FOOD

Mortals in every land from horizon to horizon are united in the need to eat. Some are blessed with plenty while others are more constrained but the filling of bellies is a nigh universal requirement and pleasure. Great importance and custom is therefore attached to the act. Cuisines, shaped by availability and serving tradition, range in remarkable variety from place to place and people to people.

THE IARET AND THE SUZERAINTY

The dawn of recorded history finds the iaret of Akhet eating prototypical versions of dishes which remain staples to this day. Undomesticated corn was gathered alongside wild-growing tubers, fruits, and vegetables. The arrival of the apkallu teachers and introduction of engineering and mathematics saw transformation of these sources into cultivated strains. Wild grasses turned to fruitful stalks burgeoning with sweet kernels of corn. Squash and tubers became a rotational crop. Preparation became more and more complex, turning the marginal into edible and the edible into delicious.

Hunting and fishing for game like jungle boar and catfish commonly supplemented the early iaret, but rapidly growing populations relied on agriculture for their sustenance. Larger scale animal husbandry and aquaculture would lag in the jungle cities until the colonization of the south.

The advanced farming techniques found in Tatlankel made it an early center of the culinary arts. Tamales, stuffed with fillings such as shredded pork or crawfish, became a favorite throughout the jungle cities. Ahuatle went through a phase as a delicacy, but its most enduring popularity is in the City of Wisdom, where it is procured from the waters of Wenarehk Lake.

Kato Ophios added its own traditions to the whole. Citrus and olive orchards dotted the hills around the city’s palace complexes. Sea-faring reavers brought new spices like cardamom, saffron, and cinnamon to the Suzerainty through trade and plunder across the Mor Dyfn. Their most famous gift, however, is cacao. Owing to now-distant legends of Kato Ophios’ past, a particular dark red drink prepared from the bean still has sinister connotations.

Though slow to be subdued the Horned Lands offered their own contributions. Cheese and dairy products from sheep and goats were introduced through contact with the ozrut, as well as hardy cereals like rye and barley. Feta and other crumbly cheeses or fresh cheeses like boursin are now enjoyed by iaret throughout the known world.

Exploration across the Sea of Riches brought the next great advancement to iaret cuisine. Rice and cane sugar flowed north from Bracken. The prairies of the south, properly irrigated, brought endless bounties of wheat, and with it the true flowering of the Suzerainty’s love of bread. The iaret had already been fond of beer, but new grains encouraged new varieties and brewing methods as well. The open plains also brought new livestock requiring larger pastures: beef and various breeds of dinosaur. Bread is particularly significant to the iaret, and served with nearly every meal. It symbolizes their civilization itself: many ingredients, brought together through trade, cultivation, and communal effort, to feed and sustain all. There are as many ways of preparing it as can be imagined, but softer, leavened styles are most popular.

Coffee has nearly as long a history with the iaret, first cultivated on the mysterious slopes of Crow Mountain. In the traditions of the Suzerainty, it is taken straight, either hot or cold. In Kato Ophios and Zeel, cacao may be added. Coffee with other additives is collectively known as “southern” even if its source is only so far south as the Jewel Cities.

As a people, the iaret prefer softer foods like pulled, chopped or ground meat rather than steaks that require tearing and chewing. Their fangs and smaller peg-like teeth are less suited to the mastication of tough foods than the canines and grinding molars of most other mortals. Fragrances are as important as flavors given how closely the two are linked for iaret. A dish, they say in the Suzerainty, is tasted twice: once in the air and once in the mouth. Coriander, cumin and garlic are favored spices of old, and found in many dishes and breads. Confections of all sorts are beloved of children and adults, though again, the finest are accompanied by fragrance, rather than simply sugared. For this reason, honey and molasses are very widely used, the former having noble connotations from its association with the Dynastic household.

THE CROSSROADS OF THE JEWEL CITIES

As the gateway to the south, the Jewel Cities are a hotbed of mixed cuisine and culinary experimentation. It shares many of the native staples with Kato Ophios, such as olives and citrus, and enjoys ready access to corn from the Suzerainty and grains of all sorts from Bracken and the south. Each city has its own cultural preferences and specialties but a common theme is more and more elaborate preparation.

