Bon Appétit

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“Are you eating in this situation?”

“Of course! I’ll have to keep savoring the taste until I die. Do you want one?”

She was reincarnated in a novel as Luana, the abandoned princess.

And her death was already decided.

She just wanted to let people know about her cooking talent, but she was misunderstood as a witch because of her cheese jerky!

The General of the conquering army, Duke Legion, who had lost his sense of taste, took her to the Empire for her extraordinary jerkies and to break the curse that had come down from generation to generation.

“It is delicious, isn’t it?”

“Prepare the same for the dinner.”

She was happy to be able to cook and eat as much as delicious food as she wanted…

But now, she also wanted to look after Legion.

‘Eat three meals a day, and make sure to make dessert. I’m sure he will be able to gain some weight…!’

The Duke took the jerky from the princess. On the surface, it was no different from any beef jerky.

But when he took a bite of it, it felt like a new world had opened up.

The jerky, made by the princess, felt more tender than the others as he gently crushed it with his teeth.

The taste of condensed meat smudged his tongue as he chewed on. It was just as she said.

He could feel the savory taste of the spicy meat, and at the end of the day, he wanted to have more.

The desire that he had, faded for a while.

“I didn’t really want anything, but now I think I do.”

Associated Names
One entry per line
Gulp while you taste it
맛본 김에 꿀꺽!
Related Series
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Recommendations
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Recommendation Lists
  1. KR Novels with Manhwa (FL Version)
  2. God of Transmigration/Reincarnation 2
  3. MY FAV KOREAN NOVELS
  4. My favourite 2
  5. PRETTY COVERS

Latest Release

Date Group Release
08/22/22 Moonlight Novels c79
08/19/22 Moonlight Novels c78
08/17/22 Moonlight Novels c77
08/15/22 Moonlight Novels c76
08/10/22 Moonlight Novels c75
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08/07/22 Moonlight Novels c73
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08/04/22 Moonlight Novels c70
08/04/22 Moonlight Novels c69
08/02/22 Moonlight Novels c68
08/01/22 Moonlight Novels c67
07/31/22 Moonlight Novels c66
07/30/22 Moonlight Novels c65
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17 Reviews sorted by


starcake
New starcake rated it
March 26, 2024
Status: Completed
Low 3 stars: Typical transmigration cooking novel x comedy-romance with a food-enthusiast heroine juggling just wanting to stay alive and just doing what she wants to do (which is cooking and eating delicious food), and a tsundere male lead who can't decide if he only likes the FL's cooking or if he also likes her too. Unfortunately, about midway through the story veers off into an ill-defined and generic rebellion plotline that's way too vague and boring. The translation is decent, though it'll occasionally switch from third person to first... more>> person, sometimes change tenses, and some characters' names are inconsistent, especially the one mostly called Gerald. A different translator took over for most of the side stories and still couldn't be consistent with the name! Throughout the novel he's referred to as Gerald/Gelard/Gallard/Galad/etc. Another character also switches between Reina and Raina.

This is a Korean novel and the heroine really, really likes cooking Korean food though she also cooks other types of foods too, and she wasn't a five-star chef in her original life, she was a very good home cook. The fantasy setting is generic European-western, though as is typical of transmigration/rebirth/isekai fantasy cooking novels, there are a lot of super convenient ingredients specific to the MC's country of origin that just so happen to be readily available and commonly stocked so the MC can immediately cook "homestyle" dishes—though at least in this case doenjang and gochujang and soy sauce aren't available and she has to make her own. But somehow dried soybeans and the right type of peppers are available to make both. Go figure. White rice is, of course, readily available.

Minor genre-typical gripes aside, the MC Luana really just lives to pout her lips (seriously, she pouts her lips at least once and sometimes several times per chapter), cook and eat, and enjoys feeding other people. She's not particularly complicated, she isn't a saint (in the figurative sense or the character role sense), and she's only interested in food. She does think the ML is kind of hot and because this is a comedy she frequently finds herself in compromising positions with him much to her embarrassment—refreshingly though she's not immediately in love with him. Their relationship development is okay-cute and okay-funny, not super amazing but decently fun. I'd rate their chemistry as a 6.5/10—it ain't sizzlin' but it's there and it does the job.

