Chương 178: The Rules of the Ultimate Banquet

Day three. The day it ended. The whole of Paris seemed to be boiling for it. The press had framed the match as the contest of the century — science against humanity, reason against feeling. When the two teams walked out again, an ocean of noise came up to meet them. Two days of hard fighting, one round each, and every expectation in the building at its ceiling. Today decided everything. Mario Benini came to the center of the stage in his most formal dress. His face was grave.

"Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the final chapter of the Global Culinary Champion League."

"Over two days we have looked back at cooking's past together, and forward into its future. We have seen technique at its limit and felt the temperature of emotion."

"Before I announce today's theme, allow me to restate the rules." His eyes went over both teams.

"Each side has taken one round. As the rules state, those scores do not carry into today."

"Whoever scores higher across today's five dishes is the champion of this Global Culinary Champion League."

"But what is cooking, in the end?" Benini paused, and looked out at everyone in the hall and at the two teams braced on the floor.

"Cooking is inheritance. Cooking is innovation. But more than either, cooking is connection."

"Connection between a cook and an ingredient. Between food and the person who eats it. Between a flavor and a memory."

"So today, the theme of our final round returns to the most original meaning of what we do." He drew a breath and announced it with a weight he hadn't used before.

"Round three — The Ultimate Banquet."

"Today you will not be serving abstract judges. You will be serving five human beings, each with a life and a history of his or her own." The words had barely landed before officials carried five sealed envelopes to each of the two captains. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Before I explain the rules," Benini's eyes settled on Chris and Arthur, "allow my four colleagues and me to set aside the role of judge for a moment." He unpinned the judge's badge from his chest and laid it deliberately on the table. The other four did the same. The ceremony of it told everybody that this round was not like the others.

"In those envelopes are five Taste Memory Cards, one from each of us."

"Every card describes a memory involving food that shaped our lives more deeply than any other. The cards carry no names, and nothing on them points directly to which of us wrote it."

"Your task, over the next four hours, is to create one dish for each of the five of us, based on what those cards describe."

"You do not need to consider the structure of appetizer, main and dessert. You need only answer five unrepeatable lives with your understanding, your technique, and your hearts."

"At the end, each of us will score the dish we personally received on how well it answers the card, how deeply it resonates, and how completely it is realized. The combined score of the five dishes will decide the championship." When he finished, the arena went dead silent. Nobody could speak. The rule was, by any reasonable standard, insane. This was no longer a contest of cooking. It was a contest of empathy. Of insight. Of the ability to understand another human being.

You didn't even know who you were cooking for. All you faced were a few cold lines of text — with a living person behind them, and a life that had burned. Ethan's and Kira's faces both tightened.

"How is that possible?" Ethan said, low.

"How is that different from gambling? We don't know who the judges are. How do we cook for them?" Kira's brow was down too.

"Five cards, five completely different dishes, four hours. The time alone is brutal." But while they were still reeling, Chris felt something go through him from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. His heart was going fast, and not from nerves. From something closer to elation. He opened the system panel he had been refining since the first day of this competition. Five portraits, laid out cleanly. [Mario Benini] — Italian. Theorist of gastronomy. Champions roots and feeling. [Dubois] — French.

Unyielding defender of traditional cooking, who nevertheless longs to be moved by something with a spirit in it. [Emily Jones] — American. Food critic. Attends to narrative and to cultural fusion. [Wolfgang Schmidt] — German. Former three-star chef. Believes in technique, with a particular weakness for family and warmth. [Akiko Tanaka] — Japanese. Food sociologist. Values atmosphere and philosophical reflection.

All of it recorded, analyzed and accumulated by Chris, scrap by scrap, out of every comment they'd made, every score they'd given, every small change of expression. The most valuable intelligence he had. And now it was the only key that would open the puzzle of the memory cards. The system's first and most basic power — see the judges' preferences — had come back around at the last hour of the last round and paid off in a way nobody could have predicted. This wasn't cheating.

This was insight and empathy at the highest level a cook, a host, could possess. Chris gripped the five envelopes and found his palms were burning. He lifted his head and looked at his two bewildered teammates, and told them with a confidence he'd never had before:"No. This isn't gambling."

"This is the one thing we're better at than anybody."