Work Text:
A bowl of cherries (and other dishes that aren’t Sanji’s favourite food)
The battle is won. Everyone is safe.
Once again, they liberated the village. They chased away the drug gangs, freed the slaves, returned the lost, healed the injured.
For a crew set on changing the world’s perception of piracy, they surely end up fighting a lot. A little bit of a paradox, really, because it’s Luffy who guides them into battle and Luffy has the biggest, kindest heart Sanji ever encountered. His shitty rubber captain stretches his shitty rubber heart across all of the seas, across the sky, until everyone fits in. He sees the violence and the cruelty and brutality, and he still offers his heart. It’s easy, for Luffy. He makes it easy – he makes sure there’s space for everyone by shoving out the cruelty as soon as he sees some.
Translation Strawhats – Reality: They fight a lot. They satisfy the Gods, patch up the dam, defuse the bomb, lock up the bad guys, feed the hungry.
It’s a privilege to be part of Luffy’s crew, but it comes at a price: Behind all of the smiles for the villagers, the gifts, the dancing, the Strawhats are tired and bruised. Days later, when they finally return to the Sunny, they can begin to heal.
There’s a ritual to follow. Sanji gets to work.
It comes with a specific pattern: First, Luffy decides to go to battle and everyone fights to the best of her or his abilities. Luffy and Zoro make sure they win. Afterwards, Chopper treats the wounded because unfortunately, someone is usually hurt. As soon as possible, Usopp and Franky get to work and fix the Sunny or whatever they broke, because unfortunately, something is usually broken. The ladies, always concentrating on getting some merit out of the situation, always trying to improve, retreat – Robin-chan rewrites the history books, sinks into myths and legends to understand what happened, and Nami-swan redraws her maps and sets the log pose. Brook will compose a song.
And Sanji? Sanji cooks. Oh, he knows he’s part of the reason they win their fights. He knows Luffy and Zoro need his help in the heat of the battle, even if the shitty swordman wouldn’t ever admit it. But that’s not his job. Feasts don’t make themselves, after all.
Today, Usopp joins him in the galley, because Chopper hasn’t cleared him for heavy duty yet and Franky wants to repair the mast first. Not that Usopp is all that great with hauling heavy tools or materials across deck (it’s why they keep Zoro, after all), but he’s been benched and that sucks – Sanji knows the feeling.
Looking at his crewmate, however, he has to agree with the Doc. Usopp’s covered in ugly-looking bruises that have to hurt pretty badly. Wordlessly, thus, he fills two handful of frozen peas into a plastic bag and slabs them over Usopp’s blossoming black eye.
As Usopp slouches next to the cooking station and keeps the peas in place, Sanji waits for him to start talking.
“There’s so much damage. We’ll have to check all the rigging,” he starts after a while, predictably, rubbing his face. “Franky wants to exchange the big sail again, but I think it’s holding up just fine.”
Sanji decides that he’ll fry the potato peels later to make chips. It’s one of Chopper’s favourite snacks. He doesn’t answer Usopp because he doesn’t have much to offer in the construction department – and Usopp’s not here for his advice in engineering, anyway. After the battles, Usopp often seeks him out. Maybe he has a guilty conscience because he still cowers away during the fights, lets Sanji and Zoro do the dirty work. Maybe he wants to prove that he’s still worthy of being on the crew, that he has value on this ship – he’s found in the kitchen more often since Franky joined the crew.
So, he’s telling Sanji about all the damage done to the Sunny and how he schedules the repair work, and Sanji listens. No embellishment or weird twists in narration, Usopp never lies when it’s just the two of them in the kitchen.
There’s still so much to do, so much to prepare simultaneously. He should get the meat out of the fridge for Luffy’s meal and rinse the rice for Zoro’s onigiri. But then he’d have to turn his back to Usopp, and the faucet would be too loud. It would destroy the little nest of his prep station Usopp has chosen to feel comfortable enough to share the truth and something more.
So, sighing mentally for messing up his own schedule, he grabs the yam instead.
Immediately, the sniper’s eyes light up. Sanji hides a smirk – it always works like a charm.
“You’re making fufu?”
“Sure,” he says and starts to peel. “It’s your favourite, right?”
Predictably, Usopp agrees by telling a story about his mother’s fufu, soon careening into an absurd tale about how he had found the largest yam there had ever been and dug to the molten core of the planet to unearth it. Then, abruptly, he stops. “Hey, Sanji? What’s your favourite food?”
The question throws him. He stops peeling and blinks at Usopp.