The sprawling cities have no shortage of places for visitors and townspeople alike to find their daily sustenance. From street carts to expensive eateries, proprietors and cooks compete to offer more flavorful and exciting dishes than their neighbors. Magical preparation is liberally used to transform or suspend ingredients, tricking the eye and surprising the palate. One might purchase a plate wreathed in apple-flavored fog and slice into the smoke to find a baked loin of pork wrapped in pastry within before washing down the meal with a delicate flute of harmlessly liquefied lightning.

The traditional coffee of the iaret homeland is not spared. A denizen of the Jeweled Cities will likely turn up their nose at the thought of the unadulterated brew. Coffee is served on the coast with generous portions of milk, cane sugar, molasses, vanilla, or other flavors.

Other advancements are found in Beryl, where logistically-minded mortals experiment with the latest preservation techniques. Mercenary outfitters can procure traditional dried staples alongside magically frozen or desiccated foods which require only a swallow of water to return to palatability. Southern canning techniques join with apkallu pickling and nearly any dish conceivable is tinned and ready for a force on the march.

Pearl is the center of what might be termed apkallu surface cuisine. The produce of surface harvests are embraced and incorporated into traditions more ancient than iaret dominion. The city was an early nexus of the rice trade from Bracken, and the low-lying jungles nearby hosted the first plantations of that crop in the north. This versatile grain serves as a canvas for dishes which have been popular for millenia now. Packed squares of seasoned rice wrapped in kelp serve as a snack, and roe or fatty slices of fish are couched upon it as a delicacy fit for dynast and day-laborer alike.

THE OZRUT AND THEIR TRADITIONAL DEMESNES

Following contact with the ozrut a persistent tale emerged that these hulking mortals, particularly the rumiany, could eat anything and would happily do so. Artwork of the period emphasizes their size, often with the suggestion of gluttony. Compared to the gracile iaret, depictions of the ferocious hillmen show them with gaped mouths and swollen bellies, presumably from eating the rocks which were the only thing in abundance on the mountainside.

Ozrut are indeed larger and bulkier than iaret but their own highly developed culinary traditions do not include stones and tree branches as rumored. Far from being ignorant savages they knew well what foods their mountain and deep forest homes provided. While practices overlap, there are specializations for rumiany and markotny.

Markotny are avid foragers, hunting mushrooms in the wilderness surrounding their settlements. Wild onion is a common addition to prepared foods and ozrut are obstinate in refusing to cultivate these plants in an organized fashion. It is a universally held belief that the best-tasting mushrooms, fruits, and tubers are grown wild. Markotny do, however, plant hardy grains that thrive in poor conditions such as rye and barley.

Rumiany are excellent hunters and trappers, and their diets contain far more meat. The common conception may be of rumiany taking goats or sheep with their famous longbows or stealing them from lowland ranchers, but animal husbandry of such flocks is an ancient concept for both rumiany and their markotny cousins. Their herding practices revolve around tough breeds which are adaptable to cold, rough and wooded terrain. A possible source of the “eats anything” myth is the rumiany fondness for the fruit of the coffee plant, either roasted or plucked straight from the bush.

In addition to these basic staples, regional dishes differentiate ozrut populations. In the Keizai, blood sausages are prepared from yak blood and meat, with rye flour and spices as a filling. Ozrut in the Serpent’s Back, particularly the southern face, prepare meat or cheese dumplings, with the dough made from rice or other flour. A dish finding broad adoption by the Suzerainty is a sort of carpaccio, where tougher butchery offcuts are minced or pounded into a near-paste and seasoned with wild onion, mint, or lemongrass. Apkallu versions use fish seasoned with kelp.

The overriding oddity of ozrut cuisine is its timelessness, seeming static even by conservative iaret standards. Fragile ozrut social structures are partially responsible for this. Cultivation and herding efforts remain on a scale appropriate to a small extended family. Larger endeavors inevitably fall apart when the ozrut composing them come into conflict.

