Again, a beautiful story. I was so tense the whole time because I constantly expected his parents to come home, or he giving something away on the phone, or something unplanned happening . But in the end, everything worked out perfectly, I was surprised!
Sadly, the soup couldn’t rescue the old lady - or maybe it managed to fully turn her into a mummy?
This time there didn’t seem to be a life-changing event in the story. Nonetheless, the whole process of creating and purifying the broth was probably leaving a big impression. Maybe it even influenced his decision to pick up a job related to high-precision devices?
I could see why the character chose to share it - it was obviously an event that had a profound impact albeit without obvious effect on his later career choice.
There are so many unanswered questions in this story (what was the illness for the neighbour, how did she develop this skill at consommé making, what happened to the parents that afternoon, did he ever see the neighbour again…) But I wonder if that is the way of real life anecdotes too. History does not relate…
The soup making is described in incredibly poetic vivid detail. I can’t say that I have ever made this sort of soup, so I was just as mystified as the 主人公
If you were similarly mystified, this blog maybe helpful. The author was watching a favourite cooking YouTuber, and his episode on Consommé made them remember the コンソメスープ名人. There are photos from the youtube video with some corresponding passages from the story.
The whole video is quite fun if you are at all inclined to food geekery
I sort of found this story to be a bit uninteresting. I can appreciate it for what it was, but I think it was ultimately not for me - the nature of short story collections! One thing that I did notice this week as I felt my mind wander a bit due to the disinterest was the structure of the storytelling. For all the effort put in to build the setting for these short stories, it’s sort of interesting that the narration doesn’t really feel at all like that was how the stories were captured. A minor gripe but sort of bugged me haha - all will be forgiven if they somehow connect in the end, but I suppose it’s a nice excuse to tell many stories of this sort of reflective fictional-autobiographical style? Either way I’m enjoying them well so far!
. But in the end, everything worked out perfectly, I was surprised!