His favourite food? Ridiculous. “I’m a chef, dumbass. I eat anything.”
Usopp huffs. “Sure, but what’s your favourite?”
Sanji’s mind, usually full of recipes, flavours and useful facts about nutrition and foodstuff, blanks. He looks at his hands, peeling the yam. He thinks about all the food he still has to prepare for today, all of his crew’s most beloved meals – Nami’s tangerine quiche, Franky’s cheeseburgers, Chopper’s pasta a la pesto and everything else. It’s all tasty and good.
Usopp’s brows furrow and he opens his mouth to say something. Sanji hurries and flicks a piece of yam peel at him. “My favourite food is that bag of peas you’re turning into mash.”
Only now does Usopp notice that some of the icy water has started to leak out of the bag and begun to drip onto Sanji’s pristine wooden working station. He knows what that means and yelps as he hurries to grab a towel.
The swelling around his eye has gone down indeed, and Sanji is happy with his answer.
He thinks about it when he takes a break to smoke. Usopp returned to help out on deck a while ago and Sanji enjoys the cool air of the evening. He listens to Brook’s music from the crow’s nest and flips through his mental catalogue of tasty foodstuff.
He goes through vegetables, fruit, meat, fish, dairy products, sweets. There’s nothing he dislikes.
It is kind of weird, now that he thinks about it. Most people have a favourite meal. Or at least, a favourite cuisine. Sanji almost starved to death once and thinks he has a pretty good excuse for eating like a garbage chute, but that still doesn’t explain why he doesn’t even lean towards some cooking styles more than others.
What makes a food your favourite food? Sanji blows smoke into the sky. It has to be tasty, obviously. But it also has to mean something, right? Usopp and Nami’s favourite foods remind them of their homes, of their loved ones.
Sanji zooms in on that thought, but he still comes up empty. He remembers the cuisine of the North Blue well, likes it just fine, but there are no emotions attached when he goes through the recipes and typical Northern dishes. He neither loves nor hates it, despite the difficult memories that accompany them.
There’s something he misses – it’s not just the memory. Sanji has plenty of memories about food and still can’t decide. No, it’s the intention. In both cases, Nami and Usopp’s favourite meals are the dishes their mothers cooked for them. They remind them of someone who took care of them by cooking. They translate their mothers’ food into love.
Well.
Sanji thinks that kind of makes sense, but he doesn’t have that – no one ever cooked for him out of love. The staff in Germa certainly didn’t and his mother couldn’t. Zeff surely would have –Sanji flinches with a fiery need to excuse the old geezer– but there never had been time. It had taken almost one and a half years for Sanji to be able to eat normal again after the rock and by then, the Baratié had been a well-established business. Sanji and Zeff both ate whenever whatever fit the schedules and meal plans, just like all of the other cooks… there hadn’t been any time or need to cook extra food.
Zeff cooked for him just once. When he had been thirteen, some virus knocked down the whole staff. The restaurant had to close for two weeks while Sanji found out that he had failed another Germa test: Apparently, Vinsmoke kids shouldn’t need vaccines. While the grown-ups recovered, Sanji got worse. Really worse. He doesn’t remember much about it, honestly, but when he woke up between bouts of fever, a picture of delirious misery, there had always been a bowl of steaming soup right next to his bed. Zeff, pretty sick himself, had made sure there was always something to eat nearby. He never tasted that soup, though, hooked to some IVs and too weak to even lift a spoon.
He’s sure it would have been great. Zeff’s cooking was always great. Sanji’s best childhood memories circle around Zeff’s food, and hey, that’s something, right? About once or twice a month, Zeff had called Sanji and fired up his station to try out new recipes after the restaurant had closed for the night. The warmth of the stove, the excitement that made even Zeff giddy sometimes, the sworn secrecy of it all. When Sanji misses Zeff, it’s these nights he thinks about… but he doesn’t feel anything special about those dishes. They had been cooked with customers in mind, not for him.
The cigarette has almost burned down and Sanji’s none the wiser.
Okay, so he doesn’t have a taste or a meal that connects him to being loved. Sanji thinks that’s okay, it’s his job to feed others, after all, not the other way around.
His favourite food, he decides then, is Zeff’s soup he never tasted.
The oven clock rings. He stubs out the cigarette and gets back to work.
In the following hours, he prepares a feast with everyone’s favourite foods, various courses and combinations of new spices and flavours. About thirty minutes before the food is done, he opens various oven hatches and lifts some lids to allow the smells to creep across the ship.
