Appetite Transcends Reincarnation

I regained those memories—what you might call “memories of my past life”—at the exact moment my childhood friend Alfred slammed the top of my head into the ground.

My head greeted the earth courtesy of a beautifully arcing German suplex, sparks exploding violently inside my skull as memories of a past that should never have been connected to me suddenly came rushing back.

What I saw were concrete cityscapes, airplanes soaring through the sky, televisions and smartphones, convenience stores and family restaurants—

All of them were scenes from “Japan,” where I had once lived.

None of those things existed in the world where I lived now.

That was right. I had once died in Japan and been reborn into this world.

The moment I understood that, my emotions came flooding out all at once, and at only ten years old, I burst into uncontrollable tears.

“No… No, that’s too cruel! This is… This is just…!”

Even when Alfred and my startled parents rushed out of the house and called to me, I could not answer through my sobbing, and I simply had to scream—

“I’ll never… never get to eat a McDonald’s hamburger, a Sukiya beef bowl, or Jiro ramen ever agaaaaaaaaain!!!”

Those were restaurants and foods that simply did not exist in this world.

For a glutton like me, that fact was simply too cruel to bear.

“No, Shirley. You can’t stay depressed forever. That’s right. There’s no reason to give up on everything.”

I finally pulled myself together after returning to my room and crying for about ten minutes.

I had certainly gotten remarkably depressed over it, even by my own standards, but crying forever would not accomplish anything.

There was nothing I could do about being reborn. I simply had to make the most of my current life.

Incidentally, Shirley was my name in this life.

Shirley Albrella was my name now. As for what my name had been before I was reincarnated… No, never mind.

The past was the past. I no longer needed that name.

“That’s right, I’m lucky just to have my memories back. I know all about the dishes I used to eat. So if they don’t exist here, I’ll just recreate them myself. Luckily, I was born into a fairly wealthy family this time around!”

My father in this life was a self-made merchant, and our family was quite well-off.

And this world was not particularly difficult to live in, either.

There were no cars or airplanes, but just because this was another world did not mean there were monsters roaming around.

There were wars, but this country, the Kingdom of Eldoria, had remained peaceful for a long time.

The streets were made of stone and brick, so perhaps they resembled medieval Europe.

Then again, I had never been to either medieval times or Europe in my previous life, so that impression was entirely based on imagination.

The roads were neatly paved, and amazingly enough, the city even had a complete sewer system.

With a bountiful sea to the west and trade routes connecting various nations to the east, traveling merchants frequently visited this country, filling it with all sorts of goods.

Most importantly, this world had ingredients quite similar to the ones I had known in Japan.

Whenever I visited the market, I found vegetables and fruits that looked just like those from my previous life, along with fish, meat, and much more.

I could encounter all sorts of nostalgic ingredients there.

It was a prosperous nation overflowing with goods.

However… while the dishes served here were not exactly bad, to someone like me whose palate had been thoroughly spoiled in my previous life, they were somehow just a little unsatisfying.

“I mean, this place looks European, yet there isn’t even a good pizza place or spaghetti restaurant. That’s right, I can’t rely on other people. I’ll master cooking myself and enjoy absolutely everything!”

I clenched both fists tightly as I hardened my resolve.

That’s right. I was only ten years old. I still had a long life ahead of me.

Before I died, I would reunite with every single dish I loved.

And so, from that day onward, my culinary journey—for my own sake—began.

And then—five years later.

---

“…Shirley, Shirley! Don’t tell me you’re cooking again!? Honestly, enough already!”

My mother’s angry shout rang through the kitchen, making me instinctively flinch.

Thinking, Oh crap, I cautiously turned around and found Mother herself approaching with an angry expression.

“Honestly, you! Don’t you ever get tired of spending all day shut up in the kitchen? And are you frying something again!? How many times have I told you to cut back because oil is expensive!? Firewood costs money too!”

Her gaze was directed toward the crackling oil I was poking at with the long cooking chopsticks I had made myself.

Our house—or probably this entire world—had nothing like a gas stove, so cooking was generally done the old-fashioned way, with firewood in a hearth.

Since I had to burn firewood every time I cooked, it became rather expensive.

