Published: September 4, 2025
If you’re not interested in aristocratic banquets, please feel free to skip the beginning. The text density will be quite high.
Correction made on 2/11.
This is Satou. Back in the bubble economy days, it was apparently normal to treat your lover to a course meal on special occasions. I never thought it was lucky to spend my youth in a recession, but it seems people born in prosperous times faced their own hardships.
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“Then, everyone, please enjoy the famous dishes of Grylian.”
With that, the prefect concluded his speech and the banquet began.
In this dining hall were the prefect and his wife, their retinue, all gentlemen and ladies—of course nobles with ranks. The invited guests included Princess Menea, her escort Pony-san, and then me and miss Karina.
Apparently, inviting town influential people happens at standing parties.
By the way, only adults can attend banquets or parties; the prefect’s children cannot participate.
The table was decorated with flowers, and behind each guest stood two maids. The utensils were silver knives, spoons, and forks. Except the knife, which looked like a normal dagger, the spoons and forks were no different from those used in the previous world. Only one set of each utensil was placed, but they would replace them with new ones after clearing finished plates.
The room was brightly lit with magical light. Not magical tools, but magicians producing glowing orbs. Occasionally, extra orbs were added from the corners, so there was no mistake.
A wine-like fruit liquor was poured into glass (or so it seemed) cups. I had never seen glassware until coming here. It’s called Oak Grass glass and is a specialty of the Duke’s territory. According to miss Karina, the women’s waiting room had a life-sized glass mirror.
Speaking of Karina’s outfit, it was too splendid to look like it was hastily prepared. I would be paying for it, but I’m scared to see the bill. The dress emphasized her wide neckline and chest—not as an exaggeration but as a highlight—and was adorned not only with gold and silver threads but also embedded with what looked like jewels in key places. While guests prefer not to be too flashy, this was fine, since the prefect’s wife’s dress was even more extravagant and overshadowed hers. I don’t want to go into too much detail to avoid overheating my aesthetic senses, but I’ll just say that peacocks exist in this world as well.
The first dish was a pale green soup, prepared expecting it to be served cold. It was delicious even cold, resembling a potage soup.
Starting with that, dishes followed in order: meat pudding, simmered trout, pilaf-like rice, steamed pheasant, and filet steak. Wasn’t there too many main dishes?
Vegetables and small side dishes to cleanse the palate were prepared separately from the courses. Bread was served in a basket, and for the first time in this world, I saw bread that wasn’t rye bread. It wasn’t fluffy, but I was glad to eat white bread after a long time.
When eating trout, I wanted chopsticks, but the nobles around seemed used to it and deftly picked the meat apart.
However, about half were not so skilled and had the maids behind them pick out just the white meat. Such attentive maids are just wonderful.
Of course, I also asked for help.
It seemed the maid was inexperienced, as I could hear faint, amusing cries from behind like “Ah!” or “H-Hold on, bone-san, don’t go that way!” Since it was whispered, other guests without eavesdropping skill probably didn’t hear. I’ve never been so glad to have the eavesdropping skill.
I wished I could have let Liza eat pheasant. Next time I’ll buy some at the market and cook the same dish. Later, I must thank the kitchen chef for the delicious meal and get the recipe!
Overall, the volume was too much to finish, but it seemed normal to leave some food, so I felt relieved. Even in gluttonous Japan, I don’t think I left this much. Glutton miss Karina finished everything.
At the banquet, enjoying conversation with neighbors while eating at a pace neither too fast nor too slow was surprisingly difficult.