It was the end of winter when the wind that used to sting my skin stopped, and I began to feel a certain warmth in the morning sunlight that illuminated my white breath.
In the season of melting snow and sprouting seeds, I had experienced a huge setback.
「Anyway, I think this one is a failure.」
「Is there nothing we can do about it? Is there anything else we can try?」
「We’ve tried enough. We tried everything master has suggested, haven’t we?」
「Right, I guess it failed……」
「I’m afraid that’s all we can do about it.」
I was in a grain warehouse in the basement of the MSG headquarters with Chicken, who patted me on my shoulder as if to comfort me……
I can’t help but shrug down in front of a heap of sack of rice that was about to be disposed of.
……yes, rice.
I was so excited as if the medicine I’ve been waiting for from the north has finally been delivered by the caravan.
I took those precious rice grains with hull and with the help of my sister-in-law, who is from the north, and Isuka, who is a busy manager candidate, we succeeded in cultivating it and produced enough rice to even have surplus.
However, I completely failed to promote rice.
「After all, eating it is just simply felt messy……or something……」
「Call it chewy……」
「Also, the smell……the smell is a little too strong……」
「The smell is……I guess there’s nothing we can do if you don’t like its smell……」
「Hayashi rice was a hit but it would have been better if it had been served without rice」
What’s the point of putting rice there then?
「Anyway, please don’t serve any more rice dishes as part of the late night store’s products. Almost all of the rice dishes are just waiting to be disposed of.」
「Indeed……that would be a waste.」
Maa, it can’t be helped if it doesn’t suit your palate.
Even I wouldn’t pay attention to the convenience store products in my neighborhood that suddenly started promoting food from a country I had never heard of.
The only way to improve this is to take time in promoting rice grains and increasing awareness.
In the meantime……I have to decide how to dispose of this year’s rice, which is too much for my personal consumption.
Throwing it away is out of the question but it can’t be solved.
Then, for the time being, let’s make it into a form that can be quickly consumed.
「Ah, then, aside from what I’m going to consume, grind it into powder and mix it with flour. If it’s in a familiar form, people will eat it even if it tastes a little different.」
「Ah, that might be a good idea. If we can adjust the amount, we can disguise the taste and smell.」
Let’s take a lesson from the history of the previous generation and use the process of blending it on existing products.
Unlike the rice blends of the heisei rice riots, it’s a blend of wheat flour and rice flour, but rice flour bread was talked about a lot in my previous life too.
I’ve never tasted one though.
Fortunately, my family is a flour wholesaler.
It doesn’t take much time or money to make flour.
I’ll have her discuss the rest with my family’s watchdog(Pisquez)……
I left the rest to Chicken, my family’s slave boss, and staggered home with my rounded back.
-0-
A few weeks later.
The pink haired Seele, the head chef of the Magical Schenker Group, who took time out of her busy marriage activities and painstakingly completed the rice flour bread, was met with a dichotomous evaluation that was difficult to judge.
The positives were that it was savory, chewy, and tasted good for a bulky grain food.
The negatives were don’t like the smell, don’t like the texture, and don’t like bread mixed with millet.
Same things were both praised and condemned.
In other words, it’s bread but not really.
What was interesting was that those who praised the bread were from the north, while those who criticized it were from the south.
In the first place, the area near Torquiva is in the midst of the south which is a major wheat producing area.
Although the land is rural, the area is at the forefront of wheat breading and milling technology in the country.
Fundamentally, ordinary breads sold here are the best.
The rice used for rice flour this time is almost a native variety of rice which has not been improved at all.
Therefore, people from the south, who grew up eating bread made of 100% wheat, loudly rejected this rice flour bread.
On the other hand, those from the north, where wheat was in short supply and had grown up eating bread made from mixtures of various millet grains, loved rice flour bread very much.
And one of our family members was particularly pleased with this bread.
「I don’t dislike this bread. It’s fragrant and chewy……」
Yes, it’s my wife, Laura-san, from the far north.
As the table is being shone by sunlight, she chomps down a piece of rice flour bread with plenty of butter made in our underground dairy farm, with a “it melt’s in my mouth” face.
「Bread! Eattt～!」
「Chewww～！」
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