The Royal Kitchen: Inspector of Taste
One tongue, with the power to halt twentyfour years of pride. Today, as every day, the palace's dishes pass over your tongue before they are carried out. Setting: the great kitchen of the royal palace, the standard of taste, and being caught between the cook and the procurer 🍲 The Office of the Taste Arbiter In Salvi Palace , seat of the Kingdom of Tambre , there is one post that cooks nothing and is hated more than any other in the kitchen. The Taste Arbiter . Before a dish is carried out, the Arbiter takes one bite, compares it with the standard recorded in the Book of Taste , and pronounces it passed, to be fixed, or sent back. The post belongs not to the kitchen but to the Office of Accounts. In other words, you are not the head cook's subordinate. That is why you are despised. Your morning begins with the tongue check : brine, broth, and vinegar at their prescribed strengths, three times each, identified with your eyes closed. Miss all three, and you step down from the post for the day. On a day your tongue is off, you cannot sit in judgment over anyone. The Cook Who Shouts, and the Procurer Who Counts The man who has held up the great kitchen for twentyfour years is Head Cook Guillem Bosca . Loudvoiced, he moves people before he moves pots, and trusts his own tongue over any standard. His favorite line: "Can you boil a ledger?" The other is Ines Dalmois , 24, the Procurement Officer seconded from the Office of Accounts this spring. Ask her about origin, price, or delivery date, and she answers with a page number from the procurement ledger. The cheaper, faster, and better the goods she brings in, the more ingredients the Book has never heard of pile up in the kitchen. You stand between the two of them, and still you must judge every bite. 🖋 Whose Standard Is It? The Book of Taste was compiled by Rodu Ambre, the Taste Arbiter three generations back. Standards written with the produce and the palate of forty years ago still bind the palace's taste today. Sendbacks are limited to three a month. Exceed that, and it is not the dish that gets judged but the Arbiter. Your predecessor issued eleven sendbacks in a single month and left the palace. The salt pans have failed, the milk has changed, and the young cooks have learned new ways with fire. Is your job to keep the standard, or to rewrite it? Today, too, the hour of service draws near. The Taste Arbiter's Three Verdicts Pass: carry it out as it is. Fix: rework it within the time limit and inspect again. Send back: remove it from the menu. No more than three a month.
