Shogun_ A Novel of Japan - James Clavell [291]
Now it was late afternoon and Blackthorne was in the kitchen, whistling merrily. Around him were the chief cook, assistant cook, the vegetable preparer, fish preparer, and their assistants, all smiling but inwardly mortified because their master was here in their kitchen with their mistress, also because she had told them he was going to honor them by showing them how to prepare and cook in his style. And last because of the hare.
He had already hung the pheasant under the eaves of an outhouse with careful instructions that no one, no one was to touch it but him. “Do they understand, Fujiko-san? No touching but me?” he asked with mock gravity.
“Oh, yes, Anjin-san. They all understand. So sorry, excuse me, but you should say ‘No one’s to touch it except me.’”
“Now,” he was saying to no one in particular, “the gentle art of cooking. Lesson One.”
“Dozo gomen nasai?” Fujiko asked.
“Miru!” Watch.
Feeling young again—for one of his first chores had been to clean the game he and his brother poached at such huge risk from the estates around Chatham—he selected a long, curving knife. The sushi chef blanched. This was his favorite knife, with an especially honed edge to ensure that the slivers of raw fish were always sliced to perfection. All the staff knew this and they sucked in their breaths, smiling even more to hide their embarrassment for him, as he increased the size of his smile to hide his own shame.
Blackthorne slit the hare’s belly and neatly turned out the stomach sac and entrails. One of the younger maids heaved and fled silently. Fujiko resolved to fine her a month’s wages, wishing at the same time that she too could be a peasant and so flee with honor.
They watched, glazed, as he cut off the paws and feet, then pushed the forelegs back into the pelt, easing the skin off the legs. He did the same with the back legs and worked the pelt around to bring the naked back legs out through the belly slit, and then, with a deft jerk, he pulled the pelt over the head like a discarded winter coat. He lay the almost skinned animal on the chopping table and decapitated it, leaving the head with its staring, pathetic eyes still attached to the pelt. He turned the pelt right side out again, and put it aside. A sigh went through the kitchen. He did not hear it as he concentrated on slicing off the legs into joints and quartering the carcass. Another maid fled unnoticed.
“Now I want a pot,” Blackthorne said with a hearty grin.
No one answered him. They just stared with the same fixed smiles. He saw a large iron cauldron. It was spotless. He picked it up with bloody hands and filled it with water from a wooden container, then hung the pot over the brazier, which was set into the earthen floor in a pit surrounded by stone. He added the pieces of meat.
“Now some vegetables and spices,” he said.
“Dozo?” Fujiko asked throatily.
He did not know the Japanese words so he looked around. There were some carrots, and some roots that looked like turnips in a wooden basket. These he cleaned and cut up and added to the soup with salt and some of the dark soya sauce.
“We should have some onions and garlic and port wine.”
“Dozo?” Fujiko asked again helplessly.
“Kotaba shirimasen.” I don’t know the words.
She did not correct him, just picked up a spoon and offered it. He shook his head. “Saké,” he ordered. The assistant cook jerked into life and gave him the small wooden barrel.
“Domo.” Blackthorne poured in a cupful, then added another for good measure. He would have drunk some from the barrel but he knew that it would be bad manners, to drink it cold and without ceremony, and certainly not here in the kitchen.
“Christ Jesus, I’d love a beer,” he said.
“Dozo goziemashita, Anjin-san?”
“Kotaba shirimasen—but this stew’s going to be great. Ichi-ban, neh?” He pointed at the hissing pot.
“Hai,