Things I can say–background,\u00a0 some characterization hints, history, and notes on craft.\u00a0\u00a0 What shouldn’t be said is anything that’s a “hard spoiler” for the next book or the one I’m working on.<\/p>\n
That’s difficult for me, sometimes–I don’t always* remember which detail is in which book, because the story as a whole (minus, unfortunately, some very important bits of Book V, but they’re coming) flows together.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When, exactly, did I first mention Character R?\u00a0 When, exactly, did this confrontation occur, or that one–not in time, but in which book, in what chapter of which book?<\/p>\n
So, though it was easy to pick snippets and avoid spoilers for the first couple of books in this group, it’s now much harder.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And the intelligent and lively conversations going on here make it harder yet, because some of you are anticipating with somewhat scary accuracy.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Not, yet, complete accuracy (and please–keep missing the mark at least a little, or why would I need to write the book?)<\/p>\n
Food.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Most of the spices mentioned are smerps, in that I made up new names for spices I’ve used.\u00a0\u00a0 That’s because spice names came into English fairly late, and are strongly attached to their origins on this planet.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I can’t see names like cumin, turmeric, saffron, cloves, cinnamon, etc. without thinking of where they are from, their trading history, etc.\u00a0\u00a0 The same with many herbs–maybe it’s just me, but my botany background localizes herb names, and to call something basil (for instance) calls up every association with it, including specific cuisines.\u00a0 And yet–with the exception of two or three–I also can’t make up new flavors and put them in recipes.\u00a0\u00a0 I can (and did) imagine a mix of two flavors in one spice.<\/p>\n
So those who want to try making up Paksworld recipes probably need a list of the spices and herbs I use and imagined into the food. \u00a0\u00a0 This won’t be the list (it’s too late to go pull everything out of the spice shelves…)\u00a0\u00a0 But if the notion strikes you as useful, let me know.<\/p>\n
Domestic livestock includes many strains\/breeds of cattle, sheep, goats, and hogs, as well as domestic chickens (no turkeys.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Paks noticed some of the differences in the first book, but not all the varieties were given.\u00a0\u00a0 Meat from these animals is eaten by all the cultures; there are no religious prohibitions against eating any of them, although there are individual and cultural preferences (and more wild game, and less domestic meat, is eaten in Lyonya.) \u00a0 Milk from cattle, sheep, and goats may also be used directly, or converted to cheese.\u00a0\u00a0 Chickens are kept for both eggs and meat.\u00a0\u00a0 Fish and other aquatic critters are eaten by those near rivers and the seacoast.<\/p>\n
Wild foods: game, of course.\u00a0 The deer in the north are the European red deer, what we in the US call elk.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Wild goat and sheep relatives live in the foothills and even up in the mountains and are hunted occasionally–their horns traded down into the lowlands, especially in Aarenis.\u00a0\u00a0 Rabbit-equivalents, squirrel-equivalents.\u00a0\u00a0 The larger wild birds.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And wild plants–mushrooms, herbs, nuts, seeds, berries, wild fruits.\u00a0\u00a0 Lyonya is a scavenger’s paradise, as the elves have planted edible and beautiful plants all through it, where they weren’t native, and removed most of the poisonous ones.<\/p>\n
Flavorings in the north–native to the north–include herbs, bark of some trees,\u00a0 certain dried berries,\u00a0 mushrooms (sometimes flavoring, sometimes the main food),\u00a0 some roots.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Onions and garlic are grown in gardens and found in wild form (ramps.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The spicier, hotter flavors come from Aarenis, where the wild native peppers have been grown and selected in gardens.\u00a0\u00a0 But you can still walk out into the rougher pastures and find the wild forms–small berry-like fruits of red and yellow.\u00a0\u00a0 Southerners preserve peppers in vinegar or in oil for cooking or condiments., and these are traded north.\u00a0\u00a0 (I have a few wild peppers–chili pequins–in the yard here; we had a row of them in San Antonio, bird-planted, but also grew a variety from the mild banana peppers to the hotter ones.\u00a0\u00a0 I can tell you that if you use chili pequins to make your salsa…you had better have an asbestos tongue.)\u00a0\u00a0 Other herbs whose story-equivalents grow wild mostly in Aarenis are basil, oregano, and rosemary.<\/p>\n
So what is “figan”?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It’s a spice you’d put on cookies and other baked goods, but might also use in a grain dish (esp. if you put chopped mint in it) or even with some meat dishes, depending on location.\u00a0\u00a0 In my mind, it’s like cinnamon with a little bit of cloves.\u00a0\u00a0 Or maybe allspice.<\/p>\n
Farron, the most expensive spice, is sortakinda like saffron except for the color, a rich magenta.<\/p>\n
The favorite inn of the Company in the South, the White Dragon, is known for its cooking, and to soldiers on their first tour in the south, it’s exotic, full of unfamiliar flavors.\u00a0\u00a0 But almost every inn has its specialties. \u00a0\u00a0 Arvid, at first, had considered southern cooking over-spiced, but by the time he goes back north, he has changed his mind, and wishes he’d taken a few jars of southern sauces with him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Things I can say–background,\u00a0 some characterization hints, history, and notes on craft.\u00a0\u00a0 What shouldn’t be said is anything that’s a “hard spoiler” for the next book or the one I’m working on. That’s difficult for me, sometimes–I don’t always* remember which detail is in which book, because the story as a whole (minus, unfortunately, some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[108],"class_list":["post-1539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-background","tag-background"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1539"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1539"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1540,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1539\/revisions\/1540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}