HUMANITY AND THE BALTINE SOUTH

Rich, heavy foods are the hallmark of Baltine cooking. The colonization of the south and its wide open spaces compared to the jungles of the north precipitated a sudden glut of cereal grains and red meat. The north was happy to consume these products, incorporating them into their own local traditions. However, the south had different ideas as to their preparation.

Eschewing excess processing, human dishes embraced simple cuts of the plentiful meat. Steaks are enjoyed throughout the Free States, almost being a symbol for the prosperity of the nation. Cold cuts between tough sliced bread is another favorite. When a laborer in the Factory Cities sits down for their midday meal, it is most often to a sandwich wrapped in waxed paper or cheesecloth. Red meat predominates Baltine preferences, even in poultry. Big, hearty filets of gilleroi and walleri are enjoyed alongside beef and dinosaur steaks. Baltine brown is a popular sauce, a thick gravy made with rendered fat.

Humans, like iaret, are inveterate borrowers and it isn’t uncommon to find dishes from across the known world enjoyed in the Free States, just with slightly different connotations. Iaret favorites such as tamales are popularly sold at market or offered gratis by caravan lines and hostelries to emphasize their traditional roots. The most common crossover besides the colonizing iaret is with the ozrut. Their roasts and hard cheeses penetrate deep into the Baltine diet.

The sauces and curries of the Samrat people are a curiosity of human cuisine. A distinct culture within the Free States, these humans originally came east from somewhere beyond the western steppes and brought their own traditions with them. Distance and official suppression before the declaration of the Svatran Republic have rounded the edges from the distinctiveness of their food but some historical practices persist today such as the use of particular stone ovens and cooking surfaces. There are also the “Five Unobtainables,” spices vitally important to several dishes that do not grow in the climate of the Republic and whose methods of cultivation have been lost. All current stocks of these spices have been magically reproduced from tiny supplies brought with the original Samrat migration.

The Retreat led to a sudden dearth of coffee in Baltine regions. Indeed, the supply would not recover to levels approaching that of the colonization era until after the First Mercantile War. Black teas, introduced via the Samrat diaspora, took up the slack. Later trade and exploration in the Islands would bring new varieties. Each state has its own tea traditions, with Poltavia serving it thick and sweetened, the Flaxlands preferring floral and fruity tisanes, Three Waters preserving apkallu kelp tea traditions older than the Suzerainty, and traditional drinks in Yarnahame being prepared from the boiled bark of certain trees. The holdout of coffee culture in the south is Zwotepe, where it is served spiced and with cacao (if the drinker can afford it) in the Zeelite tradition.

THE ASSEMBLAGE AND BITTER WANT

If the Baltine south is a land of bounty where excess is a virtue, the other side of the Keizai presents the opposite. The fertile steppes extending endlessly to the west was the source of southern equestrian and herding traditions. This cradle nurtured and fed the successive waves of human migration over the inhospitable Keizai before the iaret colonized the south. The archives of the Suzerainty tell of a people sustained by the red meat and dairy products from their herds. Foraging leavened their diets with greens, but settled cultivation was unknown to the humans of the steppes. Echoes of these traditions can still be seen throughout the south, but in the original land of the humans, they were to vanish during the height of iaret colonization. The plenty came to an end when the magical firestorms of the Great Khet rolled unimpeded across the open plains to incinerate herds, crops, and inhabitants alike.

Starvation reigned in the aftermath and its rule was long and merciless. The unending Conflagration formed another wall with the Keizai and the Serpent’s Back to corral any survivors. Refugees from the region were turned back by the wary satraps in the south and in Bracken. One of the founding myths of the modern Assemblage speaks of the cruelty of foreigners in dooming those left in the ash wastes.

Herds died of thirst. Farming, never a specialty in the steppes, was impossible. No help was offered. What could be found to eat in the wastes could not sustain the numerous tribes. It was inevitable that the desperate would turn on each other. An age as bloody as the Zeelite wars on the other side of the Keizai began. The consumption of mortal flesh was first a necessity and then a ritual. The less spoken of these years and the darkness to be found in the depths of hunger and despair, the better.

