God of Cooking

How to bring out the unique taste of the ingredient itself was the biggest difference between Daniel and Rachel. That difference looked trifling at a glance, but it was like night and day.

Rachel now understood his point. Min-joon didn’t tell her what she lacked, but her face didn’t look bright. She wasn’t worried about herself. She was afraid he might feel disappointed because he tried all this to make her a perfect chef. She knew how hard it was to solve her problem.

“It’s difficult to bring out the taste well. For example, it’s difficult to bring out the taste of steak from steak and the taste of sugar from sugar,” she said.

If anybody who didn’t know about cooking heard it, they might be confused about her point because it was only natural for people to get the taste of steak from steak and sugar from sugar. But her point was not such simple taste.

What she meant was not the kind of taste that stimulated the tongue for a moment and disappeared. The moment one tasted it, one could feel like one’s whole body became the ingredient itself, and when one swallowed it, one would feel like its taste would go down to the toes through the blood vessels of the whole body, not just the throat. When one could bring out such a taste, one could become a real chef, just like Daniel.

Min-joon said confidently, “You and I don’t know failures, after all. So, I’m sure you can achieve the goal of perfect cooking.”

In the meantime, the news that Choters Guide evaluated the main restaurant of Rose Island quickly spread to lots of people quickly. Usually, only those who were interested in Min-joon and Kaya showed due interest in this new development. But their evaluation of Rose Island’s main store really drew lots of ordinary chefs’ attention because Rachel was evaluated by her student.

Chefs not only in the United States, but also in Korea, Japan, and even European countries began to pay attention to their evaluation. That was no exception to Chef Enzo and his son Theo in Paris.

Theo said, hurriedly coming into Enzo’s office, “Dad! The latest issue of Choters Guide is out on newsstands! I’ve purchased one.”

“Does it have any article about their evaluation of the Rose Island cuisine?”

“Of course! I’ve brought it to read with you, Dad. Would you like to see it?”

Enzo nodded. In fact, they were the hidden fans of Choters Guide. At first, they read the guide because of their association with Min-joon and Kaya. They were curious about what kind of guide it was, and after they read it, they subscribed to it because they liked its unique format. Above all, they liked the way Min-joon and Kaya carried their conversation while trying the sample dishes of the target restaurant, let alone their evaluation of the dishes. By reading their conversation, Enzo and Theo could read into other chefs’ minds, not to mention the Min-joon and Kaya couple who beat them at the Paris International Cooking Contest.

Min-joon and Kaya’s sense of cooking was definitely different from that of other ordinary chefs. People were amazed at how the two chefs could analyze the same dish from many different angles. Both were genius chefs. All the chefs who read Choters Guide had no choice but to admit it.

‘Maybe that’s one of the things the two chefs aim for through Choters Guide.’

Just like when a person thought that the author was a genius and respected him when that person read a famous book, those who read Choters Guide have no choice but to be as curious about Min-joon and Kaya’s dishes as the restaurants listed on Choters Guide.

Even when they just ate food, Min-joon and Kaya usually studied and analyzed what they ate, so it was needless to say how delicious and perfect the dishes they made after lots of thinking would be. So, every time they wrote articles for Choters Guide and evaluated the dishes of other chefs and gave their feedback, their worth was also gradually increasing.

In that respect, the latest issue of Choters Guide would bring about a lot of change in lots of chefs’ perception of Min-joon and Kaya because lots of people tended to think of Min-joon as Rachel’s student before they knew it. As a matter of fact, he was her junior. And people tended not to pay much attention to somebody when he or she was somebody else’s junior.

Enzo was no exception. But he sincerely had no choice but to think twice about his perception of Min-joon and Kaya. Choters Guide carried all the details about the two chefs’ observations and feelings about the dishes they actually sampled. In particular, Min-joon presented a perfect analysis of the problems of any dish once he was determined to find fault with it. Min-joon’s tenacious attention to finding the problems of a dish and fixing them was really outstanding. Enzo could not notice that kind of attitude in Min-joon in the past.

Theo murmured, “Is Min-joon really not as good as Rachel?”

***

Min-joon and Kaya, or Choters, evaluated Rachel!

People didn’t forget that news easily, which was quite natural, given that the two chefs did something that exceeded their expectations too much when they already had lots of expectations.

Of course, ordinary people wondered why it was an issue that the two chefs surpassed Rachel because there was no law that the evaluator should be necessarily better than the other person subject to evaluation. And they were not wrong. In fact, most of the restaurant reviews were done by ordinary citizens who visited and tried the dishes served there.

So, there was no law that Min-joon should not evaluate the main restaurant of Rose Island. That was what ordinary people thought, which made sense logically. But the reason why many chefs took notice of Min-joon and Kaya’s evaluation of Rachel’s restaurant was not that simple. There was some other reason.

‘Min-joon gave advice to Rachel.’

Of course, they didn’t think that Min-joon’s advice to Rachel didn’t mean he surpassed her in cooking skills because one could have a wider perspective of cooking when one watched the other person cooking right next to him or her. But it didn’t mean that any chef could give advice to Rachel. Even if they had a wider perspective of cooking, most of them still found themselves confined to their own narrow-minded perspective.

However, Min-joon was different. When he was in the shoes of an observer of Rachel’s cooking, he was now competent enough to notice the shortcomings of her dishes. At least the current situation where he and Kaya evaluated her dishes in their capacity as the founder of Choters Guide. And ordinary chefs could not dare discuss the level of the two chefs.

There was quite a lot of talk about Rachel. Some of them speculated that while she was absent from the cooking world for ten years, she stopped improving her cooking skills. Others spread rumors that her legendary image was only bubbles that were created while people were beautifying her memories as a legendary chef. But this kind of question or rumors were something that anybody who knew her well could not even speculate about. Her image as a legendary chef were bubbles? She was such a giant chef that they should not speculate recklessly.

But Min-joon perfectly understood and analyzed this giant chef. Anybody with a deep knowledge of cooking could feel that aside from their advice to Rachel, Min-joon and Kaya’s insight into each and every part of Rachel’s cooking was really deep and far-sighted.

The process of the two chefs’ evaluating Rachel’s cuisine also made their unique characteristics stand out even more. The division of roles between the two was clear. Min-joon perfectly analyzed all the tastes of her dishes that any ordinary gourmet found hard to express or describe. This had nothing to do with his excellent linguistic sense.

Basically, it showed how much effort he put into it. It showed how hard he thought and agonized over each and every taste of the dishes that people passed over or ignored until then while enjoying her dishes. He could express them all. So, people finally realized clearly that he didn’t simply rely on his talent.

Of course, he didn’t necessarily receive a good reaction to his efforts like that. If one could find the biggest difference between Western and Asian education, it was how they viewed one’s efforts. In the western education world, if somebody made hard efforts, they were usually regarded as somebody with no talent. So, they preferred people who did well without making lots of effort. Because of that, people who worked hard often didn’t have confidence in themselves.

That was why people became puzzled about Min-joon and Kaya because they thought he was a genius chef. They could not understand why he was so obsessed with every detail of Rachel’s dishes and tried to understand and analyze it? Did he try to analyze?

In the meantime, Min-joon and Kaya had a debate about the difference between Asian and Western education, but he had a firm conviction that even a genius should make efforts, and those who could have everything without doing anything were trying to have more by working harder.

Then, how about the cooking of such a person?