One by one, his crewmates reappear on deck, lured away from the little hiding places they found on the Sunny. He gets it – sometimes, you just need a small space just for yourself to be alone and to recover.
It's Sanji’s job to make sure they come back, though.
His part in the ritual is to offer the place and the occasion for them to regroup again. He gives out comfort and joy. There are many ways people need to heal.
Slowly, his crewmates will stick their heads into the kitchen to see what he’s cooking up in there. Sanji pretends he didn’t see a shock of blue hair or hear hoofs on the planks. Right on time – as soon as the food’s done, they already set the table and wait at the door. He won't have to call anybody.
Everything’s going exactly as he predicted: They regrouped, bandaged, and tired, and share the feast he prepared. Brook’s already playing a few songs in the background, quietly so as to not disturb any conversation. Sanji knows he’ll turn up the volume and the rhythm little by little as the evening progresses.
He just started to relax when suddenly Usopp points an accusing finger at him. “You! You never answered my question!”
He chokes on a bite of tuna steak and all eyes turn to him. “What are you talking about?”
“Your favourite food!” Usopp looks determined, stabbing the air with his finger to underline how serious he is. “You never told me.”
Even though Sanji decided that Zeff’s soup is his favourite, he knows that Usopp wouldn’t accept that. Also, that trail of thoughts could quickly lead to family, to Germa, and that’s not a path he’s willing to go down.
“But I did,” he shrugs instead. “I like everything.”
“That’s not an answer!”
“Stop waving your plate around. I’ll make you suck that sauce out of the planks if you spill any.”
Usopp pales and he thinks he would have gotten away with it, but the damn marimo suddenly joins the conversion.
“There’s nothing special on your plate, either,” Zoro rumbles, seated across from him and grabbing the bottle of sake.
“Shit, is that moss growing in?” Sanji stares at him incredulous. “I’m already at my second serving.”
Zoro huffs, a thick vein already appearing on his forehead. He points at Sanji’s half eaten plate. “You’re eating our food.”
There’s plenty of food on Sanji’s plate – a bit of tuna stake, pasta, salads, fufu and onigiri. Sanji looks at it, sees nothing wrong and wonders if Zoro maybe has been hit on his head during the fight. “Marimo, please tell me you understand what a cook does.”
If it weren’t for the wonderful Robin-chan, the deck would have erupted in a fight by now. Various arms hold the swordsman back, who’s ears have grown beetle-red.
“I think what swordsman-san means to say,” she says, and her voice is music in Sanji’s ears. “is that you didn’t cook your own favourite meal.”
He takes a bite of tuna steak and smiles at Robin politely. “There’s no need to, Robin-chan. I cook for you.”
She doesn’t look convinced, and to Sanji’s horror, the rest of the crew starts to curiously peek at his plate and at the trays of food on the table. They find Nami’s favourite quiche, Robin’s favourite agrodolce (which is actually caponata but Sanji doesn’t have the heart to correct her), Chopper’s pasta, Usopp’s fufu, Luffy’s mixed grill, Zoro’s onigiri, Franky’s burgers, even Brook’s Churrasco, which he can’t eat but Sanji still cooks it. They check out all of the side dishes, leftover starters, and salads.
He loves his crew dearly, but they can be a little bit self-centred. After three years, they began counting dishes today. Sanji sees the cog wheels turn and thinks that well, it was fun while it lasted.
“Bro, why didn’t you cook something for yourself?” Franky asks, flabbergasted.
Sanji holds up his plate, still full of delicious food. “I did. I’m eating the same food as you do.”
Chopper musters him. “You always ask us what to cook, you never cook anything you want!”
“I’m your cook,” Sanji tries again and feels his patience running out. He pronounces each syllable carefully. “I cook for you. Of course, I’m cooking what you to want to eat.”
“This is not a restaurant,” Zoro grumbles and Sanji wonders if setting fire to him would be considered food waste. It could be spinach growing on that head, after all. “We eat what you cook.”
“Everything Sanji cooks is great,” Luffy pipes up between bites of meat. He’s the only one who hasn’t stopped eating, hasn’t looked at Sanji’s plate in search of something individual. “If Sanji wants to cook what we like, he can cook anything, because everything will be great and he likes it.”
It’s not really sound reasoning, but that’s what Luffy does – he bends the world to his logic. For two seconds, the whole crew is trying to decipher if their Captain just dropped some philosophical wisdom about the universe on them as he sometimes (rarely) does. It’s enough of a distraction for the shitty rubber to grab the last burger patty from Franky’s plate with a stretched foot sneaking up from behind. Unfortunately, one of Franky’s sensors catches him, three mechanic apparatuses for punching are activated and Luffy is quickly thrown across the ship.