Civilization cannot rise where there is no sustenance. It was long years before the inhabitants of the Deshr were few enough and wise enough in the ways of the waste to feed themselves without such barbarity. When finally leaders arose to unite the people of the waste into the Assemblage, it was with a new understanding of the fruits of the land and new means to feed the hungry masses. Though invisible to strangers, the ash wastes do feed those who live there. The tamarisk thrives even after fire, and gives salt and sweet sap to a knowledgeable scavenger. Rock tripe and lecanora can be peeled from exposed stone and eaten. A certain form of algae grows on the surface of the ash with supernatural speed in the cool of the morning, providing both food and life-giving moisture.

These meager sources, strictly rationed, nourished the masses of Assemblage. With the so-called Gifts of Survival distributed they could grow once more. As with their mobile cities, advancements in natural philosophy and magic extended what little they could forage and even lead to new sources of food. Rock tripe porridge and manna bread are still staples, but they are supplemented with the products of druidic magic as well. Saar crawlers trail herds of tough gillermoi in their wake to supply meat. Not even blood goes to waste, it is baked into an iron-rich sweetened cake. Otherwise, the primary flavor of Assemblage cuisine is best described as “salty.”

THE APKALLU OF THE SEAMOUNTS

Aquaculture has been part of apkallu life long before contact with the iaret. Even in their earliest records there is reference to cultivation of kelp and other edible plants and the encouragement and conservation of fish stocks on the slopes of seamounts. The challenges of corralling fish in a three-dimensional space require a different style of husbandry, one reliant on managing the habitat rather than the fish. The apkallu reputation for empathy and awareness of social structures may have been primed by these traditions.

Accordingly, the fruits of such aquatic efforts dominated apkallu diets. There are some regional exceptions, like those living beneath the Utter Ice hunting diving seal and penguin, but these are supplemental. The bounty of their undersea realms made peaceable and sedentary supplies of food easier to procure. Apkallu love to eat as much as any other mortal and thus variety is sought.

Undersea vegetables make the bulk of what seamount apkallu eat to this day. Nearly every dish will contain a variety of kelp in some form. In the past it would be either fresh or pickled. The exploration of the surface and its relative safety in the modern era have added drying to the repertoire of preparation. Floating drying mats can be found on the surface near seamount settlements, tethered to the homes of their tenders below.

Fish was prepared raw, but the spread of magical heating techniques mean that boiled fish is common now as well. Brackish strains of rice grown in floating planting mats are used in boiled doughs and dumplings. The seamount version of “happy pearls,” the popular apkallu surface treat, is a gummy ball of starch rather than the more familiar baked puff.

Inundation of every bite of food with saltwater under ordinary conditions for apkallu means that seasoning is either overwhelming, or nonexistent. Powerful vinegar, burning spices, and with the advent of surface trade, tastebud-stunning garlic, predominate. Purely magical flavorings have introduced a tincture of similarly intense sweetness. Undersea dining for the apkallu can be compared to a fragrant feast for the iaret, where flavors permeate the water and are tasted even before the food is served to waiting mouths.

THE MURUCH ON THE MOVE AND AT REST

To one familiar with their teeth it is obvious that muruch prefer meat even if they are capable of sustaining themselves on grains or vegetables. In keeping with the two forms a muruch may assume their diets show a congruent duality. Muruch on the move in their nomadic travels tend to eat sparingly and then only the choicest of portions. When sedentary, however, their diets put the most voracious scavenger to shame and include foods most other mortals wouldn’t consider.

Traveling blue water pods hunt tuna and swordfish and consume only the cleanly cut filets. Exceptionally large or organized pods might take a whale but this is quite rare. Because muruch carry little, a portion of each day is spent hunting or foraging. One of the few foods carried any distance or length of time is seal or whale blubber. Anything uneaten from a catch and kept for later is cleaned fastidiously to avoid attracting sharks. In this way blue water muruch seem to travel almost invisibly and leave little evidence of their passage.