The ML Legion is the typical stone-faced duke/leader of the nation's army who is intrigued by the heroine though in this case, he's more focused on her cooking ability and the belief that she's a witch because a witch's curse has rendered him unable to taste things, and yet he can taste how delicious her food is, therefore she must weigh the same as a duck and therefore—ahem, I mean, she's a witch.

The cooking plot stuff is fairly conventional and not particularly different or unique. It is kind of nice though that Luana isn't cooking to make money or being self-effacing or a braggadocio about her talent as is typical for these kinds of novels—she really enjoys food and enjoys feeding others, and enjoys the pleasures of eating rather than seeing it as a means of survival, so that positive attitude and approach, without modesty/humbleness or superior attitude, was refreshing. She's proud of her cooking without being arrogant about it.

Where this story fell down was in the other half of the plot, which involves the political aspects of her sister Princess Ingrid being the emperor's captive, plotting revenge, and trying to revive her kingdom, and Luana getting tangled up in it. The political drama storyline feels like it was scrawled on top of the cooking story in capital letters in giant crayon—it's super basic and obvious, and there is absolutely no realism, complexity, or thought involved. It feels like the author had no interest in or knowledge of how to write a political plot, but felt obliged to stick it into the story and so just did a really superficial job of it by slapping a bunch of clichés and tropes together.

People are incredibly s*upid, their ambitions are generic and shallow, and cannon fodder abounds to the point that half of them don't even have follow up as to their fates, as things peter out or are forgotten. Other plot points are unrealistically and overly simplistically resolved because the story says they're resolved, like saying, "Okay! After the US government ended segregation, it took a while and there are still a few hiccups but now the USA is a racism-free country and most people totally get along even if a few holdouts here and there are uncomfortable!!!" Yeah right sure mmhmm.

I wasn't expecting a complex plot of inter-kingdom drama and political machinations a la Game of Thrones, but I'm griping about it because a good 1/3 to 1/2 of the latter part of the story is all about the politics, with Luana being sort of on her own and not really cooking much or developing relationships. The cooking was the focus along with her relationship with Legion and other characters, and when you take all that away and focus on extremely mediocre generic and predictable political "plot", it gets boring.

Related to that, there are a few oddities within the story that also lowered my rating: things introduced as special/unique/with big fanfare but after all that setup never amount to anything, the way magic is presented in the story, and some loose ends.

Spoiler

The aforementioned Gerald/Galerd/Gallard/whatever is introduced as a male witch, and an info dump is devoted to describing how androgynously beautiful he is and explaining how male witches are extremely rare and he's the only one in existence, but after all that explanation and setup it makes zero difference in the story. I thought he'd maybe be treated differently by other witches or use the fact that he's a male witch or his bishounen looks to his advantage somehow, or maybe he had different/strange powers because he's a rare male witch, but nope. It's pretty much never brought up again.

Luana being a witch is a key element of the story and yet she does almost nothing magical in the story besides making chocolate slightly more easily and summoning a hot cup of tea once. She's a Gourmet Witch so all her magic is supposedly related to cooking, but what that means is not really explained and at most she seems to just be able to occasionally create extra spices for her cooking—but most of the time, she doesn't use magic at all. There's a big point raised about her having to go through a special timely ceremony with other young witches to actually become a witch and be able to use magic, but said ceremony is summarized in a few sentences and then BAM she's a "witch", and that's it.

What was even the point of her having magic if she doesn't use it and its impact on the story is almost nothing? She was a great cook to begin with and now... she's still a great cook. It doesn't seem like she's a better cook, and her food does not have any magical properties or have magical effects upon people. It's just good food, which it already was.

There's also a plot point devoted to Luana agonizing if she should become a full witch or not, because full witches aren't human anymore (whatever that means beyond having one single kind of apparently random magic and an extended lifespan, seems like that's all) and boohoo she'll outlive all the humans she knows including Legion! Then she decides f*** it because what if she can become a gourmet witch and cook better? And then the whole issue of her outliving Legion is never brought up again ever and very conveniently, she does become the new Gourmet Witch. I mean, I guess that's fine since I'm not here for the Arwen-Aragorn-type angst, but it's weird that it's introduced as such a big agonizing thing and then she just decides it's fine and never thinks about it again.

