Mysterious Journey
Chapter 693 Scatter, Senbonzakura!
England, Dorset.
5:15 PM.
The intense and stimulating Quidditch training finally came to an end. For most of the players, their activities for the day could be considered temporarily over. The next thing to do was to go home, take a good bath, rest, and digest the gains of the day.
However, for Luna and Hannah, the truly exciting part of the day was just beginning.
According to their previous agreement, dinner would be cooked by Eileen – a delicacy they had been looking forward to for half the summer.
Led by Tina Scamander, the "NanaNana" quartet – one adult and three children – left the Jurassic Quidditch pitch, crossed the seaside-town-style streets of Bournemouth, and returned to the Scamander house located somewhere in the town.
Although according to Mrs. Scamander, the town wasn't that complicated and they could go out to buy some small things on weekends.
Unfortunately, in Eileen's eyes, any street with more than three turns was no different from the legendary Minos labyrinth. Besides finding a direction and brute-forcing her way through, any so-called intuition or anti-intuition would get her lost.
Fortunately, the other two little wings were quite reliable when it came to directions.
Eileen only needed to find a way to fill their bellies with her superb skills, and then she could naturally make all sorts of requests to them, such as… directions, directions, and covering up her secret of having a bad sense of direction.
However, as time went on, the surprise and allure of common European cuisine were rapidly declining.
Women, especially little lolis, were never very reliable when it came to credibility.
In order to prevent Luna, Hannah, and others from being used by Grindelwald, Dumbledore, and other scheming centenarians, Eileen had to continuously introduce new dishes and new forms of entertainment to consolidate her authority in the hearts of her wings.
On the other hand, if she wanted to conquer Mr. and Mrs. Scamander in just one month, Eileen really needed to carefully consider the dishes she needed to cook, instead of completely copying the school's set of practices.
The variety of dishes needed to be as abundant as possible, but the selection of ingredients needed to be as simple as possible;
The taste should be full of surprises, but the cooking method should not be too difficult to imitate;
The cooking concept needed to be imaginative, but the detailed interpretation had to be as precise as a machine;
The non-magical world provided a complete dietary system, and magic also had to find a suitable entry point for improvement and participation;
…
With all sorts of factors stacked together, the answer was obvious.
Pork!
As one of the earliest animals to be domesticated by humans, it was the most peak achievement of pastoral civilization to date.
In the human civilization's recipes, the development of edible parts and methods of pork has reached its extreme.
…………
Scamander's house, on the meadow outside the tree house.
"Today, this week… well, this month's main course is it!"
Eileen pointed to the large white pig that was probably four or five times her weight at her feet, and said cheerfully.
"I roughly estimated that according to the amount of food we five eat, this pig should be just enough to eat for a month!"
Yorkshire Large White Pig, this can be said to be the most widely distributed and most famous large pig breed in the world. Due to its large size and rapid weight gain, many countries have unanimously chosen to introduce it and cross it with their native pigs to cultivate excellent Large White Pig breeds – in the era when Eileen lived, most of the edible pork came from this Large White Pig.
You know, China, which ranks first in the world in terms of pig farming and slaughtering volume, is definitely the country that loves pigs the most in the world.
Naturally, Eileen, who came from a big foodie country, also has considerable confidence in how to properly utilize various parts of the pig – cooking on the flames is her specialty.
However, compared to the confident Eileen, the other three "Nana" looked much more茫然.
Hannah and Luna trusted Eileen's cooking skills very much. After all, they had spent a whole school year together, and as Hogwarts' designated taste-testing little wings, they knew very well Eileen's talent in cooking.
However, in their impression, pork didn't seem to have much to look forward to.
At Hogwarts, they ate the most of fried bacon, smoked bacon, and various sausages, minced meat, and pork knuckles. Overall, the taste was greasy. It was okay to eat it occasionally with other foods, but if they kept eating it…
Luna and Hannah couldn't help but look at each other, seeing the same worry in each other's eyes.
Meat was delicious, but the thought of eating sausages and bacon for a whole month was too uncomfortable!
On the other side, Tina Scamander, a lady who had raised children and had decades of family kitchen experience, considered and worried about things that were obviously more specific and practical than the "two little Nana."
"Dear little Eileen, it's not that I don't trust your identity as the Hogwarts chef."
"In fact, I'm looking forward to the upcoming dinner… but before that, we may need to solve a problem first."
Mrs. Scamander shook her head and pointed in confusion to the whole pig she had just bought back from the slaughterhouse.
"Have you figured out how to turn it into pieces of meat?"
If it wasn't for the "Hogwarts Chef" repeatedly emphasizing it, Tina Scamander would almost never have deliberately run to a Muggle slaughterhouse to buy this whole pig that hadn't been cut by a butcher according to her original idea.