“You say that, Mother, but it’s snack time right now. Wouldn’t it bring shame upon our household if your adorable daughter were left to go hungry?”

“How many times have I told you that only nobles and royalty eat snacks!? We’re commoners! Your father is just a merchant who works himself to the bone every day to somehow earn our money! I’m not about to let his daughter, who still lives off her parents without lifting a finger, squander it all! And how many times have I told you to stop talking in that ridiculous way!?”

Mother unleashed her fury in response to my desperate defense.

Yes, under the convenient pretense of “bridal training,” I was currently living quite enthusiastically off my parents.

Instead of working, I spent every single day devoted entirely to culinary research.

Mother was always prone to nagging, but she seemed especially ill-tempered today.

While making sure the oil did not get too hot, I had no choice but to quietly endure her lecture.

“What is wrong with you, anyway? Every single day you shut yourself inside this house and do nothing but cook, cook, cook… You’re a young woman of marriageable age, Shirley. You’re old enough to get married now, aren’t you? Enough with the cooking. Go outside and find yourself a husband! You’re reasonably pretty, at least!”

By “pretty,” she meant my feminine appearance.

I, Shirley, was fifteen years old. I could not really tell for myself, but I had occasionally been complimented that, if I simply stood there silently, I looked slender and delicate like a lovely flower.

My silver hair and hazel eyes, both inherited from my parents, had even been compared to glittering jewels before.

Whenever my parents took me anywhere to visit someone, however, they always told me that I would ruin the illusion if I opened my mouth, so I should just smile and keep quiet.

…And while I was at it, was the complete failure of anything to protrude from the front of my chest some sort of curse, God?

“You may say that, Mother, but it’s much too early for me to get married. I’m still a child. Besides, haven’t you been happily eating my cooking and telling me how delicious it is?”

“Don’t be ridiculous! At fifteen, nobody would find it strange if you were already married! The girl next door got married two years ago! Why don’t you finally catch yourself some rich man and repay your father for all the trouble he went through raising you?”

“Catch” was certainly a rather crude way of putting it.

Still, she was right. This country had no legal minimum age for marriage. Girls were married off somewhere as casually as if someone were giving away puppies, and becoming a mother at fifteen was hardly unusual.

I had no intention whatsoever of becoming anyone’s bride, though, so whenever such proposals came my way, I kept evasively rejecting them with excuses about being sick or one thing or another.

After all, if I got married, I would not be able to continue researching the cooking I loved so much.

(Sorry, Mother. There are still so many dishes I haven’t managed to recreate. Until I’m satisfied, I’d like to stay in this house for another ten years… No, twenty years… No, no…)

If I remembered correctly, the average life expectancy in this country was somewhere between forty and fifty years.

That was only around half as long as in Japan, but by the standards of this world, it was apparently fairly long. In other words, barring any accidents, I ought to have more than thirty years left to live.

Over the past five years, I had successfully recreated all kinds of dishes and seasonings, but no, no, I was nowhere near finished.

There were still countless things I had not eaten and countless dishes whose flavor had yet to satisfy me. The pursuit of taste knew no end.

So if possible, I wanted to spend those entire thirty years living off my parents… I mean, comfortably remaining by my dear parents’ sides.

And so, I humbly requested that they respect their adorable daughter’s heartfelt desire to remain close to her parents.

While I was selfishly thinking all that and barely listening, Mother’s lecture continued.

“Besides, when your childhood friend Alfred confessed to you, didn’t you kick him between the legs and beat him black and blue!? Why are you like this? And another thing—”

“Now, now, dear. That’s enough. You don’t have to be so hard on her. I’m sure Shirley understands.”

Another voice came from outside the kitchen, and my father in this life lumbered into view.

As expected of my beloved Daddy, he blindly took his daughter’s side.

“Oh, honestly, you! You’re always spoiling Shirley like this!”

“Don’t say that. You keep going on about marriage, but being good at cooking is a fine thing. It’s bridal training, isn’t it? If my adorable daughter wants to cook, I’ll earn as much money as necessary to pay for it.”

With that, my bearded father winked at me, patted his bulging belly, and continued.

“Besides, Shirley’s cooking is something I look forward to every day. I’d be terribly lonely if she left. Shirley, if you want to stay, you can remain here as long as you like.”

