The Twin of Myne

Intense Battle with Food: Part 1

 Due to Tuuli having started working, it became Myne and my job to prepare meals. But it was impossible for us to make a meal entirely by ourselves, considering that neither of us can even properly hold a knife nor make fires. In the end, we just made the food with Mom, helping where we could.

I've been thinking of recipes I could make with the resources we have, but all traditional American food is really expensive here. Mostly due to the fact that almost all American food uses oil and/or meat. I can't even make foods made to be cheap from the 1800s because they use oil. Even looking at the history of other countries, peasants normally still had access to meat, and I can only think of a few dishes that don't use meat, or anything expensive here. I'm sure Myne's Japanese food knowledge isn't much help either. There's no rice here or other essentials in Japanese dishes, also, from what I can tell, we don't live by the sea either, so that's no good for Japanese dishes either.

Myne tried to make pickles one time but there isn't dill here, which basically makes a pickle and pickle, so I refused to try it. It's a shame because pickles are one of my favorite foods. Which is one of the reasons I refused to try Myne's fake pickle, 'cause I'm sure it would've ruined all pickles for me.

Overall, I'm not too hung up on not being able to use my recipes. It is frustrating that all of my ideas are basically useless with my current state, but all I need to do to fix that is get some money and influence. Then I'll be golden. Myne, however, is a lot more hung up on the fact that she can't make the things she wants. She said after she made the fake pickles, she just wanted Japanese food even more. I thought that was the end of it till the next day we went to the forest.

"Hey, Lutz. I want to try fishing. Are there fish in this river?" Myne stood by the river.

"I think that'll be too hard for you." Lutz says. I watch, sitting on a nearby rock, as they interact. Like always, Lutz was right. Myne feebly tried to catch a fish to no avail. I also suck at fishing. I think I've only caught a fish a few times in my life, and I was always too scared to pull it off the hook. I am fine cutting it up and cooking it once it is all done though. I just don't like when it's wriggling all over the place. "Here, I caught one. Whaddya wanna do with it?" Lutz hands the fish towards Myne who accepts it gratefully.

"You don't mind if I have it?" Myne asks. She always seems surprised when anyone does anything nice for her. She's an amazing person, you'd think that she would've gotten tons of kind gestures while she was Urano. Or maybe she was always too sucked up in a book to receive any kind gestures.

"Nah. I don't need a fish."

"Can you start a fire? I want to cook this with salt."

And Myne did just that. Lutz started the fire, and then Myne cooked it over the fire with salt, but an awful stench started to fill the air. It wasn't just a fishy smell caused by the chemicals in the fish, but it was a rancid smell, like a dying animal. I'm not sure what would cause a fish to smell that bad because, normally, the fresher the fish, the less it smells. After a little bit, Myne took the fish off the fire and brung the fish to her mouth. I watched in horror as she took a bite of the fish.

"What are you doing!?" Myne scrunches her face.

"This tastes like stinky mud..." Myne comments.

"How are you even still alive? Smell is there for a reason y'know. You're not supposed to eat things that smell bad." I scolded her. I'm not sure why, but for some reason if Myne gets sick, I get sick, and I do not want to get sick. Myne didn't seem to get the point of my yelling, so I sigh. "If you insist on cooking fish, at least filet it first." Myne asked Lutz to bring her another fish, and he did. I grabbed the fish from him and filet it. The fish kinda looked like a trout, so I filet it like a trout, or tried to. My knife doesn't have a serrated edge, so It was harder to cut in general. I had Lutz do most of the work. Especially the parts where I would have had to cut through bone. "Ok, now we can cook it." I placed the filet over the fire, and it smelled better this time, less like a dying animal so that is a step up. "Here." I handed the fish over to Myne once it was done.

"It's good! Who knew you were so good at cooking!"

"Lutz did most of the work, I just cooked the fish. -My Uncle actually worked on a fish farm, so I learned a lot about how to cook fish.-" I say that last part in English to avoid more suspicion from Lutz. Myne just nods, not acknowledging what I said in English, catching on that I didn't want Lutz to hear me. "I really hate cooking fish though, so consider this a one time occurrence."

"Wha??" Myne whines. "But I thought I would finally be able to make some (Japanese) food."

"Sorry to get your hopes up, but you said that the main thing you wanted was -rice,- and until you figure out how to get connections with the whole world, that is out of the question." Myne crosses her arms, and puckers her lips, turning away from me.

"Fine." She says.

When we got home, we found out that we were given a bird to eat today. One of our neighbors had bagged five birds in the forest, apparently. And since it'd be hard for his family to eat all of them before they went bad, he split them with us, partially as thanks for us splitting some meat with them when Dad similarly hunted too much in the past.

Mom was cutting up the bird. I didn't know what species it was. The knife she used for cutting meat was so heavy that neither I nor Myne could use it yet.

"Milli. Come now, pick the feathers." Mom called me over. I walked over there and grabbed the feathers of the bird and pulled. A sensation of the feathers popping overcame me while I plucked the feathers, and it was kinda gross, but dead animals don't really bother me. Myne on the other hand...I look over and see her choking back gags...is entirely bothered by dead animals. I hunted with my brother and Dad once before as Camilla, and I didn't shoot anything, but I did help prep the animals afterwards. I didn't really enjoy hunting though, so I never hunted again.

"Now, Milli. It's time to cook." Mom said after I finished plucking all the feathers.

"Okay." Myne joined us and started helping us cook the bird. I guess she's fine with the animal as long as she doesn't have to touch it. "Hey, Milli, we should make bird bone broth."

"That's a good idea, but how will we convince Mom?" I speak softly so as not to draw attention to our scheming.

"What are you two talking about?" Mom stood over us with her hands on her hips.

"We want -bird bone broth.-" I quickly said. Myne tries to explain what it is, but is only able to convince Mom to chop the bones up. Here, it was common just to eat the meat plain off the bone, and that way is fine and all, but a little variation in recipes would be nice. On the other hand, here people are lucky to survive, they don't really have time to think up new recipes. They just eat to survive, not really for enjoyment.

We threw bird bones, tenderloin, and herbs into our biggest pot. Myne chose herbs which smelled and tasted similar to what she was used to despite looking different. The ones she used smelled or tasted of onion, ginger, garlic, and bay leaf. Really, we put in anything that seemed like it would help cover the smell of the meat. This meal was well on its way to being the best I've had since I've come here as Milli.

Word Count: 1448

A/N: I hope you are all enjoying the story! Don't forget to comment (I love hearing your thoughts) and vote! Have a blessed day <3.

"But the Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one." 2 Thessalonians 3:3 NIV