasonings.

"The depth to which the sauce penetrates is related to the direction of the meat's grain."

Soma Yukihira held a piece of beef shoulder up to the light to examine its texture. "But simply changing the cutting technique is far from enough. To significantly improve the taste of cheap beef, we need to take another approach—such as softening the meat in advance. However, chemical tenderizers cannot be used, as that is against the rules, and physical pounding will damage the shape of the meat. When making rice bowls, the meat pieces will be broken into small pieces and look too shabby."

"Yesterday, senior student Isshiki picked a basket of onions from the vegetable garden."

Chen Yuxing casually remarked, "The onion harvest at Polaris Dormitory is quite good this year."

Soma Yukihira paused for a moment while holding the beef.

"onion..."

"Mmm, it's very sweet. I even ate half of it raw yesterday, but it made my eyes water."

"There's something in onions..."

Soma Yukihira put the beef into his shopping basket, turned around and strode towards the produce section. "Protein hydrolysate! Onion juice can pre-soften the meat without ruining its shape. If the marinating time is long enough, it can also allow the free amino acids produced by the enzymatic hydrolysis to blend with the sauce—even cheap beef can have that rich flavor that only comes from long stewing!"

He squatted down in front of the onion basket and started picking out the biggest ones. He picked out two, then ran back to get two more. After putting the onions away, he said to Chen Yuxing, "You said that to me on purpose, didn't you?"

"I just really want stir-fried pork with onions."

Soma Yukihira didn't press the matter further, but from the faint smile on Chen Yuxing's lips, he knew that this person wasn't just making things up casually.

For the next week, the kitchen in Polaris Dormitory never went out.

Soma Yukihira would squat in the backyard at six o'clock every morning to peel onions, his hands smelling strongly of onions, and he couldn't get rid of the pungent smell even after washing them three times. Every morning when Yoshino Yuuki came to feed the chickens, she would walk around the kitchen, cursing as she walked, "If I smell onions for one more day, I'm moving the chicken coop to the roof."

He tried over ten different versions of the onion-marinated beef recipe, varying the marinating time from twenty minutes to two hours. He made comparative notes on the differences between adding soy sauce to the marinade and not adding soy sauce, and between adding rice vinegar and adding red wine to the sauce. Every night, a row of different versions of onion beef rice would appear on the cafeteria table, and his roommates would take turns tasting and writing their opinions.

Chen Yuxing would occasionally pass by the kitchen and taste his experimental products.

"The sauce is sweet enough, but the transition between salty and sweet flavors is too fast, with no middle transition. Try adding some miso as a base."

Soma Yukihira tried it, and the next version was indeed much richer in layers.

Chen Yuxing didn't practice much this week. He simply tried making each of the five types of dishes two or three times to confirm the timeline and order of operations for each dish.

After all, Lien Chan's biggest challenge is not the difficulty of a single dish, but rather his physical exertion and time management.

Five dishes must be prepared in a short time, with only half an hour in each round to change the topic and prepare the ingredients. If you exhaust your energy in the first two rounds, you will collapse in the following rounds. His strategy is simple: cook the dishes as quickly as possible in the first two rounds, save the time and energy for the two tough battles in the middle, and use dragon beard noodles to quickly finish the last Chinese cuisine.

Saturday morning.

The branch venue between the moon and the sky is a circular arena, smaller than the main venue, but it can still seat several hundred people. The audience seats are arranged in a tiered manner around the central cooking station. The judges' seats are located directly in front, with five seats. The dome is lit with cool white lights, making the stainless steel stoves on the cooking station look like operating tables. Kawashima Rei is standing on the host's platform, wearing a short jacket with the Food Wars Bureau's emblem, and is announcing the program to the audience.

"Greetings everyone! I'm Rei Kawashima, the host of this Food War! The most anticipated Food War of the year is about to begin at the Moonlight Palace branch! First up is the main event of the morning—Soma Yukihira versus Ikumi Mito! The theme is meat dishes, and the dish is limited to rice bowls! The stakes are either Soma Yukihira dropping out of school or Ikumi Mito becoming Soma Yukihira's exclusive ingredient consultant, keeping the Rice Bowl Research Club running with double the funding. Please welcome both of them!"

Soma Yukihira emerged from the left passage. His school uniform sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, and his signature white headband was tied around his forehead. He walked slowly, each step firm and deliberate. Upon reaching the kitchen counter, he first inspected the stove and pots, then checked each item on the condiment rack—soy sauce, mirin, rice vinegar, red wine, miso, salt, and sugar—unscrewing and shaking each one to make sure it was full.

Several people in the audience shouted to him, "Don't lose, Soma!" The voices sounded very familiar. He looked up and saw that the entire Polar Star Dormitory had taken up a whole row of seats. Even Mrs. Fumio was there, sitting next to Isshiki Satoshi, holding a thermos in one hand and fanning herself with the other. Tadokoro Megumi was holding up a handwritten banner that read, "Anything from Polar Star is guaranteed to be of the highest quality." The handwriting was hers—neat and clean, just like her notebook.

