The thing I have been waiting for is here!
As I trembled with joy, everyone found my behavior suspicious, and gathered around the wooden box.
“Cristea-san, just what has made you so… whoa, so many blue fruits!?”
“N? What is this…”
Mariel-chan and Sei were surprised by the abundance of blue fruits in the wooden box.
Yes, the box was full of vibrant, blue plums… unripe blue plums!
“I promised Ojou to get her plums for pickling the next time around…”
“Yes! You promised me to get these.”
“Well, that was all good and all. But when I tried to get them for you last year, they said not to because the ripe ones would spoil in transit from Yahatul all the way to the Capital, and also because there wasn’t enough material and tools.”
“Materials?”
While I was confused by Byakko-sama’s words, he took out many large, flat trays, earthenware, bamboo skewers, and a bundle of dark red leaves from his Inventory.
“Also, coarse salt.”
With a thud, coarse salt stored in another large earthenware pot was placed on the floor.
“This, this is…!”
Indeed, everything necessary to make pickled plums!
“This time, I had them bring everything from Yahatul, matching the plum season. It was difficult to keep these alive in potted plants.”
The bundle of leaves that had been handed to me earlier turned out to be red shiso leaves.
I’ve found green shiso leaves while foraging, but I definitely hadn’t found red shiso leaves.
Yes, these are essential for making pickled plums!
“I’ll also give you the seeds of this red shiso. Plant them if you feel like it.”
Yaaay! Red shiso seeds!
I’ll have to cultivate these in our fief’s estate or in the mansion in the Capital for next year!
And I’m really grateful to have been provided with pickling pots and flat trays for drying.
Without these, I would have had to start by figuring out the substitutes.
“Oh right, these are plums… Speaking of which, plum wine had something like this in it…”
Mariel-chan muttered to herself.
She seemed to remember drinking it in a previous life.
Mariel-chan, have you never seen green plums before?
“Miss Cristea, can you really make pickled plums?”
Sei looked at me with concern.
Well, from Sei’s perspective, I might seem quite obsessed with Yahatul, but he doubts that I can make pickled plums.
Well, there are some parts of my memory that are a bit hazy, but I think I can manage somehow. Yes.
“Oh, and about this, I was asked to give this to you as well.”
As if reminded by Sei’s words, Byakko-sama took out what seemed to be a letter from his pocket and handed it to me.
I opened it casually and found instructions on how to make pickled plums written in Doristan language.
It explained how to either ripen green plums to fully ripe ones before pickling, or how to pickle them after removing the bitterness while still green.
“Wow, this is perfect…! Oh my?”
On the second page, there were instructions on how to make plum wine.
It said, “Please also try making this for your Otousama.”
Right, with this much information, I could make not only pickled plums but also plum wine and plum syrup.