I Got the Almighty Tongue - Chapter 65



Only Noblemtl

Englishman in New York

“What do you mean, kidney pie?”

“Can we meet and talk?”

“Okay. Where should we meet?”

“David has already signed a contract for the restaurant. It hasn’t opened yet, so let’s meet there.”

“okay.”

I thought about it for a moment. David is not a bad guy. He is a nice guy who often teases me because of his good personality, but I always get a smile from him.

But he always laughs and has a strong heart, so he doesn’t doubt his own path. I’m sure he didn’t say it as a joke, and I think he’ll have a serious talk with them.

They’ve been dating since their CIA days, so it’s been over 6 years since they met. At a time when they should be seriously considering their future together, Anna must have been very hurt that David chose to go down a path that was clearly doomed to failure.

I went to a nearby British restaurant and ordered a kidney pie. I needed a reference to use when talking to them. As soon as I ordered, the server brought out a pie that was a little bigger than the palm of my hand.

I took a bite of the outer pie. It is a classic dough made only with flour and butter. It is less soft than pastry. When I cut it in half with a knife, a dark gray filling flows out. It is a visual that makes my appetite decline every time I see it. The diced beef kidney seems to be warning me that if I eat it, something will definitely go wrong.

I took a deep breath and tried to scoop up a piece of pie with my fork and put it in my mouth.

“Ugh.”

Damn. It smells so bad. These kidneys were not processed at all before cooking. They were just slaughtered, washed, and then cooked.

“Are you okay?”

The waitress looked at me with concern. She had the look of someone who was worried about someone who was sick. I was fine. As long as I didn’t eat this pie. But for David and Anna, I closed my eyes tightly and put the pie in my mouth.

An image of the taste is drawn in my head.

I sautéed the onions, then added the chuck eye roll and kidney and sautéed them again. Then I added water and boiled it, then seasoned it with beef stock and Worcestershire sauce. After adjusting the consistency with flour, I put the filling in the pie dough, sealed it, and baked it in the oven.

It’s a simple recipe. The moment the reflux comes up my esophagus. I really needed a bucket, but spitting out food in a restaurant is such a big disrespect. If a chef saw a customer vomiting after eating his food, he might suffer from trauma. I held my breath and tried to taste as little as possible, and barely swallowed the pie.

“Just give me a bottle of cola.”

I want to rinse my mouth out. Water won’t do.

I left the restaurant, having barely taken a bite of the kidney pie after slurping down a Coke. The kidney pie David often made during his CIA days was tolerable, but the pie here was something I would never eat even if they paid me $100 a bite.

* * *

The store David contracted was more of a pub than a restaurant. Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan and passing through Clinton Hill, you come across a neat street with a mix of residential and commercial areas. Brooklyn is more than three times the size of Manhattan and has nearly twice the population, making it a good place to open a restaurant. It’s an area with high rents, but it seems to have received good investment.

As I open the door to the first floor of an old building that appears to have been remodeled repeatedly, I see David and Anna sitting at the bar. It looks like this used to be a pub.

“Long time no see. David, Anna.”

There are fewer and fewer people who treat me comfortably. Anna and David are the few friends who don’t fall into this category.

“I don’t think it’s been that long since I’ve seen you on TV.”

David smiles and holds out his hand. David has been working at the hotel for a long time, so it was really hard to see his face. When I saw him after a long time, his face was quite thin. However, his sad eyes and his signature smile were still there.

“Thank you for coming, Jehee. David is acting strangely stubborn. I wish you would talk to him.”

Anna’s expression doesn’t look as bad as I thought. She shrugs her shoulders as if to leave it to me and goes to make coffee.

“You want to open a British restaurant?”

“Yeah. Actually, I’ve been thinking about it for a long time.”

“David, you were a good cook. There was nothing you made that I couldn’t eat. I’m quite a picky eater.”

“That’s my pride. Every time I see you spitting out food on TV, I think back to my days at the CIA. I used to do that when I ate weird food back then.”

“But what about kidney pie?”

“Jehee, when you think of British cuisine, what comes to mind?”

“Fish and chips, eel jelly, stargazy pie.”

“Damn. I knew it! When people think of British food, most of them think of dishes like this. In fact, sardine pie is a festive food eaten only in some parts of England on special days. Eel jelly is more like a survival food that people had to eat when times were tough.”

“Fish and chips?”

“That has its own story, but isn’t fish and chips delicious?”

“That’s right. It’s one of the few British dishes I like. So you’re going to change the image of British cuisine?”

“I don’t know about you, but my grandmother is Scottish.”

“Why is that?”

“And my maternal grandmother is Irish.”

“It’s getting more and more interesting?”

“My father is English and my mother is Welsh.”

The family tree is spinning in my head. David’s father was of English and Scottish descent, and his mother had Irish and Welsh parents.

“Oh my goodness. You are the very essence of Britishness.”

David has a quarter Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish blood flowing through his body.

“I am proud of my British culture. British food has been the laughing stock of Europe for over 200 years, but we actually have quite a few dishes to brag about to the world.”

“for example?”

“Cheddar cheese, scones, pies, sandwiches, Sunday roast, English breakfast.”