“As expected of you, Father! Thank you! I’ll stay here forever!”

We exchanged those words, then tilted our heads together and went, “Right?”

Father was extremely easy to manipulate. If I asked him for something, he would usually let me have my way.

More importantly, my cooking had already conquered his stomach.

And after repeatedly whispering sweet things like, “I love you, Father!” and “I want to stay by your side forever!” his brain had long since melted into mush.

Mother, however, had no intention of allowing that.

“Enough already! Why can’t you understand that this isn’t good for her!? Do you know what the neighbors call this house? The witch’s house… That’s right, the witch’s house! They’re constantly complaining that all those bizarre seasonings she makes produce strange smells!”

That was true. The greatest difficulty I had encountered in my culinary research was that this world had virtually none of the seasonings from my previous world.

There was salt, sugar, and pepper, but I could find nothing resembling soy sauce, sauces, mirin, or the many other essentials of Japanese cuisine.

That meant the only way to obtain them was to make them myself, even though I had almost no experience actually producing such things in my previous life.

The raw ingredients were not particularly easy to obtain, either.

Thus, as I experimented with hazy memories and substitute ingredients in an attempt to recreate them, I sometimes ended up producing substances that seemed positively otherworldly.

Even so, I had managed to create several seasonings to a level I found satisfactory. Admittedly, the process had produced just a tiny bit of a foul odor, earning me the displeasure of our neighbors.

Under those circumstances, I could hardly blame anyone for spreading rumors that “a witch lives in that house.”

Incidentally, in a rather fantastical twist, witches genuinely existed in this world.

Or rather, apparently they did. At the very least, everyone believed they existed. I had never actually seen one.

Then again, perhaps they were all frauds.

“Do you have any idea how many times I’ve had to go around apologizing because of you!? Honestly, you are—!”

“N-now, now…”

Mother’s target shifted to Father, allowing me to quietly return to my cooking while pretending not to notice.

No matter how firmly Father took my side, Mother stood at the absolute pinnacle of our household hierarchy.

All I could do was suppress my presence and poke at the snacks bobbing gently in the oil.

Just then, however, a conveniently timed knock echoed from the front door.

“Oh! What’s that, a visitor? I’ll go welcome them. Why don’t we continue this discussion some other time?”

Father headed for the entrance with blatant relief on his face, while Mother followed him looking as though she had bitten into something bitter.

I was celebrating the return of peace and quiet when I heard the front door open, followed by Father’s startled voice.

“Ah, this is… W-welcome! It has been quite some time!”

His voice was tense. That was the tone Father used whenever he spoke to someone far above him in status.

Then I heard the slightly hoarse voice of an elderly woman.

“Forgive me for dropping by without warning. Do you have a moment?”

“Y-yes, of course! Please, come inside. I’m afraid our home is hardly worthy of receiving you!”

My parents apparently escorted the visitor into the sitting room.

A short while later, Mother came into the kitchen with a tense expression to prepare a drink, and my curiosity got the better of me, so I quietly peeked into the sitting room.

There sat an elderly woman with an imposing air.

Her face was wrinkled and her hair completely white, yet her back was perfectly straight, and every movement she made radiated refinement.

(Wow, she looks like someone of very high status… Could she be from the castle?)

The royal palace of the Kingdom of Eldoria stood about thirty minutes away from our house on foot.

The palace apparently had plenty of money to spend, and Father said they regularly bought expensive goods from him.

According to rumor, the prince was still very young but extraordinarily capable, and had taken charge of governing the country in place of the king, who had fallen ill.

Perhaps she had come to buy something again. If Father made a nice profit, maybe I could ask him for some more spices.

While thinking about such things and finishing my snack, Mother returned with a troubled expression and spoke to me.

“Shirley. Our guest says she wants to speak with you. Come along.”

“Huh? Why me? Isn’t she Father’s guest…?”

“Just come. And make sure you’re polite.”

Mother dragged my bewildered self into the sitting room.

Thus I was pulled from my kingdom—the kitchen—and dragged onto the battlefield known as the sitting room, where an unfamiliar old woman awaited me.

The tension hanging in the air made my face stiffen whether I liked it or not.

“Lady Claire. This is my daughter, Shirley.”