Mito Ikumi came up from the right passage. She wasn't wearing her school uniform today, but a dark purple, tight-fitting chef's uniform. Two assistants followed behind her, pulling a refrigerated cart. The steaks on the cart showed perfect marbling under the lights, with the boundary between fat and muscle resembling marble patterns. Each piece was cut neatly. Just by looking at this piece of meat, you could tell it was top-quality meat that the Mito Group exclusively supplied to their young mistress, something you could never find on the market.

"A5 grade Wagyu beef, with a marbling level of at least eight or higher."

Marui Zenji pushed up his glasses in the audience, "This kind of meat is already a top-notch delicacy even if eaten raw."

"But rice bowls are not just about eating meat."

"Isshiki Satoshi said softly."

Kawashima Rei raised her hand: "The match begins! Time limit: 60 minutes!"

Soma Yukihira opened his food basket and took out a large piece of beef shoulder.

The most common grade in the supermarket has almost no marbling on the surface, and the muscle fibers are coarse and tough. Even if an ordinary person buys it and stews it for three or four hours, it may not be tender. A series of low whispers came from the audience, and a few supporters of Mito Ikumi even laughed out loud. Comparing this kind of meat to A5 Wagyu beef for a rice bowl is just asking for trouble.

He paid no attention, turned on the stove, heated the pan, and poured in the oil.

He chopped the onion and poured it into a pot, then sautéed it over low heat until it turned from white to a translucent light golden color. The entire kitchen counter was filled with a sweet aroma of onion. He put the sautéed onion into a large bowl, added soy sauce, mirin, and a small amount of red wine, stirred it well, and then soaked the thickly sliced ​​beef shoulder into the marinade, gently kneading it with his hands.

"He's using onion juice to tenderize the meat."

In the audience, Konishi Kanichi of the Rice Bowl Research Club suddenly widened his eyes. "The proteolytic enzymes in onions can break down the muscle fibers of beef, acting as a natural tenderizer. Furthermore, the sugars in the onion puree caramelize when heated, adding layers of flavor to the sauce..."

Marui Zenji quickly flipped through the information in his mind: "But this method has limited effect on softening beef fibers. It's already good enough that the onion enzyme can tenderize ordinary beef shoulder to a level close to mid-grade meat. It's still two grades lower than A5 Wagyu beef."

Soma Yukihira was still busy. He put the marinated beef into the refrigerator to rest, and while he was there, he started to prepare the side dishes. He cut the carrots into thin slices of the same thickness, separated the broccoli into small florets, boiled water in a small pot, added salt and blanched the beef until it was 70% cooked, then took it out and rinsed it with ice water. Then he turned to preparing the rice.

He chose short-grain Akita Komachi rice, rinsed it, soaked it for 20 minutes, and then cooked it in a clay pot over medium heat. He used 10% less water than usual, so that the cooked rice would be distinct and easier to absorb the sauce.

Twenty minutes later, he took the marinated beef out of the refrigerator. The onion marinade had turned the surface of the beef light brown. When he pressed it with his finger, he could feel that the meat was much softer than before, but it still maintained its basic elasticity. If it marinated for too long, the meat would become powdery. He pinched it at just the right time.

He heated a frying pan, added a piece of butter, and as the butter melted, he laid the beef slices flat in the pan. With a sizzle, oil splattered everywhere.

He flipped the meat after frying it for less than 30 seconds. The meat slices quickly changed color in the pan, turning slightly browned with small, crispy edges. He poured the onion sauce from the marinade into the pan and cooked it until the sauce thickened. Finally, he added a spoonful of miso.

The sauce thickened dramatically, and the entire arena was filled with the sweet, salty, and caramelized aroma of beef.

To assemble the rice bowl, scoop the rice from the casserole into a deep bowl, top the rice with a layer of stir-fried onion slices, then neatly arrange the pan-fried beef slices, and place blanched carrot slices and broccoli on the side.

Finally, pour the remaining sauce from the pot over the beef. The sauce seeps down along the grain of the meat and soaks into the rice, leaving a glistening sheen on the surface of the bowl.

He took a bite himself, and then brought the bowl to the judges' table.

The five judges included professional food critics invited by Totsuki Culinary Academy, representatives from related industries, and certified judges from the Food Wars Bureau.

Sitting in the middle was the head judge—an old man with gray hair and round-framed glasses, who was said to be a graduate of Totsuki Academy and had run a French restaurant in Ginza for thirty years. He picked up a spoon and scooped up a mouthful of rice.

He stopped the moment the rice touched his mouth.

The sweet and salty flavors of the sauce blend perfectly with the starchy sweetness of the rice. The onion puree has caramelized after being stir-fried for a long time, releasing a sweetness that overlaps with the base flavors of soy sauce and mirin, and is then firmly supported by the final spoonful of miso. Each grain of rice is distinct and coated with sauce.