The trouble was only one aspect, and more was that she didn't know where to start – perhaps her husband would have more experience in this area.
After all, as a well-known Magizoologist, Newt Scamander would occasionally dissect magical creatures for research, but as for Tina herself, she had always bought finished products directly from the butcher shop and had never personally handled such large livestock.
"How to turn it into meat? Isn't it already meat?"
Eileen looked at Mrs. Scamander with some incomprehension, shrugged her shoulders, and replied very naturally.
"There's a knife, there's a workbench, just cut it open, classify it, isn't it?"
"No, what I mean is…"
Looking at Eileen, who might not be as big as that Yorkshire pig, Tina Scamander thought for a while and continued to add.
"You see, cooking and slaughtering are different. Although we have many magical creatures in our house, we don't have house-elves like those in Hogwarts Castle. It's still early, the butcher shops in Bournemouth shouldn't be closed yet, we should be able to find some reliable Muggle butchers there to help with the processing…"
A top chef is not equal to a good butcher.
Perhaps Eileen did have some talent in cooking, but dismantling a whole pig and separating meat and bones, this series of physical and technical work, no matter which angle Tina looked at it from, she thought it was too difficult for this little witch.
"Butcher shop? Muggle… butcher? Oh, you mean Muggle butcher?"
Eileen was slightly stunned at first, and then quickly understood Mrs. Scamander's worries.
In fact, Tina Scamander's worries were indeed justified. If it were before learning magic, it would be difficult for Eileen alone to handle the slaughtering and dismantling process of the whole pig, even with old man Benitez.
Just like dissection in biology and medicine, slaughtering is also a skill that tests the basics.
This is not a process that can be completed by relying on brute force alone.
Without the correct force skills, dismantling methods, knife direction, and overall thinking, blindly processing the whole pig according to the family kitchen's chopping meat method will not only mix bone and meat scraps together, but more importantly, it will destroy many important tissues.
Because of this, Hogwarts is assisted by house-elves in handling pigs, cattle, and deer.
In Eileen's opinion, whether it's Hogwarts' house-elves or most of the butchers in the European continent, they still have many unsatisfactory things in slaughtering and processing ingredients.
This is not because their technical skills are not up to par, but because the poor recipes on this continent limit their imagination.
You know, unlike the monotonous cooking methods of pork sausages, meat slices, and knuckles in Europe, in the distant Eastern continent, pigs in the eyes of top chefs and butchers are actually equivalent to – cold pork ears, stewed pork with cabbage, beef and offal in chili sauce, sweet and sour pork tenderloin, charcoal grilled pig nose tendons, spicy fried large intestine, pork skin jelly, Dongpo pork, bandit pig liver, shredded pork with scrambled eggs, pickled pepper pork kidney, stewed pork with vermicelli, kelp and pork rib soup, pork and scallion dumplings, spicy grilled pig brain…
Unfortunately, before this, Eileen had no better choice than to reprocess the already decomposed meat pieces, after all, she was only a loli over one meter tall, and brute force alone was far from enough.
However, times… have changed.
"Don't worry, Mrs. Scamander, don't forget my identity."
Eileen smiled slightly, reached into her collar, and took out a delicate and small black metal cross necklace.
"Whether it's a non-magical butcher or Hogwarts' house-elves, they are actually a bit rough and casual when handling the precious meat on the pig. After a pig is completely dismantled, there are at least one hundred ingredients."
"Your identity? Hmm, well…"
Tina Scamander glanced at the small cross in the girl's hand, her expression slightly strange.
If she remembered correctly, this should be an ornament that is often carried by followers of some Muggle religions in the non-magical world – whether it is the current scene or the words in the girl's mouth, it seems that people cannot associate them together.
"So… Miss Kaslana, you are originally a believer?"
Watching Eileen squat down, carefully putting the black metal cross in her hand on the Yorkshire pig in front of her, chanting something, Tina Scamander hesitated for a few seconds, and asked somewhat uncertainly.
"So… before going to the slaughterhouse, do you still need to perform some prayer rituals?"
"Pray? Believer? What are you talking about?"
Eileen blinked her eyes in confusion, and gently touched the small cross on the pig with her wand.
"Vera verto"
The next moment.
The black metal cross disappeared silently from everyone's sight.
Only a hole smaller than a needle's eye was left on the skin of the Yorkshire pig. The other end of the hole was connected to a string of necklaces with a strange black light, tightly wrapped around Eileen's right hand.
In the Yorkshire pig's body, which people could not see, extremely thin sheet metal grew and extended rapidly along the gaps of bones and muscles, and in less than a few seconds, it completely filled all the gaps of muscles, tendons, skin, fat, and bones in the pig's body.
Eileen smiled and stood up, waved the chain wrapped around her finger casually, and said softly.
"Scatter, Senbonzakura –"
Boom!
A black metal flower bloomed instantly.