“You must have been very sad. When I asked you, it just came out in a flurry.”

“At the CIA, the pranks you played on me were affectionate teasing. But when you work at a hotel, things are different. They openly mock you for cooking like a British guy.

“I understand when French and Italians say that to me, but it’s hard to stand it when Belgians or Dutch do it.”

“Gordon Ramsay would be pissed if he heard that.”

“Anyway, that’s why I want to make proper, delicious British food. Eel jelly and sardine pie aren’t popular foods to begin with, so I can’t do that, but I think I can fix something like kidney pie.”

Kidney pie is one of the representative dishes of British food that is as tasteless as eel jelly. Personally, I would like to have kidney pie instead of mackerel pie.

“That’s a grand dream.”

“Jehee, you don’t know much about England, do you?”

Actually, I know very well. Maybe even more than David. But I have to listen to your story here.

“Not as much as you.”

“The king of British food is pie. British people really love pie. So there is nothing that is not put in a pie, such as lamb, pork, beef, and chicken. Among them, shepherd’s pie is recognized as delicious even abroad, but the rest are not so good.”

“Australian pie is getting recognition.”

In former British colonies such as Australia and New Zealand, and even in some parts of Africa, British pies are still eaten. In Australia in particular, meat pies are loved as a national dish.

“I don’t know about that kind of pie where they put a lot of ketchup on top of it. I can’t accept it.”

“Okay, I get it. I guess you’re going to make some delicious kidney pie and then tell me this story, since you’re bragging so much?”

“Of course. Just wait.”

David went into the kitchen and came out with a pie about 30 minutes later.

The visuals look no different from a regular pie.

I got the vaccine beforehand, but I’m still nervous. I cut the pie with a knife and I can see the contents. Fortunately, the filling doesn’t drip like the pie I had at the previous pub. However, the smell is not much different.

I took a bite. The pie crumbles and the beef is softly chewed. It seems to have been stewed for a long time. There is a scent of Worcestershire sauce and bay leaves. And then there is the chewing of kidney. Ammonia and an unpleasant taste of blood linger in my mouth. The texture is not harmonious. It feels like the pie is too heavy for a meat-only pie.

“They used chuck eye roll. It’s probably because it was seared hard in a pan once, so the flavor remains. The kidneys were also stir-fried once, so there’s less of a smell. It’s edible. But how are you going to change the image of kidney pie with this?”

“Isn’t it working after all?”

David sighs.

“Have you ever thought that if you take the kidney out of the pie you make, it will taste better? And that…”

“Oh, my goodness. I know that.”

Australians have been clever enough to bake a pie without the kidneys.

“David. Why does it seem to me like you’re being so stubborn? What exactly do you want?”

“Jehee. I want to marry Anna. We’ve been together for six years now, and we’re not that young.”

“Okay, I understand completely.”

“I realized while working at a hotel that fine dining doesn’t suit me. I’m not creative. But I don’t want to work at a hotel for ten or twenty years. With the salary I get there, I can’t even dream of getting married. That’s why I bought a pub. But there are so many pubs like this in New York.”

“So you want to specialize in British cuisine?”

“New Yorkers pretend not to, but they admire England. There’s even a song about it.”

“Englishman in New York!”

“That’s right, Sting’s song. New Yorkers will visit a British pub if it’s good. Kidney pie is my marketing strategy to restore the honor of British food.”

“But this food won’t do.”

“Actually, I’ve made kidney pie over a hundred times. You can’t get any better than this using traditional methods. But isn’t this good enough for people to eat?”

David’s pie is definitely better than the pie I’ve had before. It might be the best kidney pie in New York. But is it worth it?

“You didn’t want to make delicious food, did you? You said it was to restore your honor.”

“Is there such a thing as a delicious kidney dish?”

David looks tired.

“There is a dish in Korea called Sundaeguk. It uses all kinds of pig intestines. Almost every part of the pig is used: the heart, stomach, intestines, lungs, ears, and liver.

But even there, there are many places that don’t put kidneys in their pies. They don’t smell very good. I don’t know why the British put kidneys in their pies out of all the parts they have.”

“That’s because you’re a foreigner. Every country has its own unique flavors and emotions about its food that are difficult to understand if you’re not from that country.”

“I know. If someone served you Korean fermented soybean paste stew or fermented skate sashimi, you might run away holding your nose. I would eat it with pleasure, but I wouldn’t feed that kind of food to foreigners.”

Is it really necessary to feed foreigners food that they like or dislike? In my past life, there was a Japanese person who persistently recommended bungeo-sushi (sushi made by stuffing the insides of a crucian carp with rice and fermenting it with salt) to me. After taking a bite, I didn’t like it at all so I didn’t touch it, and he seemed to be upset about that.

“I know what you mean. I also studied foreign kidney dishes while making pie. In almost all countries where kidneys are eaten, they are usually fried in oil with strong spices. It’s a shame, but I think it’s right to give up kidney pie. But thank you.”

“I didn’t tell you to give up?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Wouldn’t it be possible if I helped you? A delicious kidney pie.”

David looks at me with his eyes wide open.

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