This is not just a bowl of rice with a few slices of beef; the rice itself has become the main flavor.

Then he picked up a slice of beef, and the feel of the fork cutting into it made him raise an eyebrow slightly. It wasn't as melt-in-your-mouth as A5 grade beef, but it was definitely not the chewiness that ordinary cheap beef should have. The beef fibers were softened by onion enzymes, and you could feel the elasticity of the meat when you chewed it. You didn't need to bite hard at all. The meat itself had a mixed flavor of caramel and sauce, and you could even taste a hint of tannins from red wine at the end.

The senior judge took off his glasses, wiped the lenses, and then said to Soma Yukihira, "Give me another bowl, just rice will do."

Soma Yukihira served him a bowl of white rice.

The old man mixed the last bit of sauce into the bowl and slowly finished eating without saying a word, but the bowl of rice was completely devoured. That was the most powerful expression of his feelings.

Mito Ikumi's judging process was also very quiet; her cooking was indeed perfect.

The marbling of the A5 Wagyu beef melts into tiny fat particles during searing, penetrating into the gaps between the meat fibers. When cut open, the cross-section has a subtle sheen. The sauce is made from red wine, beef bone broth, and butter. The side dishes are honey-marinated carrots and grilled asparagus. The rice is Koshihikari rice, each grain glistening. The entire bowl of rice is flawless, as exquisite as a textbook example.

But after the old judge finished his last bite, he placed his chopsticks across the bowl and said something at length: “Mito, your rice bowl has no flaws, but the core competitiveness of this bowl is the beef itself. You seared the A5 Wagyu beef perfectly, the sauce is excellent, and the rice is cooked well—but if you used a slightly inferior piece of beef, the whole dish would completely fall apart, because the foundation of this dish lies in just one point: the quality of the meat determines everything.”

He turned to look at Soma Yukihira: "And you've taken a piece of beef shoulder that you can easily buy in the supermarket and made it so that it can compete with A5 Wagyu beef on the same judging table. The competitiveness of this bowl of rice doesn't just rely on the beef—the onions, the sauce, the miso, the firmness of the rice, the depth to which the sauce has penetrated into the rice, each of these elements contributes. Taken individually, each of these elements is not as strong as A5 Wagyu beef, but when they are put together, they achieve a balance in this bowl that A5 Wagyu beef cannot achieve on its own."

He held up the scoreboard.

"Soma Yukihira, 4 votes. Ikumi Mito, 1 vote. Winner—Soma Yukihira."

Mito Ikumi stood there, looking at the half-eaten rice bowl in front of her.

The cheers from the audience buzzed in her ears, but she didn't hear Soma Yukihira's name. Instead, the old judge's words, "If we used a slightly inferior piece of beef," repeated three times in her mind. She pulled the zipper of her chef's uniform down a little and took a deep breath.

Then she walked up to Soma Yukihira and extended her right hand.

"You win."

Soma Yukihira grasped her hand; her hand was strong, unlike that of a young lady who only displayed her skills on high-grade beef.

"Who taught you your technique for curing meat with onions?"

"I figured it out myself. And..."

Soma Yukihira turned his head and glanced in the direction of the Polar Star Dormitory audience seats. From there came the furious roars of Daigo Aoki and Shoji Sato, who were already wrestling in their seats.

"...My roommate reminded me."

Mito Ikumi followed his gaze. In the row of seats in the Polar Star Dormitory, a black-haired boy leaned back against the back of the chair, his arms crossed over his chest, looking half asleep. The blue-haired girl sitting next to him was clapping enthusiastically for Yukihira Soma, her face full of pride. Although his eyes were closed, she felt that he was smiling.

"Was that Lian Zhan from your Polaris Dormitory this afternoon also from there?"

“Ah Xing? Yes, he lives in 301.”

"I will stay and watch it all."

It was exactly 1 p.m.

Kawashima Rei returned to the stage to host the event, and the audience was no less than in the morning. During lunch, some people even temporarily added seats in the corridor. The result of Yukihira Soma's food battle against Mito Ikumi had spread throughout the school. Those who were originally only interested in Lien Chan also arrived at the scene early. Two transfer students were competing on the same day. The one in the morning had already won. Would the one in the afternoon do the same?

"Greetings everyone! This afternoon's Food Wars will begin! First-year transfer student Chen Yuxing will face off against five opponents! Each match will be half an hour apart, with a time limit of sixty minutes to prepare one dish: seafood rice, beef, squid, tofu, and pastry! The judging panel consists of certified judges from Totsuki Academy, professional food critics, and invited ingredient experts! Now, please welcome the first contestant to the stage!"

Chen Yuxing walked out from the left passage. He wasn't wearing a headscarf, and his school uniform was worn casually, with the sleeves pulled up to halfway up his forearms. He carried the knife case in his left hand and put his right hand in his pocket. He walked like a student coming to the cafeteria for food.