Father actually rose from his seat and introduced me with a bow.

The elderly woman called Claire proceeded to look me over from head to toe as though licking me with her gaze.

That was when I realized my mistake. I had not expected to meet anyone, so I was still wearing my usual drab house clothes.

I had only casually combed my hair, and my face… I had washed it. Yes. Probably.

As I vaguely wondered whether it was acceptable to meet such a guest dressed like this, the old woman spoke in a grave tone.

“Good afternoon, Shirley. My name is Claire Charlton, and I serve as the head maid at the royal palace. Please call me Claire. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Ah, yes, how gracious of you. I am Shirley. Welcome to our humble and unsightly home, Lady Claire.”

I pinched the hem of my skirt and curtsied as I replied to Lady Claire, who, as expected, turned out to be an important person.

A maid serving at the castle held far greater standing than an ordinary commoner.

And as the head of those maids, she was obviously above even Father.

“Shirley, honestly, you didn’t need to call our house unsightly…!”

As I thought about that, Mother hurriedly whispered in my ear.

Oops. My tendency to say unnecessary things was another one of my shortcomings.

Wondering whether I had offended her, I looked over, but Lady Claire simply stared at me without so much as a smile.

“I had heard that you possessed an unusual personality, and it seems the rumors were true.”

“I am honored by your praise.”

“That was not praise.”

“M-my sincerest apologies, Lady Claire! This girl, honestly…!”

After that delightful little exchange, my pale-faced mother forced me into a chair.

With my parents firmly stationed on either side of me and stern-looking Lady Claire directly across the table, the whole thing resembled an entrance-exam interview.

…Wait. Could it be that I’m actually the main subject of whatever this is?

“Now then, let us get to the point. Shirley, I hear you make rather unusual dishes.”

“Unusual dishes? I suppose I do sometimes serve my parents and neighbors dishes that aren’t commonly seen elsewhere.”

Indeed, I devoted myself every day to recreating as many of the flavors I remembered from Japan as possible.

Unfortunately, my own modest stomach alone could never consume everything I made.

So I often asked everyone around me to serve as experimental subjects… I mean, taste-testers for my new dishes.

Naturally, I made sure anything I served others met a minimum standard of quality, but alas, the people of this country had different tastes from the people of my distant paradise, Japan.

When I once made salted fermented squid, for example, it was terribly unpopular, and everyone looked as though the world were ending.

(Salted fermented squid is actually really easy to recreate since all you need is squid and salt.)

But it was a dish that divided opinions even in Japan, so naturally it was not easy for people here to accept.

Personally, I had also found it spectacularly difficult to use in a country where bread was the staple food.

Right. One of the major problems I faced in recreating dishes was that, astonishingly, rice was completely unavailable in this country.

Every time I visited the market, I searched it from end to end, and I had repeatedly asked Father to tell me if any ever came in, but no matter how desperately I longed for it, rice existed nowhere in this country.

I did not know whether it simply had never been imported here or—and I hated even considering the possibility—whether rice itself did not exist anywhere in this world.

Without rice, however, a considerable number of my beloved dishes would be impossible to recreate.

Oh, my beloved rice, where are you? I believe that someday, somehow, we’ll meet again.

As I wallowed in my wistful longing for rice, Lady Claire gave a small nod and suddenly made an outrageous request.

“I see. Then I realize this is rather presumptuous of me, but would you be willing to serve me something you’ve made?”

“Huh!? You mean right now!?”

That… That was a serious problem.

Everything I cooked had been made purely for my own enjoyment.

It was certainly not the sort of food I intended to serve someone important enough to work at the castle.

Besides, things could become troublesome if she disliked it.

As I hesitated, Lady Claire continued.

“I am not asking you to prepare anything elaborate. Something suitable to accompany tea will do.”

“Oh, you mean a sweet or snack would be enough… But, um, actually, I just happen to have run out of everything at the moment…”

“Shirley, don’t lie! You’ve been busily making something this entire time!”

Mother immediately delivered a sharp retort to my attempt at playing dumb.

“B-but Mother, I made that for my three o’clock snack…!”

“You can make more! Now stop complaining and bring it here!”

My desperate resistance proved futile, and I reluctantly returned to the kitchen to surrender the snack I had painstakingly prepared to someone else.

