Chapter 110 Witch Canteen

The food didn't taste very good, which was directly related to the cooking skills of the cafeteria's head chef, Jasmine. However, Jiang You had a vague feeling that the witches hired Jasmine to manage the cafeteria because they were attracted by her cooking skills, but her cooking was not very delicious.

After all, this commune provides unlimited meals to its members, both for dine-in and take-out. If the food is too good, some members might take advantage of the Witch Forest Commune's kindness and turn this benefit into a waste of resources. When scalpers steal the food and sell it, they force themselves to eat until they vomit...

This kind of thing is common in buffet restaurants. In his previous life, Jiang You, an idle person, had heard too many such examples, not to mention that this world is a magical medieval world where most people have not received a good education.

Human nature cannot withstand any temptation.

The establishment of a public cafeteria in the Witch Forest is not a groundbreaking innovation or a design based on some advanced system. It is purely a legacy left by the founder who had a beautiful fantasy of utopia.

The founders, who initially migrated here from the destroyed East City of Eston, cultivated farmland here, helping each other and achieving self-sufficiency. Due to a shortage of manpower and extremely poor living conditions at the time, even food was a problem. It took a long time to grow crops on the reclaimed fields, and people could only survive by hunting wild animals in the mountains and forests and collecting wild vegetables and fruits.

Whenever they saw something they could do, they didn't discriminate against each other. They helped and did what they could, and shared all the results. These people who were once strangers became best friends and the closest family.

Some people collect food, some sew clothes, some teach magic, and some guard their homes... Everyone is working hard for this new home, and everyone is making contributions to the best of their ability, even if some work seems to have nothing to do with making a living... In this way, when the fields produce something, it is difficult to distinguish each other's contributions by the amount of work done.

Everyone lived in a small village and knew each other well. They saw each other every day and felt there was no need to worry about who did more work or who ate more oats than who - people had different appetites, so how could they let people go hungry?

So they simply put all the products into the public warehouse, and everyone ate in the public dining hall until they were full, thus saving the troublesome and troublesome work of distributing the benefits. This custom was passed down from generation to generation.

Now, several generations have passed, and life in the Witch Forest is much richer than before. With a profitable wine-making business to rely on, they no longer live the kind of life that they didn't even need money. However, people still retain the habit of sending the vegetables, rice and flour they grow, and the meat, fish and shrimp they raise and catch to the cafeteria, and eating together in the cafeteria.

Of course, if the commune members wanted to eat out or cook their own meals, that was no problem. The witches in charge had their own separate kitchens, and the commune members could even go directly to the cafeteria kitchen to get ingredients...

But firstly, cooking by themselves is very troublesome. Secondly, few commune members are willing to spend the extra money to buy a magic stove from the dwarves. Thirdly... their own cooking skills are also very difficult to describe. If they really compete with Jasmine, the chef, they will probably be defeated.

The inhabitants of the Witch Forest were mostly those who had suffered persecution, war, plague, and the destruction of their families, lost their names, and even made enemies everywhere, ultimately drifting here. For these people, simply filling their stomachs was enough, and they didn't really care about taste.

At best, I'd sometimes vomit from my oatmeal, complain to friends and family, or to Jasmine, the cook, before finally giving in to Jasmine's contemptuous "you can you up" stare. Those with the means would head out of town for a bite to eat, while those without would ask for snacks and a few more beers...and that's how the days went by.

The dining hall was large, with rows of long wooden tables and benches in the middle for diners to sit at. Near the kitchen was a stone table. Every day when meals began, the stone table would be lit with a heat preservation spell, and the table would be filled with various foods for diners to take as they pleased.

Jiang You: "..." I understand. The cafeteria decoration looks like a university cafeteria, but the dining mode is buffet.

Commune members or honorary members can enter and exit the cafeteria freely to eat, while outside guests need to purchase meal coupons next to the table. Only after purchasing the meal coupons can they receive their own plates, cutlery or various utensils for takeout.

The person in charge of selling meal tickets and distributing tableware was Eleanor, a little witch who was said to have an exceptional memory and could recognize every face without fail. She was a sweet girl with long golden hair, a lovely face, and a beautiful red butterfly tied in her hair. When she saw Takumi, she smiled and waved at her.

The menu at the Witch's Canteen varied greatly depending on the ingredients brought in by the villagers. The staples were always oatmeal porridge, baked potatoes, and black bread. The oatmeal was cooked thick and unseasoned, but maltose, coarse salt, and milk were provided on the table for customers to season their meals.

Baked sweet potatoes are stuffed whole into the oven and roasted. They look charred on the outside, but when you peel them, they're steaming hot and fragrant. Sprinkled with salt, black pepper, or a layer of butter, they become especially delicious. However, sweet potatoes are in short supply, so you have to arrive early or be lucky to get one. The rest of the crowd can only resign themselves to oatmeal or brown bread.

The black bread is a naturally fermented sourdough bread baked fresh by Chef Jasmine herself. It's made with rye, wheat, and oats grown in the Witch Forest itself, making it a very pure whole grain bread. While it doesn't have the soft, smooth texture of modern breads, it's still a delicious hard European bread.

In addition, the witches are self-sufficient from raw material production to baking and roasting, and wheat is extremely abundant. There are no unscrupulous merchants who use sawdust, stones and impurities to fill the warehouse to make it heavy, and the food has even been tested and disinfected by purification magic. There is absolutely no hallucinogenic risk from harmful bacteria such as ergot, so it is very safe to eat.

Therefore, the black bread produced in Witch Forest tastes much better than those sold in the market, and the texture is also quite soft. Many customers even buy these black breads in large quantities as specialties of Witch Forest.

The only drawback is that due to the underdeveloped fermentation technology of that era, by the time the black bread wants to ferment to the point where it has a soft texture, it has often been over-fermented, and a lot of sour taste is produced in the dough.

Some people love this flavor, while others hate it. I personally enjoy it, especially when I pair it with freshly baked sourdough bread and jam or various cheeses. The steaming bread is crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, and the warmth melts the cheese and jam inside. One bite is a complete delight—it's a bit tough on the palate, but it's a true joy nonetheless.