Tondemo Skill de Isekai Hourou Meshi - Vol. 1 Ch. 4 - Stock Up Then Sign Up for the Merchants' Guild

[The5thSeraph]

4 chapters and the protagonist is already jonesing for rice.
I mean it IS a food manga isekai, but still. Isekai protags craving rice is such a cliché by now. Is it so much of a problem for Japanese people to get their carbs from other sources?

And I'm guessing he is kinda stupid. Getting infinitely rich reselling salt and pepper? Really now?
I don't know shit about economics and othersuch capitalist crap, but even I know that if you keep supplying the same shit endlessly, the amount of money you'll get for it will drop.

 

[SpacePriest]

Lots of Japanese people cook using pre-made ingredient packages. Curry, soup stock (dashi, etc.), and we see soy sauce variations here. It was a bit disappointing to learn about.

@The5thSeraph There's no implication that he's going to go full on Dutch East India Company here, and start trading literal ships worth of the stuff. Mind you, demand is elastic -- if you supply more of a rare thing, and more people have access to that thing you're selling, then prices don't suddenly crash. It's evident that there's scarcity going on here.

And rice is hardly exclusive to east Asian cooking. Not that I've found a better replacement to accompany soy-sauce-based meat dishes...

 

[The5thSeraph]

@SpacePriest
Exclusivity wasn't a factor in question.
It was the tendency of isekai protagonists to react to rice as though it were a drug they were addicted to. As if bread or potatoes or pasta wouldn't suffice.

And I'm guessing Japanese cooking might be like American cooking that way. I was so weirded out when I first saw "cake mix" for sale in an American supermarket. And then they started doing that here too. Some of these things are so low-effort, but the supermarkets will still sell ways to skip them for the sake of the clueless.

But then I'm not really one to talk. My full cooking repertoire is pretty much just eggs. Fried eggs, scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, omelettes, etc. Can bake too, roughly speaking, but I'm not great at it.

 

[andrmnh]

@The5thSeraph

Idk about your background, but take it from me who eats rice at least twice a day... Rice is everything to us. It can complement almost the full repertoire of asian dishes and flavors (unlike potatoes or noodle/pasta - unless we make broth or stew)

Take something like that away for a few days of course we'll get 'withdrawal symptoms'. Trying to substitute it with some other carb isn't as simple as it sounds unfortunately lol. It may sound cliche to some but it's quite relatable to us here.

I stayed in the States for a while and all the asian households i knew had a rice bag and cooker in the kitchen. Do we eat potatoes and pasta? Yes, but rarely we will opt for them over rice esp if we're cooking our own food xD

Tldr; the yearning for rice isnt as exaggerated as you might think it is.

 

[SpacePriest]

@The5thSeraph

the tendency of isekai protagonists to react to rice as though it were a drug they were addicted to

I think there was some sort of study done with mice or rats where they had a choice between sugar or cocaine. They would choose the sugar.

Rice is more or less the same as sugar once it hits your saliva -- thank amylase for the near-instant conversion. If it looks like an addiction, it's because it is an addiction. It helps that the flavour of white rice is totally neutral. I've largely banished it from my diet as a staple (previously ate it near-daily), but it's still great once in a while.

I try to avoid eggs whenever possible nowadays. Did research on their nutrition, found out the industry tries really hard to market something that just isn't really healthy or nutritious.

 

[The5thSeraph]

@andrmnh
I'm Welsh. If it can go between two slices of bread or in pastry, I'm fine with it.
Can eat pasta too. No problem with potatoes. Rice would be my last choice, and if I do eat it, it is always some brown variety of Indian rice.

@SpacePriest
Not to burst your bubble, but that is just standard carbohydrates you're talking about. Bread also breaks down into sugar with the help of amylase.
And I'd never want to avoid eggs. The "industry" doesn't have a thing to do with it. I was raised on a poultry farm. Any eggs we couldn't sell, we'd eat. That was a lot of eggs. So I'll take this moment to note that duck eggs are far superior to chicken eggs. Also goose eggs have yellow albumen and taste curried... far too strong a flavour for my liking.

 

[SpacePriest]

@The5thSeraph

If it can go between two slices of bread or in pastry, I'm fine with it.

So you'd understand why someone else would crave the staple carbohydrate they grew up eating and are used to, then, cliche though it may be. And I'm not sure why you thought I wouldn't know bread was also complex sugar...?

 

[The5thSeraph]

@SpacePriest

So you'd understand why someone else would crave the staple carbohydrate they grew up eating and are used to, then

I literally said in the sentence that followed that I'm fine with other carbohydrate sources. The point is that Japanese guys in isekai series quite blatantly aren't. You completely missed the point.

And I'm not sure why you thought I wouldn't know bread was also complex sugar...?

Because you phrased it as though it were a unique property of rice, and it makes absolutely zero sense to even bring it up if you're aware it applies to all standard carb sources, as that in no way indicates why rice would be especially favoured over the others, obviously.

 

[SpacePriest]

@The5thSeraph

I think you were wondering about why Japanese guys treated rice as if it were something they were addicted to, and that's what I was trying to answer by bringing up amylase. Short grain types have more starch, which makes that effect more pronounced than in other carbs -- should have clarified that bit. (I like long grain, and think short grain varieties are squidgy and gross because of this effect.)

At least he ate a sandwich later on.

 

[domiso]

That big fluffy bowl of white rice with pork 😍😍 Damn this manga

 

[Sandwitch]

Warning: Rice debate below.

My opinion: Rice is good as long as its not on its own. Slap any saucy something with it and its good.

 

[Pixeltamer]

Bruh, if you give me rice with just some plain ole no sauce meat on it, I'll look at you funny but still eat it. But in the end, sauce is king.

 

[Gurgling]

Wow Robert really wanted them spices lmao

 

[Skylarz1801]

CIVILIZATION 6 TRADE SYSTEM ON CRACK, literally, you can be rich in no time doing this.

 

[Goyal99Raj]

Set up a store and make bank with the price difference

 

[Pietje013]

Don't do what the protagonist did. Most food that we can eat, those are toxic to other creatures.