@Fushiginiku Wow, never thought I'd stumble across someone referencing Townsends on Mangadex! Unfortunately, however, this is deep-frying over a much larger fire that has good airflow. That's rather different from pan-frying on a stone oven stovetop. You're right on calling out them never having heard of frying something in oil, though; I mean, back in the 11th century, "lumbolos cum panitio" already existed in documents in the Milan archive of Saint Ambrose, which translates as "little chops with breadcrumbs", so it most certainly should have occurred to someone to try more with cuisine already. But, usually Japanese isekai portray food culture in other worlds as being so basic they often don't even have basic sauces, so this is just an unfortunate failure on their part.