"Well, this is definitely… an unusual ingredient."
The ingredients sent over from Grandma Toki's hospital, along with a message asking me to cook and serve it to Hisui, turned out to be frozen solid human milk—yes, breast milk.
"Please serve this like you would cold medicine. Warm milk is fine, but don't boil it at 100°C, as that would destroy the beneficial components. Instead, pasteurize it at 60°C."
Yeah, yeah, got it.
I read the note and gave a nod of understanding.
I set water to boil and, once the pot started bubbling, dipped a thermometer in.
"Alright, 60°C."
Perfect. I kept it at that temperature and submerged the pouch. Since it was a medical-grade pouch, it wouldn't melt unless I went over 120°C.
Apparently, the milk had been stored and forgotten in a corner of one of those massive -120°C medical freezers, so degradation wasn't supposed to be an issue.
No idea how many years ago it was frozen.
Hm?
As the frost melted, a label appeared. I leaned in for a better look.
"Tsugumi Umino (2080/5/5)"
Whoa, that's twenty years ago… Wait, Tsugumi-san? So that means this is from when Misago was a baby.
I think I had some of this myself, back in the day.
It was a childhood thing—Tsugumi-san used to produce a lot of milk, and since her little sister Misago couldn't drink it all, she jokingly offered it to us like, "Want some?" and I just drank it straight from the source. But hey, it was girl to girl, so it was all safe and innocent.
Nostalgic.
I chuckled to myself in the kitchen, waiting for it to finish thawing as old memories bubbled up.
Looks like it's ready.
Time for a little taste test.
I poured some into a cup and took a sip. Not quite like cow's milk—gentle and subtly sweet.
Surprisingly low in fat. Like skim milk?
Can't really remember. But it feels… familiar?
We're half-sisters and, well, milk-sisters too. That kind of closeness hasn't changed.
Flavor-wise, no signs of oxidation or freezer burn either. Storage really must've been top notch.
"Alright, Suzume, can you go deliver this?"
That's one item down—served as a kind of snack.
But hey, I'm not going to waste this just because I've thawed it. Might as well turn the rest into pudding.
I'll dissolve some sugar and gelatin, toss in an egg or two... Normally I'd bake it, but since high heat is off-limits, I'll chill it to set instead.
Done! Human milk pudding? Hmm, maybe I should get creative... Immune Globu-pudding?
Eh, that sounds like a chemical accident. Might be clever wordplay, but "immunoglobulin" just looks too clinical.
How about... Tsugumi's Milk Pudding?
What? Can't use someone's name? Too bad, it fits.
Anyway, Hisui should be arriving soon.
Since she's still recovering, maybe I'll whip up a light porridge or rice soup with a good dashi base.
She can have the pudding as dessert. That sounds just about perfect.
Author's note:
Name: Aoba
Role: Head of the kitchen. Older than Suzume and Hachikuma.
Cooking skills: Top-notch. Suzume is her culinary apprentice.
Hobbies: Fishing, hiking, cooking. She taught Misago how to fish, though Misago's better at it now.
Will cook just about anything if it looks edible.
Also has a weakness for bad puns.
Unrelated trivia: The one who taught Misago to play with stones was Yata. Fate works in funny ways.
Character reference image is, as always, in the "current updates" section. Feel free to check it out.
Note on the milk:
Colostrum and its immunoglobulins do retain their medicinal properties when pasteurized at low temperatures.
As for shelf life, I figure a hundred years in the future, freezers should be even more advanced. Currently, medical-grade freezers can hit -80°C.
Long-term sperm storage, for instance, uses -196°C liquid nitrogen in massive Dewar flasks. They require constant refills as the nitrogen evaporates. Even with auto-refill systems, liquid nitrogen setups are costly and large-scale.
So, storing stuff permanently in that kind of setup just didn't feel realistic for everyday use in this world. But hey—maybe a hundred years from now, even home freezers will go down to -196°C?