Even "magic" in general is poorly explained and barely used in the story, despite the story revolving around Legion's curse and his and Luana's quest to find a cure for it. And even when the curse is finally broken in the end, it's extremely lackluster, kind of like, "Oh, hey, it happened, guess it must have been because of this reason. Huh. Great!" Curses are built up to be this big mysterious powerful thing and then nothing more ever comes of that and it's barely token explained how it actually works.

Then there's whole business with her sister Ingrid, the original protagonist of the novel into which Luana transmigrated. Ingrid developed differently from the novel, choosing to seek vengeance against the emperor and try to revive her kingdom. She's got all these grim aspirations and vengeance motives that are all generic, and all the boring political plot stuff revolves around her and her extremely vague ambitions to take back her kingdom and rule it as queen, and then we stop hearing about her for the last third or so of the story. She just kind of vanishes as the story goes back to focusing on Legion and Luana, the latter of whom never bothers to think about her fugitive ex-princess sister who was devoted to "saving" her from the monstrous guy who torched their kingdom and slaughtered their family and whom she believed was seducing Luana.

There are a couple token mentions of her being some kind of rebel in the later side story chapters, and then the last chapter of all flashes back to Ingrid's last real appearance to cover what she was doing at the time, and summarizes future stuff, and I think the story was aiming for it being hopeful/open-ended, but because it was all vague summary, I feel like Ingrid just got continuously short-changed in this novel.

Her entire family was slaughtered in front of her and her kingdom was conquered by the empire solely because she refused the emperor's advances, then she was held prisoner by him and made his plaything, her only remaining sister eventually basically abandoned her (not that either of them viewed it that way but...), and she's left as a fugitive from the empire now jointly ruled by her sister and the guy who executed their whole family, while Ingrid tries (and apparently fails repeatedly) over the years to rally enough support to stage a rebellion and reacquire her kingdom.

She does seem to eventually fall in love or at least companionably be with her knight enough to have a child with him (there is neither confirmation nor denial of romantic feelings between them), but it seems like that takes place in the midst of her living a haunted, hunted life scrabbling to regain her former power, while Luana gets a happily ever after and kind of sort of suggests she'd like to help Ingrid but Ingrid is, after all, the former princess of a conquered country who might be guilty of assassinating the emperor, so alas, Luana's hands are tied. The best each of them can do is be regretful they're technically at odds with each other and silently wish each other well, but, uh, the immense power imbalance going on makes that sort of hard for me to appreciate the sentiments on Luana's side. That sort of wistfully regretful and fatalistic ambiance really clashes with the comedic happily-ever-after tone of the rest of the story.

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I waffled briefly over rating this higher than 3 stars, but ended up rounding it down to a low 3 because although the cooking and comedy were fun, there were just too many issues with the political and magical parts of the plot being sub-par, and all the setup for things that never amounted to anything. Still, for all that, I did generally like Luana and Legion, even if they were both a bit shallowly written.

(This was story was adapated to manhwa and I had a look at it, and for some reason Luana looks way too much like a BL male MC in drag, to the point that I couldn't read more than a few chapters because it weirded me out lol. It's a combination of the art style and my reading a lot of BL manga and manhwa. I also was less into the manhwa than the novel, but if you dislike the novel but are interested in the story, maybe give the manhwa a try.) <<less
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Yoshui
Yoshui rated it
September 16, 2022
Status: c38
Thats an obv drop for me.

I tried to keep reading it, I really did. Honestly, the beginning was really well written and the translation is really good as well. With the FL being the fluffy and food-hungry woman she is, she quickly manages to gain favor by the ml. At this point I would also have agreed with the former reviews, but there is one event that endlessly frustrates me:
... more>>
Spoiler

Because of his strong hatred for witches the ML impulsively decides to lock the FL into the dungeon and tries to torture her (ML and FL already spend a considerate amount of time together).