Settled pods are not so picky. When the shore is in reach a pod of muruch at rest will eat smaller fish, crabs, shellfish, seabirds and their eggs, all the way up to brief hunting forays surface creatures. Pods settling in the deeps have similar habits, eating octopus, lobster, sea cucumber, even plucking the meat from barnacles. What is caught is eaten with minimal preparation, and far more of it consumed than might be imagined. For example, fish heads and innards are not spared by dining muruch.

Locals visited by a pod will undoubtedly notice their presence. Mercifully, however, muruch are aware of the length of time an area can sustain them. They are continually ready to move on before a region is picked clean.

Riverine muruch are more constrained in their movement and are known to practice seasonal aquaculture such as raising fish in weirs or pursuing migrations of salmon. Near-constant contact with surface races mean they are supplemented with foods from outside their traditional sources. Like their blue water cousins, they keep little in the way of personal belongings, and often spend what surplus they earn through work or trade on extravagant or exotic delicacies.

THE PTAK AND WHAT THEY SCAVENGE

Foreign traditions and dishes are often borrowed or incorporated into the diets of other peoples. The ptak present a case where there is almost no native tradition whatsoever beyond theft of food from others. In fact, the earliest written records of contact with the ptak assert that they addressed the iaret explorers (in ozrut) asking for food. Pre-contact ptak did cook foods rather than consume them raw, but the simple methods demonstrated in that era may still have been borrowed from the ozrut.

Ptak eat meat, grains, and vegetables with equal gusto, showing preference for one over another only on an individual basis. Persistent rumors in the north and west of the Suzerainty speak of an uncontacted variety of ptak who eat only meat. Recent reports of invasion and unrest in the Horned Lands are all that exists in verification of this matter.

In terms of flavorings, most ptak enjoy sweeteners with a love that borders on obsession. Prior to the southern trade in sugar, ptak were notorious for raiding apiaries, crimes which formed the basis of one of the few actual conflicts between that people and the Suzerainty. For despoiling hives belonging to the Dynastic household and stealing honey, a pogrom was declared against the kruk of Amarnec, Kheprikel, and Okhetaton. The actual culprits were caught and executed because most had not even left the Dynstic apiary having gorged themselves and then laid down for a nap. However, countless ptak who had taken residence in those areas after contact fled into the Horned Lands or beyond the northern horizon rather than face death at the hands of the still-furious Suzerain.

The final matter of note for ptak is that they are legendarily messy eaters. Lacking lips, a great deal of food inevitably ends up back on their plate. A wise host serves ptak guests with a platter and sets it atop a tablecloth for good measure. Soups and sauces of a thinner consistency are tremendously frustrating to eat for both kruk and papuga and are either ignored or sopped up with bread.

THE BEASTKIN AND WHAT THEY ATE

It has been thousands of years since what could be termed native beastkin culture was conquered and eradicated in the north. Unlike with the ozrut, where defiant populations remained in contact with the iaret throughout recorded history, it is therefore difficult to determine what contributions the beastkin might have made to the cuisine of the Suzerainty. The only acknowledged and provable contribution is the labor provided by slaves on farms and plantations. With the historical record and their own penchant for adaptation to their lands, it is unlikely that beastkin populations in the north had progressed beyond hunting and gathering.

The south presents more interesting study for scholars of the culinary arts. Here there are better records of and even currently living beastkin who were never conquered by the iaret. In the region of the Winter Line, beastkin tribes live much as they did in ages past despite contact with other races. Their seasonal movements preclude large scale agriculture, but some tribes practice interdependent plantings, with several crops seeded in the same soil. Beans, squash, and primitive strains of corn predominate agricultural efforts.

Wild game provides meat from boar, deer, and in more western reaches, dinosaurs. A prepared dish which seems to have variations throughout the south is roasted meat stuffed with fruit. Depending on the source of the meat, it may be a whole fowl, or a large steak, sliced to pack with filling. In forested regions, blackberries are a favored filling. In the Three Waters, cranberries are used. In the deep south, beastkin traditionally use persimmon or serviceberry.

The hunting habits of tribes deep in the Utter Ice deserve some note. Beastkin there stalk elk, seal, and even whale. Blubber from aquatic creatures serves as one of the staples of their diet along with dried fish.

