Shokugeki no Soma – 03
What’s for dessert? Megumi!
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Culinary school sounds like a really fun experience. I’m sure it’s not all sunshine and rainbows since you’re being harshly graded on the dishes you produce, but learning all about the science of food and different types of cuisine sounds fascinating. You can best believe I’m gonna use the honey protease factoid from Mr. Chapelle to my advantage in the future. Who says anime doesn’t teach you anything? |
I doubt this is what a real cooking school is like, but it’s still fun to take the role of a voyeur for the things chefs-in-training may have to go through. It’s a highly embellished story, but there are some grains of truth in there, I know it. When I think about it, there’s so much background knowledge that goes into being a good chef. Mixing food is essentially chemistry, so you require a strong grasp about which combinations of food cause certain chemical reactions. If you want to go further and own a restaurant, you need to know about food sustainability, running a business, marketing, budgeting and all sorts of things you wouldn’t normally associate with a plate of food. But all of it’s there, happening under the surface. Shokugeki no Soma stresses the importance of truly and deeply understanding the culinary arts in order to become a great chef. On top of that, there’s also a bold message saying you don’t necessarily need to learn these things in a classroom.
He won’t even wear the uniform…
Both Soma and the school-raised chefs know their shit about food – that much is undeniable. The big difference here is that Soma’s the only one who learned from a tedious trial and error process instead of from a textbook. This sets up an interesting clash, because either side has their advantages, but neither side should have a reason to be all high and mighty over the other. In the end, you need both raw knowledge and hands-on experience to become a great chef.
For example, Soma doesn’t know the names of fancy French dishes. It’s these nit-picky details and field-specific jargon words that that he doesn’t know…simply because he has never needed them. Soma studied the fundamentals for years, giving him an unparalleled grasp of what it means to layer flavours and cook just about any ingredient to the perfect level of doneness. He has all the field experience needed to succeed in his small area of expertise in comfort foods. He can use this as a base to expand, but he still doesn’t have the raw knowledge of different types of cuisine and how to make dishes outside of what you’d see in a diner. In contrast, these textbook chefs may know just about everything related to food, but they’re limited by this rigidity. They haven’t been taught to cook using their instincts and stray from what the recipe tells them to do.
You can tell this guy is used to shoving things in girls mouths.
So in the end, does it matters where you learned to cook a duck as long as it’s tasty in the end? It really doesn’t. Soma is still being vastly underestimated just because he skipped out on thumping textbooks for a few years. He used that time to hone his skills in the kitchen – where it really counts. But the fact remains that Soma is still not a full-fledged chef. Until he graduates from here and learns cooking skills he can’t just learn by freestyling on his own the kitchen, he won’t be able to defeat his father. You can’t be a powerhouse chef until you’ve got the whole package!
Now, I may have tried to boil down cooking skills into two camps: hands-on practice and technical knowledge. But truthfully, there’s a lot more to it and you can’t really just shove something as broad as “making edible objects for people to consume” into neat little boxes. Megumi seems to be part of a third camp: she has a pure love for cooking. Megumi comes from a small, hick town where it’s easy to be praised as a big fish in a small pond. But when she moves to the big pond, she’s suddenly drowning. She’s not particularly “food smart” as it were, and she doesn’t seem to have the ungodly amounts of practice hours Soma has racked up. She’s just a dedicated home cook who put love into her dishes and decided to make becoming a chef her dream. It’s actually a really sweet and humble dream compared to Soma’s more domineering statement about becoming number one in the entire academy.
It makes them an interesting combination because Soma is there to excel whereas Megumi just wants to not fail. Definitely a cute friend for Soma to have when everyone else hates him. I love Soma, and can’t stand seeing him bullied so much when he has a genuine talent. You’re allowed to trash talk when you can make eggs so good that Erina gets wet and a cold-hearted sensei tries to break the marking scheme to display his euphoria. I see a ton of scowling faces in the audience, and I can’t wait to see Soma completely devastate all of these other students with his cooking. It looks like we’ll get to meet a few of them more intimately next week too!