She then, understandably, proceeds to cry while telling him to stop, what he eventually does. After that ML shows symptoms of liking FL but still keeps her locked up in the dungeon for several days.

To make matters worse: the FL shows no resentment or anger towards the ml. She basically acts like nothing happened and just keeps being concerned for the ml.

Finally, when another witch descendant tried to rescue our main character, the FL only thinks about the ML and about how he would feel if she left, and not the horrible and inhumane situation he has brought her into, despite all her efforts to take care of him.

AND TO MAKE MATTERS EVEN WORSE: SIR MR ML INWARDLY ARGUES THAT OFC FL WOULD GO WITH THE WITCHES BC SHES A WITCH AS WELL bich you literally frightened her to death and put her IN A DUNGEON (did I mention the torture part???).

Anyways they both thought of the whole situation as not being a big deal so imma def drop this, or else I might throw my cat out the window

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Honestly read at your own risk. I cant understand why there are so many 5 star reviews, it just doesnt make sense to me. <<less
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znukhsoc
znukhsoc rated it
November 8, 2022
Status: Completed
Even in the amateurness spectrum, this one is in the lower levels.
The duke in one chapter is told to be a short person, in another he is tall, FL has one and only quirk in her personality, which got repetitive REAL QUICK. Like there are no brain cells left for everyday functions other than cooking. The story gets VERY VERY shallow and quick near the end.
WARNING: The duke had a super-duper lack-of-common-sense hatred for witches arc, obviously relationship went toxic after that. It was such a letdown->

... more>>
Spoiler

ML dumps FL into a cold, moldy, filled with bugs kind of underground dungeon then intents to torture her, doesn't do it but he traumatizes her anyway, then expects her to be on his side and not run away? What? WUT? AND the s*upid FL forgets and forgives this quickly. Guess why? She thinks about what he is eating while being thrown into the dungeon.

After the abduction arc the story goes like this: OMG the leads got separated again, well FL saves the ML in 2 chapters anyway, oh by the way the emperor is dead now, ML is the new emperor now lala lala laaala.... ATTACK ON THE NEW EMPEROR WOW. (not a problem tho. it's okay since the ending is in 2 chapters.)

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Don't be me and waste your time on this. <<less
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jiayi1906
jiayi1906 rated it
December 11, 2020
Status: c5
It is hilarious and cute! MC is an abandoned princess who was transmigrated (?) into a novel. She’s hilarious and a real foodie.

... more>>
Spoiler

She literally sneaked cheese jerky and ate it while being threatened and when asked about the jerky she goes on a spiel about how great her homemade jerky is 😂

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ML is a cold hearted Duke who lost his sense of taste (thinking about this as a foodie hurts 🥲 there’s no point in living if you can’t eat good food). So far it seems like he’s your typical ML but he might warm up later on.

The translation is really good! All in all, it’s an enjoyable read 💕 <<less
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Lalaok
Lalaok rated it
October 17, 2020
Status: c3 part2
So far it's so funny and cute. It makes you wanna read more and more.
waiting for more T_T
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TeddyWestside
TeddyWestside rated it
September 2, 2022
Status: c87
I'll say this right now. This is a typical and formulaic story and I LOVE IT!

FMC is an airhead who loves cooking who wins a cold and stoic ML who is indifferent to food. The romance is slow and I prefer that rather than an instant fall in love scenarios that happen in a few chapters.

I think what sold this story to me is how the ML slowly changes. You get this bits of emotion from him that makes you want more. Another thing that made me love this is... more>> how food is very relatable to people.

What grinds my gears with this story is the political aspect of it and mind you the amount of politics in this story is very little. I also really don't care for the 2nd couple in this story even though they are supposed to be the main couple in the original story of the FMC. This would have been perfect without the drama.

