After returning to the castle with a pile of seafood, Liszt didn't have the kitchen cook it right away.
The seafood did look a lot like the kind he remembered, but they needed to test whether it was edible and whether it was poisonous. The test was simple. Marcus took the few hunters in town to the outskirts of Thorn Ridge, where they set traps and caught several wolves, wildcats, and other carnivores.
The wolves and wildcats locked in the cages were ravenous.
The seafood was tossed in, and the beasts devoured it immediately. Then they fed cooked seafood to another group of animals. After waiting a day, they found that two beasts who had eaten a certain kind of sea urchin had died, but the rest were still lively, showing no signs of poisoning.
"This proves that the seafood from the coast is pretty much the same as seafood on Earth, except for the sea urchins. We'll rule those out. Have the edible seafood made into specimens for the farmers who go gathering along the shore to use as references."
After thinking it over, Liszt didn't rush to send people out to gather seafood.
He needed to make others understand that seafood was delicious, not disgusting.
A lot of seafood could be eaten raw, but Liszt didn't recommend it. He always felt that eating too much seafood made it easy to get infected by parasites.
Without any proper medical care, getting infected by parasites meant waiting to die.
So he called over the cook, Mrs. Abby Spoon. "Mrs. Abby, I'll show you how to cook seafood. See this crab? Scrub it clean with a brush, then steam it. Do the same with this mantis shrimp. Scrub it clean, then boil it in plain water."
"Now look at this. These clams can be used in soup, or you can stir-fry them. And these oysters can actually be eaten raw, but I don't eat raw seafood, so you'll need to boil or stir-fry them. We have a lot of oysters here. I call them 'raw oysters.' If you can't eat them all, you can dry them in the sun and simmer the dried oysters to make oyster sauce."
Oysters, also known as shellfish, were a type of bivalve.
They were a prized ingredient.
Back home, Liszt had loved eating oysters. That was because they were rich in zinc, which played an important role in the development of secondary sexual characteristics. Even a trace of zinc in the blood could make a person feel full of vigor...
So,
oysters were destined to become an essential dish on the Baron's table.
Fortunately, Flower Town was close to the sea, and no one had overharvested the oysters. They were packed densely across the ocean floor, so there was no need to worry about running low on zinc.
Sixteen-year-old Liszt was still growing rapidly. The more he ate, the stronger he'd become.
After teaching Abby Spoon how to cook seafood, Liszt didn't expect this to be his first time eating seafood in this world—or, rather, he'd already tried some. At Long-Yam Castle, fishermen had once found a rock lobster in the sea.
As an island nation, the Sapphire Grand Duchy had quite a few fishermen.
When serfs fell on hard times, some naturally went to the sea to find food, and discovered that seafood was delicious. But poor transport and limited communication made it impossible to share the ways of preparing seafood between the islands. On Coral Island, the Tulip Family hadn't even finished clearing the land, so they had no reason to venture out to sea.
So the people of Flower Town hadn't thought of catching seafood in the decade or two they'd lived there.
"Mrs. Abby's cooking seafood for the first time. She probably can't even steam a crab properly. She'll just have to keep experimenting to figure out the best way to cook it, and improve her skills little by little."
Sure enough,
at lunchtime, Liszt ate the familiar seafood at the castle table, but couldn't recapture its familiar flavor.
The crab was oversteamed, the mantis shrimp was overboiled, the oysters were too tough, and the clam soup was full of sand. Still, he ate a lot with relish. It was much better than his usual bread and roasted meat.
Marcus, Gortai, Isaiah, and Blair joined Liszt for the seafood feast.
"Delicious!" was Marcus's simple verdict before he buried himself in the mantis shrimp and crabs.
Isaiah smiled. "Delicious!"
Blair gave a thumbs-up. "A rare delicacy!"
Gortai was the most dramatic. At first, he'd been put off by how ugly the oysters looked and couldn't bring himself to eat them. But once he got a taste, he couldn't stop. He cleared the plate in front of him, then asked for two more servings.
He took a sip of beer flavored with hops and ate an oyster. His deeply lined face was full of happiness. "I remember now. I remember."
"What do you remember?" Liszt asked, deftly cracking open a crab.
"When I was young, I traveled to an island called Flying Fish Island. I ate this... oyster at one of the islanders' homes. I was drunk back then, and ate a whole heap of oysters. I had a wonderful night. After I sobered up and left Flying Fish Island, I never found that delicacy again. I never expected to find it now."
"Then eat plenty. Maybe something wonderful will happen tonight, too." Liszt gave him a knowing smile.
He already knew that Gortai had found a young girl in town, only sixteen or seventeen years old. If she hadn't chosen to be with Gortai of her own accord, Liszt would absolutely have stopped the old man from going after someone so young.
Gortai laughed. "Who knows? Anyway, I've already fallen in love with oysters."
Isaiah and Blair exchanged knowing smiles.
They were all adults and understood what he meant.
Even Marcus looked expectant and turned to eat some oysters.
Upstairs, the nobles and knights were happily enjoying the seafood feast. Downstairs, the servants were just as delighted by the food in the kitchen.
"This mantis shrimp is so good! If I hadn't tasted it myself, who would've thought such an ugly bug could be so delicious?" Irene Four-Fingers dug in enthusiastically.
Abby said disapprovingly, "Young lady, don't eat so rudely. You look just like a boy."
"I'm only a kitchen maid. Why can't I eat like this? I ate this way at home, too. Mr. Carter never complained."
Carter cut his oyster elegantly. As the butler, he always tried to make sure that all his actions matched the bearing expected of a noble's butler, including how he ate.
He also expected the other servants to follow noble etiquette as much as possible.
At that, he said, "Irene, you've seen Miss Lvera's personal maid. Perhaps you should learn how she eats."
"I don't want to learn from her. She holds her fingers just so and cuts everything into tiny pieces. Anyone who didn't know better would think she was some noble lady. Sister Maisie's manners have even been praised by the lord, but she doesn't eat like that."
Maisie smiled. "I grew up in a village, and no one taught me how to dine elegantly. But I'm learning from Mrs. Morson. She worked at Tulip Castle, where the maids understand noble etiquette better than many noble ladies."
Mrs. Morson Paddy held the mantis shrimp by the head and squeezed hard to force out the meat. "That's because nobles have the right to break the rules, while we servants have to follow them strictly. Otherwise, we'll face scolding and punishment."
Irene suddenly exclaimed, "The lord would never punish a servant! Tom broke a vase in the castle yesterday, and the lord didn't even scold him."
"The lord is kind. I definitely won't break anything again," Tom said respectfully.
Thomas ate an oyster he'd pried open himself and sneered. "That's not necessarily true. Clumsy Tom, breaking a vase is just the beginning. You'll break plenty more things in the future. The lord should keep you from going upstairs."