"Whatever humans had access to in your time was probably very simple. Grains. Vegetables. Cooked meat. Salt if you were lucky."
"That is a fair description, yes."
"Well. In the several thousand years since then, new age humans got very bored."
She looked at him. "Bored, huh?"
"Yes, bored. Without spirit fruits and cultivator delicacies to chase, humans spent thousands of years figuring out what to do with grains and vegetables and cooked meat. Every region on the planet developed its own methods. Every culture invented its own dishes. Sauces. Spices. Fermentation. Preservation. Techniques for cooking that don't exist anywhere in nature and had to be invented from scratch. There are now, at conservative count, tens of thousands of distinct culinary traditions on the planet, and any decent-sized city will give you access to a hundred of them within a ten-minute drive."
Camilla was quiet. "...Tens of thousands."
"Give or take."
"For ordinary mortals."
"For anyone with a wallet."