Right on time, chaos ensues. Nami and Chopper are screaming for them to stop, Brook turns up the volume of his music. Franky doesn’t notice that one of Robin’s arms snatches away the patty. It’s just the perfect opportunity for Sanji to disappear into the kitchen.
The last of the patties are sizzling in the pan and Sanji manages to tune out the ruckus on board. The feast is going great, there’s laughter and yelling and punching and soon, Luffy will go overboard (for the first time). Sanji starts to take some of the desserts out of the freezer to have them at the right temperature when he needs them.
As he does so, his mind wanders back and he clicks his tongue in annoyance – what a stupid, unnecessary discussion, even for Strawhats’ standards. Of course, he cooks what they like; what would be the point of cooking anything they might not like to eat? Why should he risk foodstuff by ignoring their requests when he loves cooking them?
Franky had been honestly shaken. Sanji doesn’t understand. Even if he had a favourite food or a preferred taste, why in the world would he cook if just for himself? It’s not like he cooks their favourites just for themselves, he cooks them for anyone to share.
Maybe that’s the part they don’t get. He loves to cook for them, for all of them. Even the fancy snacks he invents for the angels find their ways to the guys as well (less fancy, just as good). If they eat it, if they like it, Sanji’s happy. Whether or not he eats it himself is not important.
In that sense, he made tons of his favourite food today. He makes tons of his favourite food every day.
It’s the food Luffy keeps stealing from his kitchen. Sanji wonders if his captain’s rubber brain will ever pick up on the fact that he doesn’t hide or protect these nicely decorated plates all that well, or that he only kicks him out of the kitchen after the idiot managed to grab a huge bite.
His favourite food is the food that wakes up Zoro and brings him to the table to actually socialize with the others. God knows the idiot could go days without speaking to anyone, just sleeping and training.
It’s the food he makes out of Nami-san’s tangerines. To this day, he thinks it’s the orange tarts that cemented their nakamaship – she had been so broken after Arlong Park, distrusting and sad. The first time he had seen her smile, honest and happy, was after she tried one of his tarts. He keeps making up new desserts out of her tangerines since then. It doesn’t matter that she smiles in memory of her mother and not for him. He just wants to see her smile.
And it really isn’t as self-sacrificing as the marimo likes to paint him, because when Nami smiles because his food makes her remember her mother, Sanji remembers how his own mother smiled when he brought her plates of terrible food.
Sanji’s favourite food is the food he cooks for others. It makes him happy to watch how they eat it. It amazes him how his food can change situations and people and relationships. It’s his way of connecting to people, of carving his path through life.
In that case: Sanji’s favourite food is the food he served his mother. It’s the hastily cooked meal for the Captain of the Orbit, when he barely understood their language but needed to convince them to let him join the crew. It’s the first dish he created that actually made it to the Baratié’s menu, even though Zeff swore he’d drive him into bankruptcy (it didn’t).
Usopp’s not going to accept that as an answer either, but Sanji still feels better about it. Zeff didn’t have to cook for him, because he taught him how to cook his favourite foods each and every day. It’s just not meant for him, but why would he care about that?
Sanji flips the patties and prepares the last serving of the main courses. He’s had his share already, and he’ll just watch the others eat.
The plates are almost empty, though there will be some leftovers Sanji’ll turn into delicious snacks tomorrow. It’s dark already, but Franky and Usopp hauled a furnace on deck they promised is safe, brought some of the debris from the broken ship parts, and made a bonfire.
They gathered around the fire, drinks and a few bowls of desserts still in their hands. Luffy hasn’t stopped shoving food into his mouth, of course. Zoro and Chopper appear to be sleeping – Chopper’s definitely out, but Sanji’s not sure about Zoro.
Brook is still playing songs on his guitar, but he has quieted down, again. About half an hour ago, he had been the life of the party, playing loudly, teaching them his new song until they all bawled it out from the tops of their voices. The lyrics had been full of references to their latest conquests, battles, anecdotes. For the first time, they had laughed about them, freed at last of the ballast of fresh memories, of fear, pain, and hardship.
Now, with full bellies and smiles on their faces, they will slowly gather themselves and announce that it’s time to get to bed. Nami already stifles a yawn. They’ll be asleep soon, sailing towards new adventures to find a new battle to win.
