Ch 3

Because the author is stupid and doesn't realize it would probably kill them

good majority of the stuff you listed requires refrigeration. and ramen? boiled water? you think they have the facilities to even boil water like that? not only that but considering it’s a completely foreign food to them they’d have no idea how to cook it? bread/pastry is simple and easy to understand as a food plus shelf stable. i do agree that water and juice should’ve been considered though

Besides the cup ramen, I was imagining the foods would be eaten immediately. Most of the villagers were taking the items and immediately eating them. Though some were taking the items home. Convenience store sausage doesn’t need to be refrigerated, it’s the smoked kind, jerky is also preserved, kimbap is often eaten as a field trip/picnic type food so isn’t necessary to refrigerate for several hours, tuna is preserved so no refrigeration needed (though the can itself presents problems, unless it was the pouch kind), sandwiches and salads also don’t need to be refrigerated for hours. The only thing that would need refrigeration would be milk. I know shelf stable milk exists, but I’m not sure if that’s a convenience store item in Korea. Though shelf stable soy milk would definitely be available in every Korean convenience stores. But either way, I’m pretty sure fake European setting villagers would know how to eat sandwiches, salads, sausages and jerky.

Though I do agree about the new foods. Even as I listed some, I figured a fake European setting would mean they’d be freaked out by the seaweed that kimbap is wrapped in. Canned/pouch tuna might also be weird to them. And not to mention the plastics and packaging. But the pastries she brought was originally shown individually wrapped in plastic, and she took the time to take them all out of the plastic and put it in the big bag. So I figured she could transfer the other foods too.

But as for boiling water, why wouldn’t the villagers be able to boil water by themselves? She’s distributing food to the village, which means they have homes there. No matter how devastated they may be from the drought, they would still have some sort of way to cook food at home, which means they have a way to boil water. After all, they would have needed to be able to cook and eat even before the drought. As long as they have some sort of pot or pan, plus some source of fire (fireplace, stove, outdoor bonfire, etc), they can boil water. The little boy even told her that his mom made a soup out of the pastry to feed his younger brother. If they were able to make soup, they could obviously boil water. The instructions for cup ramen isn’t exactly rocket science. She would just tell them to add hot water when they want to eat and wait a few minutes. Or she could say to use the noodles + seasoning packet to make soup, and the villagers would be able to make something out of it. As long as they add hot water, it’ll work. If too much is added, it’s just a little soupy. If too little is added it’s a little salty. I doubt starving people would care about the perfect noodle consistency based on cook time. And even room temperature water works, it just tastes bad. (Personally I think uncooked ramen is also tasty, so there’s always that option as a last resort too.) And since they never had it before, they wouldn’t necessarily know what the “correct” taste is. And even irl people use ramen noodles to make other things, so using the noodles incorrectly isn’t a big deal.

Honestly I was surprised the villagers didn’t freak out about the sugar. Usually these Isekai stories have commoners unable to afford sugar, and the mc creates some sort of dessert/sugar revolution. And chocolate is later added as an ultra exotic, luxury item. Yet none of the villagers cared about the sugar or chocolate. Maybe in this setting sugar is already normalized. Or they were so starved that they didn’t notice.

Seaweed was part of the diet in many European coastal areas, although it was usually dulce, which has a tough, rubbery texture and a strong iodine flavour. It was probably not the favoured veg of choice. Since herbaceous greens like sorrel, borage, lamb’s quarters, dandelions and nettles were likely widely available in the north, and parsley, spinach, cilantro and molokhia in the south, dulce was probably eaten more in the winter, when fresh greens weren’t available.