This can easily be one of my favorite story as long as the ending goes well. <<less
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Sammybunny40
Sammybunny40 rated it
July 12, 2022
Status: c49
Super cute and not very angsty, perfect if you need a change from heavier stories! The translation is AMAZING and although the romance has taken some time to get to you barely care because of how fluffy everything is.
3 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
gooseman
gooseman rated it
May 28, 2022
Status: c21
So far I’m loving the story! The FL is so funny and food hungry all the time which I find hilarious and the ML tries to deny that her food is good when in fact: IT’S DELICIOUS! If you like a comedy romance kind of story, then definitely read this!
3 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
Hrolnar2020
Hrolnar2020 rated it
July 27, 2022
Status: c6
I was just looking for something to read while sipping tea and I must say that this is just as good as any slice of life anime and a real refreshing flavor. I like how it's not like similar novels I've read and the focus on food brings it home for me.
2 Likes · Like Permalink | Report
Onee-san
Onee-san rated it
July 21, 2022
Status: c56
Very cute and the translation was so amazing thank you moonlight novel and thank you to Ms translator Rosciel for her hardwork and amazing translation
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Insideofadoge
Insideofadoge rated it
July 8, 2022
Status: c48
Sassy and cute. It’s mostly cooking fluff, but there’s a time and place for that. Plus the translator does a good job.
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mrsanpan
mrsanpan rated it
August 20, 2023
Status: c53
Sadly I'm gonna drop this. The first half of the story was pertty good and fun to read but at this point it became cringe.

Spoiler

They come up with the worst idea for solving the Duke's problem. To think completely backwards and organizing a cooking contest and having the winner as the Duke's girlfriend is total nonsense.

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I really tried to continue but everyone and everything so s*upid.
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phorenlovescontent
phorenlovescontent rated it
October 30, 2022
Status: Side Story 2
  • It's wholesome. It got food. ML and FL's developed smoothly. Food. But I'm not really satisfied with just that.

    The reincarnation is useless, it literally can work without it. It only works when FL wants to cook food the people around her doesn't know. That's it.

    Spoiler

    The ending felt anticlimactic and rushed. I hoped there would be more angst and plot with ML losing romantic feelings with FL but nah food and time solved it ://

    Also FL's sister?? Just disappeared?? After she literally assassinated the Emperor. Literally no mentions of her even in the ending.

    And Honestly, I have mixed feelings with the ML. He literally wanted to torture her. Twice. But NOOOOO, the power of love stopped him. FL was only safe because of she's secretly a witch and he can taste her cooking.

    [collapse]

    In the end, still a fun read if you love slice of life and cooking.
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Crystal_loves_reading
Crystal_loves_reading rated it
October 23, 2022
Status: --
Love it! To those reading this comment if your looking for something fluffy, slice of life, historical stuff with all the nobles and royalties especially if you like reading novels about food like me. Then your on the right website. Don't hesitate and start reading😊
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Nightkiss49
Nightkiss49 rated it
October 1, 2022
Status: side story 1
It's nice to read something refreshing, comical, a bit naive, and a slice of life altogether.

I know the main story plot is based on fantasy and history, but I enjoyed it all.

The chapters from the start to the end were written well and the translation was okay-ish.

... more>> I did feel the last few chapters were written in rush. I think that the writer could have done better but I still think this is good.

I felt like the Crown Prince got what he deserved and so did the original female lead, she also get what she deserved.

I'm happy for the main lead and the female lead as they got what they wished for or needed the almost. <<less
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Ainslee
Ainslee rated it
August 30, 2022
Status: c49
This one is perfect for those who crave comedy in every 2 or 3 paragraph, MC literary had no serious gene in her system. 🙈 And the result always turn to the best side for her so far.

I've no bone to pick on her, but if this type of joking routine happen to me in real life, I probably would give death stare to her, and still she won't understand my glare, that's how far off she had gone. 🤦🏻‍♀️
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updatesnovela
updatesnovela rated it
February 21, 2024
Status: c15
I dropped it at ch 15.

The story is not engaging at all. I came to read looking at the many 5 star ratings, but not worth the ratings imo.

The characters are pretty one dimensional. I don't mind a ditzy FL. But this one is not well written ditzy at all and she comes off like an idiot. ML is not that interesting either. Ok he may have a curse and the idea of it sounds intriguing. But there is no buildup or sense of mystery in the novel itself.

A very... more>> meh and bland story. <<less
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