For now, the ritual has come to its end. Now, everyone is safe.
That’s not true, of course.
The ritual has a messy, unofficial end: There’s a lot of cleaning up to do. While everyone scurries to bed, half-asleep before they even got into their pyjamas, Sanji’s piling up the dirty dishes.
He could leave them until tomorrow, he could ask someone to help him. He never does. When he noticed that anyone else hated chores, he went along doing them himself. Cleaning up the mess of dirty plates, shaking off the crumbs and packing away the food is just part of his job.
And, truth be told, Sanji likes cleaning up on his own at night. Life as a Strawhat is loud. He loves his exuberant crew, the crazy adventures, and breathtaking moments, but he also loves looking at his pristine kitchen and going to bed when everyone else checked out already. It gives him control, and that’s a scarce thing with a Captain like Luffy in the New World.
After Brook joined the crew, Sanji sometimes finds himself with company during cleaning time. He’s not always helping out, so Sanji suspects that the skeleton isn’t really fond of cleaning up per se. But there’s a pattern: Brook appears to help only after dinner, only when it’s very late. When anyone else has gone to bed.
The skeleton carries a huge pile of dirty dishes from the table to the sink and puts them down with little care. Usually, Sanji would kick anyone handling his tableware like this into oblivion. Now, he just throws a fresh towel over his nakama’s crazy afro and orders him to wash up while he stacks away the leftovers.
He still remembers Brook’s song and the way they all sang it. It was a beautiful moment. Ever since the musician joined, some of the responsibilities of taking care of the crew, of helping them heal, has been lifted of Chopper’s and Sanji’s shoulders. It’s enough to allow Chopper to fall asleep early without checking each and every bandage for the third time. It’s enough to take away some of the weight that sometimes pulls at Sanji until he thinks he’ll drown.
If he can offer Brook a few more minutes of company, he will.
All of Sanji’s carefully crafted altruism is shattered when Brook finishes the last pan, turns around and points at the empty trays that still need to be dried. “So, Sanji-san, why didn’t you cook your favourite meal today?”
Sanji has a wonderful daydream of setting fire to Zoro’s head and then to Brook’s. Chances are high they both wouldn’t notice. All he’d need is some ‘accident’ with the flambé burner, lord knows he’s just so clumsy sometimes. He could distract Chopper by roasting some marshmallows in the flames.
“Do you think there wasn’t enough food?” he asks instead, deflecting.
Brook immediately waves his hands around, signalling peaceful intentions. “No, no, Sanji-san. Everyone had plenty of food, today!”
Except you, Sanji swallows and feels that sting in his chest he always feels when it comes to the fact that Brook doesn’t eat. The idiot doesn’t even know what that does to him.
“You know, Zoro-san was right when he talked about your plate. There wasn’t anything special on it.”
The shitty musician is not that easy to get rid of. Lately, his crew is being extra dense and Sanji just doesn’t know what he did to deserve that.
He’s wiping down the cooking station passive-aggressively. “I’ve been eating the same food as everyone else. The exact same food.”
“Ah, but it wasn’t the same, was it?” The skeleton chuckles lightly, which is always kind of uncanny to watch. “I checked a few times. You didn’t take the time for proper presentation, did you?”
When Sanji brings food to the table, he always makes sure it looks pretty. Food needs to be pleasing to the eyes, not just to the stomach. Zeff taught him early on. He either prepares a beautiful tray for buffets or makes sure each plate has some sort of individual embellishment before handing them out – edible flowers for the girls, smiley faces made out of sauce for Luffy, Chopper and Franky. Some spicier herbs for Zoro, and such.
He never does it for himself; the thought alone is ridiculous. Since he is usually the last one to sit down to eat, he heaps the food onto his plate in a hurry and opts for the food closest to expiration to make sure it’s gone. He didn’t think anyone ever noticed.
“It’s still the same food,” he says lamely.
“Is it? Then why wouldn’t you take the time to present it as lovely?” Brook taps a bony finger against a bony chin. “Maybe it’s not about the food at all.”
Sanji is not in the mood for existential puzzles today. “Brook,” he says, simply. Warningly.
The skeleton lowers his arms and turns back to the sink. “Instead of taking the time to whip up your lovely churrasco, you could make your own food pretty, or cook something else, instead.”
“Like what? And don’t say –”
“Your own favourite food, for example.”
Sanji signs deeply. It’s been a long day. He’s tired. “This again?”
The skeleton nods. “It’s okay to want something just for yourself, Sanji-san.”