SOLDATI AND THE FORAGE OF INVADERS

One of the greatest infamies committed by the soldati invaders against the peoples of Geb was the ravishment of occupied territories to continue to feed their war. These unwanted newcomers could certainly eat the same things that the rightful inhabitants did and took such without apology. Crops were confiscated after harvest, livestock was butchered en masse, and soldati foragers depopulated wildernesses with an efficiency poachers could not hope to match.

One could be forgiven for imagining that all of these stolen foods were then thrust over crude cookfires or even straight into the jaws of the invaders. In truth, soldati culinary practices are as advanced as the most intricate cooking salon to be found in the Jewel Cities. They are developed toward a very different end, though. Efficiency in production, use of all edible material, and ease of distribution are the highest arts of the soldati field kitchen.

On the march, every meal includes the block. This pressed creation of the invaders may appear like nothing so much as an adobe brick, but it provides one half-day’s sustenance to a soldati. Half a block feeds a stretti, and two blocks are allotted for a galiardi. In consistency it is somewhat like a thick cake: it is firm enough to hold its shape but may be divided without tools. The composition of the block varies based on the region or even the world where it is made, as ingredients will differ, but the taste is always the same. Field-produced blocks are known to last half a year. Blocks brought with the original invasion supplies last indefinitely due to magic processes in their preparation.

The other constant for soldati is the swill. Local fermentable produce, be it plant or animal, is brewed into a heavy alcoholic liquid and spiced. The additives give it a dirty appearance and a scum of detritus will be found at the bottom of containers housing swill. As with the block, the swill has specific rationed measurements for different breeds of soldati. While it differs by individual tolerances, a general rule is that two days’ portion of swill is enough to get a soldati drunk. Much superstition surrounds the allotment of swill: rank and file soldati attempt to divine their future orders from how it is served and in what amounts. Watered swill presages easy garrison duty, while a ration and a half served early in the day means hard fighting is sure to come.

The spice used to season and preserve soldati food and drink comes from the seeds of a plant known prosaically as “the weed,” purportedly originating from the invaders’ home. The taste is a sort of garlicky spiciness, though not of any particular strength. The weed is highly adaptable, and can now be found growing wild upon Geb, usually near where soldati forces were encamped and dug cesspits. In addition to the flavor and preservative effect the spice also can negate harmful taints and parasites in water and foods where magical purification is unavailable.

TYLWYTH AND THE SUSTENANCE OF THE UNREAL

In contrast to the logistical preparation of the soldati the tylwyth arrived as small warbands and individuals, carrying only what was needed in the moment. Most seem to have brought only a day or two’s worth of food and this was quickly consumed. Discussion of tylwyth cuisine is further hampered by language and memory. Most interviews end in the vein of “it is somewhat like a sausage, with offal, grain, and herb,” and claimed uncertainty as to the animal source of the offal, how the grain was grown, and what sort of herb was used.

Thus the local preferences of the stranded tylwyth must be discussed. Owing to their voluntary semi-isolation and difficulties in settlement, much of the tylwyth diet is foraged. The Cantonment of Keltokel presents the most prominent example. Shellfish are plucked from the eastern shorelines or from tidal traps in Yaskel to prepare a cockle stew said to resemble a traditional dish. Minced and boiled kelp subsequently fried into a sort of bread is also a fixture despite access to grains of all types. Overall, tylwyth seem to prefer delicate foods and subtle flavorings. Fresh cheeses, young lamb, trout and other mild fish and crabs are frequent purchases at market by the insular strangers.

Tylwyth seem to eat somewhat less than their size would suggest. Whether this is a natural process, a property of their otherworldly origin, or simple dissatisfaction with the local offerings is not known. Unlike the soldati, which engage the fruits of Geb’s bounty with rude eagerness, the tylwyth are far more affected by the absence of home.

While rare, there are a few examples of native tylwyth foods present on Geb. At this remove from the Gate War they are either preserved by their uncanny nature or magically reproduced through unknown methods. Mortals of Geb who have had the opportunity to taste such have described the experience as “airy in flavor” and “filling but not satisfying” as if the food was not truly there.