Mysterious Journey
Chapter 702: A Misguided Future for the Magical World
"...In short, later on, as my cooking skills improved, everyone realized that not eating meat wasn't a big deal."
Ailina gently propped her chin with one hand, her eyes filled with a hint of helplessness and nostalgia as she said softly.
"Especially when you realize that the ingredients you like are actually very cheap on the market, it's actually great news—as long as you're a little more financially comfortable, you can have a feast every week."
"Of course, I occasionally try to get some fish back from the lake, and if I'm lucky, I can catch some wild birds."
"The happiness of the children in the orphanage is much simpler than that of most people—eating stir-fried liver and kidney, or white bean stewed pig trotters once a week, and from time to time having grilled fish, fish soup, and chicken soup to change the taste, isn't that great?"
Not being able to buy normal meat...it doesn't matter?
Newt Scamander was stunned. His knife was still on his pork chop. For him, this was an assumption he had never considered before, a small, inconspicuous corner even in the non-magical world.
The magical world's isolation is only relative. The Statute of Secrecy mainly restricts products and ideas from after the Industrial Revolution.
For most wizards, the definition of poverty usually only extends to the amount of Galleons and the difficulty of obtaining certain magical tools and items. It rarely goes so far as to be unable to guarantee basic food and clothing.
Whether it's using magic to achieve basic self-sufficiency, or bullying and teasing Muggles, even a clumsy, third-rate wizard can find a way to survive in this world—although the Aurors of the Ministry of Magic may come looking for trouble, but for those impoverished wandering wizards who can't afford to pay fines anyway, as long as they don't go to Azkaban, it doesn't matter.
"So, if you have time," Ailina shrugged, "perhaps you should go to Africa, or Russia, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, and other places in the urban shadows—you might find it hard to understand, just like everyone at our orphanage did before...In this world, for some people, just staying alive is already their best effort."
Ailina could see the confusion and contemplation in the Scamanders' eyes, which was not much different from the expressions on Hannah and Luna's faces, although they might be shocked by it, but it was more of an astonishment from looking down from a high place.
Or rather...sympathy.
The girl narrowed her eyes and did not continue to explain and embellish the story.
Just as Dumbledore said, she would never be able to become someone like Grindelwald, Tom...or even Dumbledore himself, because Ailina was truly born from the mire and had struggled hard on the edge of life.
Wizards who have not experienced the lower class or even ordinary people's lives find it difficult to understand the meaning of that resilience.
"Well, okay..." Newt Scamander hesitated for a few seconds, nodded, and said slowly.
"When you go to train in a few days, I'll take the time to go to those places to find out. If so many places and so many people are having a hard time, I'll reconsider the livestock association proposal you mentioned earlier."
Newt looked down at the pork chop on his plate, and suddenly felt that dinner didn't seem as delicious as before.
Although Ailina's description sounded relaxed, and from her current performance, it was true that she liked the dishes cooked with pig organs and scraps, Newt could still vaguely imagine the hardship behind it.
The topic of offal ended there.
During the rest of the dinner that day, no one took the initiative to talk about stir-fried pork kidneys or spicy grilled pig brains.
Everyone was quietly eating the dishes on their plates. After a busy day, everyone was indeed starving.
The Scamanders did have some thoughts about trying some kidney flowers, but on the one hand, Ailina didn't mention sharing the kidney flowers or brain flowers again, and besides, as elders, they were too embarrassed to take the dishes from the three little girls' plates—especially when the girls were still secretly fighting over them from time to time.
However, on the other hand, mainly because, even though there was some surprise and shock, pig brains and pig kidneys, whether for Tina or Newt, the psychological hurdle was not so easy to overcome.
Ailina wasn't too surprised by this.
If you want the Scamanders to eat "dark cuisine" like Hannah and Luna, it's best to start with something that looks more normal...like pork offal sausage or mixed meat pie, or braised pig tongue, cold pig ears, braised pig heart, and braised pig liver are all good choices.
First impressions are always very important for any dish.
Not to mention Europeans, whose meals are mostly cooked by frying, grilling, or boiling, even many gourmets from the great food country of China are not very accepting of heavily oiled and spicy traditional Sichuan cuisine. This gap also includes the physiological level.
The reason why Hannah and Luna have such a high degree of acceptance is largely due to the subtle influence of the past year—you must know that the three of them enjoy top-chef-level cuisines every day, and Ailina has figured out their tastes, preferences, and almost completely turned into Ailina's shape.
As for Slytherin, which grows "Ghost Peppers", hidden attributes deep in their bodies have been excavated.
The human body is a wonderful existence.
With the help of magic, Slytherin's little wizards only need to grit their teeth and endure the first few rounds of spiciness, and they will soon fall in love with the fiery pleasure of dancing on the tip of their tongues. Compared to the temporary discomfort, being able to have something unique from the little wizards of other colleges is obviously a greater pleasure for the little snakes.
Especially when they find that the little lions of Gryffindor can't beat them in terms of eating spicy food...
Unknowingly, "no spice, no life" has even become a new label for Slytherin.
Fortunately, in any family, underage children ultimately do not have much say at the table.
Those adult wizards from pure-blood families should not have noticed these subtle details yet, and they don't know that the tastes of their little gentlemen and ladies have become unusual—picky eaters are not surprising for children in their rebellious period, after all, they are not the ones responsible for buying groceries and deciding on recipes.
I hope...those seventh-grade Slytherin graduates are still used to living outside of school...
Perhaps the first batch of stable off-campus users of "Round-Faced Chicken Takeaway" can consider starting from them? But those are things to consider later, and now we still need to find a way to solve the problem of ingredient supply first.
Ailina shook her head slightly, retracted her divergent thoughts, and returned her attention to the nearly finished dinner table.
"Mrs. Scamander," Ailina turned her head and said with a smile, "I'll take care of the rest of the kitchen work later. Besides, I still have some ingredients to process, and I may need to borrow your kitchen utensils."
"Ailina, today's dinner was great. Leave the rest to Newt and me! Besides, your current identity is guests, and guests should rest and enjoy their vacation..."
Tina Scamander frowned, a hint of displeasure and condemnation floating in her amber eyes.
Before Mrs. Scamander could finish her sentence, Ailina quickly picked up the apron draped over the back of the chair, walked to the kitchen worktable, picked up a long strip of white pig back fat, shook it, and stuck out her tongue to explain.
"I'm not taking over the kitchen work, but you see—fresh pig back fat is best rendered into lard as soon as possible, so that after the lard has slightly solidified, you can use it tomorrow morning and noon. This process has to be done by me personally, otherwise it's easy to mix in a burnt taste or cloudy color."
"As for helpers..."
Ailina paused slightly, her eyes wandering around the table, and landed on someone looking down at their plate of ostrich.
"After Hannah and Luna are settled, let Mr. Scamander come down to the kitchen to give me a hand. Newt is very trustworthy when it comes to animal tissue."
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Sorry for the wait...
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