He can’t sleep.
An hour ago, after he threw a laughing Brook out of his kitchen to take the first watch, Sanji called it a night and crept into bed. He had been beyond tired – but he’s too wired to sleep, thoughts spiralling. It’s going to be one of these nights.
Talking to Brook sometimes does that to him. It’s not the musician’s fault, but sometimes looking at the skeleton is just a bit too much. Hits just a little bit too close to home. It was worse in the beginning, when he had to think about Zeff’s prominent cheek bones after he woke up in the hospital, every time he looked at Brook. It’s gotten better, but it still makes something in his chest shift that no matter how much he cooks, he won’t ever cover these ribs.
He tried to talk to Brook a few times about hunger, but the skeleton claims not to feel any. He can’t eat, after all, doesn’t have a stomach or any digestive tract. Sanji still can’t help but make sure that there’s food for the skeleton, and he knows for a fact that Brook appreciates the gesture – after all, he still drinks Earl Grey. He commented on the smell once, when Sanji bought another blend, and that shouldn’t be possible because Brook doesn’t have a nose (~ yohohoho).
He keeps the Earl Grey ready. Incidentally, when he serves churrasco, Brook takes the seat closest to the tray, even though he never eats it – and that’s enough reason for Sanji to keep making churrasco. He knows how it feels to crave food.
No matter how many years pass, Sanji knows he’ll always remember how it feels to crave food. He thinks about Brook, the fact that he can smell but not eat, and shudders. How dare this idiot lecture him about wants and needs? He knows exactly what he wants. It’s just a cruel trick of the universe that he can’t ever have it, and it pains him that he can’t give it to his crew. Maybe that’s why he can’t name any favourite food: Any meal he wants to eat more than anything in the world has been, is and always will be, completely out of his reach.
His favourite food is the secret stash of dry goods he hides behind the pantry and checks religiously each morning when they are still sleeping. When he runs his hands through the rice and lentils and chickpeas and his breathing evens out. He hopes he’ll never have to eat any of it.
It’s the lichens Chopper found beneath the snow and ate when he was still a reindeer on Drum Island – the ones his anthropomorphic stomach can’t handle anymore. It’s the blend of Earl Grey that had been so good to make Brook drink tea even now. It’s the food Robin-chan reads about in the books about lost cultures and extinct peoples.
His favourite food used to be all the good foodstuff he had retched out after being rescued from that bloody rock, when refeeding settled in and he couldn’t imagine ever eating again but couldn’t think about anything but eating. Damn, that had done a number on him. He still feels guilty about wasting it all.
His favourite food is a forbidden secret he keeps locked away deeply within himself. Its only traces are two bleached bones on a rock he hopes to never see again. Sanji keeps secrets from many people, but the one secret he even guards from himself is the longing he had felt when he thought about that leg. How some part of him, ugly and misshaped, had hoped that the old geezer would die before him, because—
His favourite food is the mouldy piece of bread that fell into the ocean beneath the rock. Sanji will always be longing for it. He still dreams about it, is still hungry for it.
He dreams about it tonight.
He’s not going to tell them any of this.
At breakfast, first Nami and then Robin bring up the topic about his favourite food again, and in hindsight, Sanji should have expected something. He blames a night full of memories about hunger and longing.
Sanji has many favourite foods, but none of it is meant for him to eat. There’s no core memory of being loved, no story comforting enough, no one to connect a taste to. The food he longs for is a painful reminder of what he can’t get. The food he loves is a projection onto the people he cooks it for.
His crew wouldn't understand. That’s okay – Sanji hopes they never will.
Sanji realizes that he has been silent for too long, that again, everyone’s waiting for his reply. He can’t ignore the girls or be rude to them, so he decides to end this stupid game.
He shrugs awkwardly and says the first thing that comes to mind: “Grilled vegetables”, because what harm could it do?
One week later, Usopp and Luffy nearly burn down his kitchen. Usopp had messed up the ratio for the methylated spirit, Luffy had set the regulator too high. Zoro had been assigned to watch the grill when the two of them played tag while the vegetables grilled and had fallen asleep. Go figure.
Thankfully, Franky had managed to extinguish the fire before anything too grave happened. The kitchen is drenched in Cola now, and the guys will have to clean for the rest of their lives as soon as Chopper allows them to move again.
The vegetables left on the soddening grill are nothing but a handful of black chunks. Marinated in Cola and completely inedible.
It’s his birthday.
Sanji’s favourite food definitely is grilled vegetables.