Chương 149: Three Roots, a One-Vote Victory

On the semifinal floor, the air seemed to set solid. The ultimate duel between the American and French teams was about to unfold. When the president announced the theme of the match, the whole hall broke into an uproar. The theme was — "Racines." Roots. A subject that asked a chef to return to the point they'd set out from, to seek the very start of their road in cooking. The theme seemed tailor-made for the American team.

Chris, Ethan, and Kira exchanged a glance, and each saw in the other's eyes a sense of destiny, as if it were the will of heaven. What they'd prepared for this match was exactly three stories about "roots." The contest began. In the American kitchen, the earlier tension and clamor were gone, replaced by a solemnity and stillness close to a religious rite. The three of them were, each in their own way, in dialogue with their own past.

Kira's appetizer drew its inspiration from her childhood growing up in San Francisco. Back then, the thing she'd loved most was going out to the rocks by the shore with her father, prying loose the freshest sea urchin and eating it raw, dipped in a little soy sauce and lemon juice. Her dish was called "Father's Sea Urchin." She used no complex technique at all — only drew out the finest Santa Barbara sea urchin with the greatest care and set it in an ice bowl made from seawater and sake.

Beside it, only a single toasted, crisp shiso leaf, and a drop of soy sauce blended with Japanese yuzu. The dish was simple to the extreme, and yet pure to the extreme. That most primal saltiness and sweetness from the ocean could carry a person in an instant to that sun-bright California shore. Ethan's main came from a sealed-away, yet infinitely precious, memory of his childhood. His father had been a workaholic, away from home for years on end. Ethan had spent most of his childhood alone.

The reason he'd walked the road of cooking was that he'd wanted to fill the loneliness inside him with the most perfect food. But deep in his memory was one single image. It was a Christmas afternoon; his father was, rarely, home, and had cooked himself — roasting him a chicken. The kitchen that day was full of the fragrance of rosemary, and his father's rare, warm smile. It was the only time in his memory he had felt the warmth of "home." So he would make "Father's Roast Chicken."

He chose a top-grade French Bresse chicken, and in the most traditional way stuffed herbs and butter between the skin and the flesh, then, with the most precise heat, roasted it until the skin was golden and crisp and the meat tender and juicy. When that roast chicken came out of the oven, the whole floor filled with a warm, plain fragrance. It wasn't a competition dish. It was a dish of "home." Last was Chris's dessert. His roots were more complicated than Ethan's and Kira's.

Because his roots did not belong entirely to this world. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. He thought of his past life. Those days and nights of struggling to make a living in a foreign land. He thought of the countless scenes of working late into the night, dragging his tired body back to an empty rented room, cooking himself a bowl of instant noodles. Outside the window, the city's ten thousand lights, brilliant and glorious. But not one of them shone for him.

That bone-deep loneliness, and the simple, warm sweetness of instant noodles, together formed his deepest memory of "late night." He would turn this loneliness — his alone, impossible to speak of to anyone — into a dessert. He named it "Sweetness of Late Night." Once again he made that caramel-potato custard he knew best. But this time, beside the custard, he set a small cup of warm milk, infused with vanilla and a thread of whisky.

He hoped that when the diner finished that bite of custard, with its faintly bitter caramel and plain potato fragrance, and then drank down this warm milk, they might feel a warmth — as if, in the deepest loneliness, they had been gently held for a moment. These three dishes held no work of showmanship, no grand concept. What they held was only the truest, most fragile, and most precious life stories of three young people. And across from them, the French team gave their own answer to the theme of "Roots."

Their answer was grand, weighty, perfect beyond a flaw. Raphaël led his team in a menu called "Five Hundred Years of France." The appetizer, a homage to the cold meat terrine of the sixteenth-century French court. The main, a homage to the classic dish of the nineteenth-century "Emperor of Chefs," Escoffier — Tournedos Rossini. The dessert, a homage to the twentieth-century revolution of nouvelle cuisine — a deconstructed lemon tart.

Every one of their dishes was like a work of art displayed in the Louvre, precisely reproducing the glory of French cuisine in a different historical era. What they told was the "roots of French cuisine." When both teams' works were carried to the judges' table at the same time, everyone knew this would be a duel written into the record books. Tasting France's dishes, the judges' faces showed respect and admiration.

It was as if they were sitting through a vivid history lesson of French gastronomy, awed by the depth and breadth of French cuisine. But when they tasted the American team's dishes, their expressions turned complicated. There was emotion, there was contemplation — and one elderly woman judge, tasting Ethan's roast chicken, even felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes. Because what they tasted was no longer a dish, but a life. At last came the moment of scoring.

The tension made the whole hall quiet enough to hear a pin drop. The scores began to appear on the big screen. France: 91. A near-perfect mark. Every heart sank. This score all but pronounced the American team's death sentence. Then came the American team's mark. The number began to jump, and everyone's eyes went wide. At last the score locked. USA: 91! A tie! It was a tie! The whole hall erupted! It was the first tie since this League had opened!

By the rules, in the event of a tie, the head of the judging panel — one of the five judges — would cast a decisive vote. Every eye fixed on the legendary chef from Italy, a man already past seventy. His head was full of silver hair, his expression grave. Slowly he rose from his seat and walked to the center of the floor. He took up the microphone, was silent a long while, then spoke slowly.

"Today, these two teams have both presented us with answers that can be called perfect. Both have given their deepest interpretation of the theme of 'Roots.' From any technical angle, they are indistinguishable."

"But," he turned his point, looking at the two teams.

"The word 'Roots' — its core is not history, not culture, but people. It asks: you, as a chef, where exactly did you come from."

"The French team, through their work, told me magnificently where French cuisine came from. It is a weighty answer, worthy of everyone's respect."

"And the American team," his gaze fell on Chris, Ethan, and Kira, "with three dishes, told me separately where the three of them came from. One from the California shore, one from a kitchen in memory, and one, from the loneliness of the late night."

"Today, I don't want to hear a grand story. What I want to hear more is the story of a person." He paused, raised the card in his hand, and announced aloud:"My decisive vote goes to — the United States!" Boom. The whole floor was drowned in an instant beneath enormous cheers and applause. The American team, by a one-vote margin, had beaten the all-conquering French team and, miraculously, advanced to the final! Chris, Ethan, and Kira could no longer hold back their emotions.

They held one another tight, tears bursting from their eyes. They'd won. With the truest emotion, they'd won a victory that had seemed impossible.