As I walked away, Mother called after me once more.

“And I’m talking about the thing you’ve been chilling in the well out back, too.”

Tch.

“Here you are. These are not trivial snacks, but delicious ones.”

“…”

Lady Claire froze, staring intently at the two kinds of snacks I had placed before her.

After a moment, she picked up one of them—the thing sitting on the plate—held it up, and asked me a question.

“What… is this dish called?”

“Those are potato chips.”

Potato chips.

They were made by thinly slicing potatoes, soaking them in salt water, thoroughly drying them to remove the moisture, and then frying them.

After that, all you had to do was sprinkle them with salt. A very simple snack.

However, the texture changed considerably depending on how thoroughly they were dried, how long they were fried, and how thickly they were sliced, making them an unexpectedly delicate snack.

How many attempts had it taken before I was finally satisfied enough to declare, These are almost like Calbee potato chips!?

They were also one of the culprits responsible for Father’s expanding belly.

“…Is there some proper way one is supposed to eat these?”

“Just pick one up with your fingers and crunch away. Nice and crispy.”

Following my instructions, Lady Claire brought a potato chip to her mouth.

It really did snap crisply between her teeth, and Lady Claire’s eyes widened as she chewed it several times.

“…What an unusual texture. This is… potato, isn’t it? And yet it tastes completely different from any potato dish I’ve eaten before… I’ve never seen anything that looks like this, either.”

“Exactly. In this country, potatoes are usually just steamed or thrown into stews. There’s hardly any variety at all.”

Potatoes possessed so many possibilities, yet this country used them in only those few ways.

What a waste. Then again, perhaps the people of my previous world had simply possessed an absurdly strong drive to explore the possibilities of food.

While I was thinking that, Lady Claire asked me with a suspicious expression.

“‘In this country’? Have you ever traveled to another nation?”

Ah… Crap. That slipped out.

In this world, foreign countries were not places one could casually visit.

After all, there were no cars or trains, so travel meant walking or taking a carriage. That took a great deal of time, and there were bandits, kidnappers, and all sorts of dangerous people along the way.

In other words, traveling was particularly dangerous for a woman, and most people lived their entire lives without ever leaving their own country, knowing virtually nothing about foreign lands.

So to Lady Claire, my habit of saying “in this country” must have sounded extremely strange.

But I certainly could not start talking about my previous life here.

After all, even my parents knew nothing about my previous life!

Just think about it.

Imagine if I suddenly said, Actually, I remember my previous life, where metal machines raced around everywhere, buildings hundreds of times taller than a person filled the cities, and you could enjoy delicious sweets twenty-four hours a day!

…If I said something like that, everyone would unquestionably decide I was a complete lunatic.

And being labeled a lunatic might actually be the better outcome. What if they believed me instead, demanded that I reveal every piece of knowledge I had from that world, and then imprisoned or tortured me…?

It was always best not to say anything unnecessary.

Which meant I had no choice but to desperately talk my way out of this.

“N-no, that’s not what I meant! I just meant that, since my father is a merchant, I sometimes happen to overhear stories about unusual dishes from other countries and, well, that’s what I was talking about, yes!”

“Ah, I see. So those stories are where you get the inspiration for your cooking.”

Lady Claire sounded oddly impressed, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

Father, whom I had used as my scapegoat, was staring at me with an expression that practically screamed, ‘Huh? What are you talking about? You never come anywhere near my workplace,’ but I ignored him.

Surely serving as his daughter’s shield was all he could ever ask for.

“In any case, these potato chips are a very interesting dish. And what is this one?”

Ignoring the rest of us, Lady Claire turned toward the ceramic container beside the potato chips.

Inside was that wonderfully sweet treat, yellow and trembling enticingly.

Yes. When you thought of snacks, this was the one.

“The king of snacks: pudding.”

Pudding. That delightful, jiggly little thing.

It was made by combining beaten eggs with sugar and milk, then steaming the mixture.

It was one of my favorite things because it was relatively easy to recreate even in this world, though unfortunately eggs, sugar, and milk were all somewhat expensive here.

There was also no wonderfully convenient refrigerator, so chilling food had its limits, and ingredients had to be used quickly once obtained, which was another difficulty.

