Trial and error existed before science was a thing, even if medieval academics were idiots who thought seniority was more important than observations and the reasoning used to "explain" things was often as dumb as the reasoning in the OP.

It's how garlic and salt got a reputation of warding off evil spirits because food rotting seemed like it was caused by ghosts to people who had no idea microbes existed, and salt and garlic had anti-microbial properties, which reduced or slowed the occurrence of rot and/or mold.

Of course, from there it got taken to ridiculous levels, like people thinking a ring of salt protects them from non-existent beings or garlic frightens off other non-existent beings. But it all started from noticing that meat lasted longer for those with good access to salt (or something along those lines).

Yeah, she was so impressed that she wanted to hear more from him.

She recognized the gold.

She now wants his filthiest pickup line.

She's concerned because he also loves talking about Rome and 40k

I think you can also interpret it that she wanted to hear what she missed.

She wants the recipe

heckin' seduced

I would agree if not for the flagrant grammatical error. That is a huge turnoff.

I believe the proper response is "No".

Because this is fake.

I do not know, there could be the option of a very sexy cheesecake recipe.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/248980640_Role_the_Bones_-_from_Iron_to_Steel

Also remember that carbon is lost as the metal is worked, so the strength can be increased simply by working the metal longer. This is how wrought iron is produced, although wrought iron ends up having a much lower carbon content in the process of removing slag.

You need >700C to decarburise iron you don't need much for that but coal and a fan, i.e. a bloomery. Pretty much defines the beginning of the iron age. Getting very low-carbon iron is quite easy, you just need enough fuel and air, the trick is then adding the right amount of carbon back. Also, getting rid of impurities, slag inclusions, etc, long story short: Lots of hammering and folding different carbon grades together, though some work can be saved by building very large bloomeries and processing very large batches producing quite slag-free low-carbon iron which then can be case-hardened.

The way out of that is crucible steel, melting your ingredients in an air-tight crucible, but that requires advanced furnace technology that somehow noone came up with before industrialisation, with the exception of India. The banding btw is due to alloy not production method (though you need to follow specific steps to bring out the banding).