The Alchemaster's Apprentice - By Walter Moers Page 0,8
if she was asleep in bed. The result was that, having begun by containing fewer Ugglies than any other town in Zamonia, Malaisea eventually became almost Uggly-free, because most Ugglies preferred to live in other towns or even in the dangerous wilderness. And that, in turn, relieved Ghoolion of nearly all his municipal duties and enabled him to concentrate even more wholeheartedly on his sinister research projects - as he had always intended from the first.
Invisible Caviar and Sewer Dragon’s Knilch
‘Cooking is alchemy and alchemy is cooking,’ said Ghoolion as he proceeded to serve up Echo’s first meal. ‘Blending familiar things together and creating something entirely novel - that’s the essence of the culinary art, just as it is in alchemy. Heat plays a vital role in both disciplines. They both necessitate harmonising carefully gauged ingredients, reducing substances and combining the long familiar with the epoch-makingly new. Minute quantities of ingredients and a second or two more or less on the stove can make all the difference between success and failure. To me, cooking a good meal is as important as concocting a new poison. Every meal is an antidote to death, after all, and isn’t a nice bowl of chicken soup the best remedy for many an illness?’
Ghoolion had moved to his kitchen for the rest of the evening. This was on a lower floor and looked to Echo like the diametrical opposite of his weird, chaotic laboratory. Everything here was scrupulously neat and clean, bright and unintimidating. There were no sinister taxidermal specimens, no mysterious contraptions, no mildewed old books or Anguish Candles. In the middle stood a big black cast-iron stove with gleaming copper kettles, frying pans and saucepans on it. The huge kitchen table, which was surrounded by numerous chairs and draped in an appetisingly spotless linen tablecloth laden with plates, silverware and wine and water glasses, looked as if a big dinner party was planned.
More pots and pans and kitchen utensils of all kinds - egg whisks, ladles, cleavers, skimmers, sieves, rolling pins and the like - were hanging from hooks on the wall or suspended from the ceiling. Handsome oak dressers were stacked with crockery of every size, shape and colour, and the snow-white sink was full of freshly washed plates. Numerous jars of dried herbs shared a big kitchen cupboard with cookbooks and bottles of wine. Another cupboard contained little drawers with handwritten labels reading ‘Flour’, ‘Sugar’, ‘Cocoa’, ‘Vanilla’, ‘Cinnamon’ and so on.
The furniture and objects in this room were devoid of evil or dangerous intent. They served only one purpose: the preparation of food.
Food … What a nondescript, almost insultingly prosaic word for the meal with which Ghoolion regaled Echo that night! The little Crat hadn’t fared badly at his former mistress’s home, but his meals there were always the same: plenty of milk plus the occasional sardine or morsel of chicken. That was why Echo had until now believed that the grilled mouse bladders she’d once dished up were the acme of culinary delight. He’d had no idea that cooking could be promoted to the realm of high art, as Ghoolion was now demonstrating.
The first course consisted of a tiny little dumpling afloat in a bowl of clear, orange-tinted broth. Echo, who had casually perched on the table, bent an inquisitive nose over the bowl as it was slid towards him.
‘Saffronised essence of tomato,’ Ghoolion said softly. ‘It’s obtained by skinning the finest sun-ripened tomatoes and placing them in a cloth suspended over a bowl. For the next three days, terrestrial gravity alone ensures that the tomato pulp deposits its liquor in the bowl, filtered through the clean linen drop by drop. That’s how one extracts the essential flavour - the very soul of the fruit. Then add some salt, a few grains of sugar and a dozen threads of saffron - precisely a dozen, mark you! - and simmer over a low flame for one whole day. The broth must never boil, or it will dissipate the soul of the tomato and taste of nothing at all. That’s the only way to obtain this orange shade.’
Echo marvelled at Ghoolion’s patience and the trouble he had taken, just to produce a bowl of broth. It smelt wonderful.
‘Now for the dumpling. The meat it contains comes from salmon living in the most limpid rivers in Zamonia, the ones that flow into the Muchwater Marshes. Their waters are extremely dangerous - so clear that many people fail to see them until they’ve already