I could not help looking back and realizing just how luxurious my life in my previous world had been.

Ah… I wanted to go to a convenience store and buy some sweet desserts.

“Pudding. Another unusual name. Did you devise this dish as well?”

“Huh…? Ah, well… I suppose you could say I recreated it in my own way based on bits and pieces of knowledge I’d heard here and there… Something like that, yes.”

That was a lie. In truth, someone in my previous world had invented it.

I was merely faithfully copying their work.

But I would be in serious trouble if she started pressing me for specifics—asking which country it came from, or suggesting that we investigate it.

So I had no choice but to stay vague, which unfortunately made it sound as though I were taking credit for the invention myself.

I’m sorry, whoever invented pudding in my previous world… Probably someone like Baron Pudding or something.

“I see. Is this made by setting eggs? I have eaten similar dishes, but I have never seen one that jiggles quite like this.”

Lady Claire spoke as she scooped up some pudding with a spoon and examined it closely.

I had eaten similar dishes in this world as well, but they had been baked until completely firm, leaving them dry in texture and not particularly sweet. They had not suited my tastes.

Lady Claire brought the pudding to her mouth, savored it carefully, and then exclaimed in surprise.

“…This is delicious too. It melts in the mouth, leaving only a pleasant sweetness behind. Even someone without teeth could enjoy this.”

“Absolutely. There’s also caramel sauce hidden at the bottom, so please try it together with that.”

Caramel sauce. It was made by dissolving sugar in water and heating it.

It was that familiar accompaniment commonly found atop pudding.

Following my instructions, Lady Claire dug into the pudding until she discovered the caramel, then mixed some in and brought it to her mouth. Once again, surprise crossed her face.

“The flavor changes again, and it’s delicious. I see. A great deal of thought has gone into this.”

She must have liked it, because Lady Claire continued happily spooning the pudding into her mouth with an impressed expression.

As I watched her, only one thought occupied my mind.

(Aaaaaah! That’s my snaaaaack! Stop eating it like it tastes so gooooood! Grrrr! I wish you’d leave some for me!)

Today’s snack had turned out exceptionally well, by my standards. If she had only left some behind, I was fully prepared to eat it even after someone else had already taken bites from it.

Watching her devour it without hesitation made her look like an ogre. Or perhaps a demon.

Eventually, after polishing off every last bit of pudding, Lady Claire turned her attention back to the potato chips and asked me another question.

“Still, why did you choose this combination? I would not think sweet pudding pairs particularly well with these heavily salted potato chips.”

“Oh no, not at all. This is the ultimate form of snacking, Lady Claire.”

Sweet pudding and salty potato chips. Alternating between the two was simply proper etiquette for a lady.

First savor the soft pudding, then bite into a crisp potato chip.

Taste the sweetness, then the saltiness.

This cycle was an essential component in creating a moment of pure bliss, which meant potato chips and pudding simply had to be partners. Q.E.D.

“So eating all of the pudding first was a mistake, Lady Claire. Please remember that next time.”

“I see. It does not particularly suit my tastes, but if that is the proper method, I shall try it next time. …Now then.”

Lady Claire wiped her mouth with a handkerchief, straightened her already impeccable posture even further, and spoke in an imposing voice.

“Just as the rumors said, you make some very interesting dishes, Shirley. In that case… Are you certain, Alan Albrella?”

Alan was Father’s name.

The moment she addressed him, Father flinched, then answered as sweat began to bead on his forehead.

“L-Lady Claire, my daughter is terribly careless and thoughtless. I simply cannot imagine that she would be of any use…”

“Y-yes, that’s right, our daughter is hardly… Of course, we would never presume to object to your judgment. But we cannot help worrying that she might only cause you trouble…!”

Mother followed his lead, bowing deeply as she spoke.

Sitting between them, I looked rapidly from left to right.

Um, what exactly are we talking about? Does this have something to do with me?

“No. I have made my decision. I absolutely want this girl.”

Then Lady Claire stared directly into my eyes and spoke.

“Shirley. I want you… to work at the royal palace and serve sweets to His Highness the Prince.”

Lady Claire’s expression was serious. Completely serious.

I stared straight back at her and gave my answer.

“Um… No, thank you.”