(This is now officially the real life cooking commentary section) Well, I haven’t gotten around to making any more dishes from Shokugeki no Soma. With the advent of Game of Thrones, I’ve been going through my Official Game of Thrones Cookbook and making medieval feasts to eat alongside each episode. Some people specialize in Chinese food or Mexican food…I specialize in Fandom food. Anyways, I’ve seen some really cool renditions of Shokugeki no Soma dishes from other bloggers and even the producer of the show himself! I’ll definitely link to all of them when I get a cooking post in order. It’s nice to see so many people get into it and bring this 2D food to the next dimension. Based on how the “Gotcha” Pork turned out when I made it, these recipes seem to actually be pretty damn good. I might be too cheap to buy a big cut of beef like this so my eyes are still set on episode 1’s fried rice. Sometimes simple is best…
About Overcooled
A neuroscience graduate, black belt, and all-around nerd. You'll either find me in my lab or curled up in my rilakkuma kigurumi watching anime.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Well, you learn to write by writing, and you learn to cook by cooking. For good or for ill, you have to eat your mistakes…
I love how the still emphasize taking Souma as both sour and sweet. As you say, OC, he has asses in seats cooking pretty much down; recovering from mistakes, or even sabotage, as he did this episode is what you do in a kitchen.
But for my money, I would bet on the boy any time. He has, as is said in the industry, “wheels”. Food knowledge is key, but it’s built up in layers as well. It not only knowing how done a steak is on the grill, but also knowing that the meat will still “cook” when you remove it from the grill, or whatever source of heat, pan, broiler, Meeren Draconis Rotisserie, etc.
…and OMG….I’m having hnnng attacks over Megumi. So darn cute!
POWUH: 900-999 with 915 comments
She’s cute indeed, but I really didn’t like her coward attitude and this “I’m not coming near him anytime soon”, just because he speaks trouble. It’s not like trouble means low grades, right? .-.
Anyway, being a girl’s seiyuu in this anime must be awful, specially when your character eats something, as they will always suddenly see themselves in the middle of some weird hentai.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
At this point, Megumi isn’t worrying about low grades as much as she is about Soma drawing in large amounts of unnecessary attention after he told everyone off with his speech. She wanted to maintain a low profile before he came along. Being within ten feet of him would be like being guilty by association.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
That’s a comment that should have less to no impact these days. We’ve already had mainstream female seiyuus voicing in hentai series. Yuu Asakawa (Akame ga Kill’s Leone, Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Work’s Rider) has voiced a succubus named Carrera in a hentai titled Viper GTS.
Plus, I understand the creator of this story was originally a hentai author. Big surprise there (sarcasm).
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
Hentai Soma to Wararanai Feminist.
POWUH: 900-999 with 915 comments
I’m guessing spammy ate my comment… Or I just closed my tab without actually submitting it. Could someone check, pls?
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
It was so tasty that spammy couldn’t resist.
POWUH: 900-999 with 915 comments
I was thinking about doing some silly joke like that, but I didn’t want to risk spammy eating my comment with reason hahaha
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
Delicious meal-gao.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
I nearly forgot. This episode used honey. That’s convenient.
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
Dunks BB into honey-gao. *grows lilies*
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Don’t you dare!!
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
I was tempted to make a Yurikuma joke too. Such perfect timing~
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Fosh has you covered over in the most recent Punch Line post!
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
This is Life Sexy.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Soma pulls through again with his awesome cooking technique. Though it’s a bit of a let-down they didn’t showcase a frame by frame of how he prepared the food like the first two episodes. Saying he added honey to tenderize the meat quicker didn’t feel sufficient.
There are times you’ve got to ask if male leads aren’t natural born masochists. Soma’s speech indicating as much. Deliberately stirring up the hornet’s nest by antagonizing every single one of his colleagues on the first. That’s nothing short of asking for trouble. And with poor Megumi in tow, she’s going to feel the burn even if he isn’t aware that he’s the true focus of everyone’s malice.
Erina isn’t happy our underdog is throwing a wrench in her works by advancing. Only a matter of time until she’s at his mercy. Aside from that, it really baffles me to learn her seiyuu is Risa Taneda (Strike the Blood’s Yukina Himeragi, Rolling Girls’ Ai, High School DxD’s Xenovia, WIXOSS’ Mayu,
Gochuumon wa Usagi Desu ka’s Rize, Brynhildr’s Neko). I seriously couldn’t tell from listening to Erina. The voice she uses is too unrecognizable.
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
I guess since it was in a covered pot most of the time, they decided to fast forward it. It’s probably not a very exciting dish to watch someone make.
Ahh, Soma should have known saying that would make his life harder. Maybe he wanted a challenge to make his rise to the top all the more meaningful.
POWUH: Metanorn Regular with 105 comments
One thought I had about this show is they are trying to have it both ways. They want you to have full confidence soma will win every time. But they also want it to seem like he might lose. The show has pulled off his confidence very nicely, but I’m already getting a little bored of EVERYONE’S! extreme arrogance.
POWUH: 600-699 with 691 comments
that squid…poor Megumi, i feel like crying for her