So…Paksworld’s northern kingdoms are more like Europe north of the Alps, in terms of what they grow and eat, and Aarenis is more like the Mediterranean countries.\u00a0\u00a0 But there are variations.\u00a0\u00a0 Paks’s family had a small amount of land under plough,\u00a0 for grain and the few vegetables they grew; they also harvested field herbs, wild berries,\u00a0 and some wild grains.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The nearest mill was a considerable distance away, so her family ground grain to make bread in hand mills (stone.)\u00a0\u00a0 Grain was also cooked into a mush, flavored with herbs and sometimes meat.\u00a0\u00a0 They were lucky in having good-quality hand mills that didn’t put a lot of stone dust in the meal, so they didn’t have their teeth ground down.<\/p>\n
They could buy a limited assortment of spices down in Three Firs two or three times a year when\u00a0 a trader came in, or trade for what someone else grew.\u00a0\u00a0 (For instance, they could buy a chunk of salt pork from the pig farmer whose son Paks didn’t marry, or cow-milk cheese from a farmer down the vale who kept cattle) , pears or apples or plums from those at a lower elevation who had fruit trees. \u00a0 They also bought salt, not having a local source for it.\u00a0 They didn’t have much sib, because the right trees didn’t grow there, and buying the makings for it cost enough that it was saved for medicinal use or a rare treat.\u00a0 They ate mutton and anything wild they could manage to kill, but the content of meals varied a lot with the seasons…and could be monotonous day by day.<\/p>\n
Although they weren’t near starving,\u00a0 food was not abundant for much of the year.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Paks’s mother made a little sheep-milk cheese to sell, and a little for the family, but spent more time spinning wool into yarn and then making things with it.\u00a0 Paks knew how to do basic knitting and darning when she entered the Duke’s Company.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 They didn’t eat fish, because they didn’t have a river in which to catch them (they had springs, a well, small seasonal streams.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The only sweetener was honey,\u00a0 which they could buy in stone jars, in the comb, at the market, but they could also rob wild bee hives.<\/p>\n
In the Duke’s Company, Paks first saw abundant food every day,\u00a0 several times a day…and foods she’d never met before.\u00a0\u00a0 Beef, pork, and mutton,\u00a0 bread made from mill-ground flour using brewery yeast (since the area had both a mill and an experienced brewer),\u00a0 apples from Kolya’s orchard, and meals cooked by actual cooks.\u00a0 Still fairly simple, but more abundant and varied than at home.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Eggs–a luxury at home, though her family kept a few hens–were the main reason for keeping chickens, though old hens and roosters yielded chicken stock .\u00a0\u00a0 Some of the villagers kept bees and the honey harvest was usually good.\u00a0 The Duke’s Company bought spices and wine and other condiments and special foods from Aarenis, but did not import southern grains, sticking to the wheat\/oats\/barley\/rye traditional in its area.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The mix of bark,\u00a0 roots, stems, and leaves for sib was stocked as a normal expense–everyone drank it.\u00a0\u00a0 Some of these were for the officers’ table, but experience had shown that introducing recruits to the foods they would meet later cut down on sickness in the South.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 At least they wouldn’t mistake a hot pepper for a sweet fruit.<\/p>\n
Food for the troops on campaign needed to be ample (they’re working hard), something that could be cooked in large amounts on the trail, in camp, etc. and thus choice was limited though amounts were generous.\u00a0\u00a0 Helping prepare raw foods for cooking was a normal duty for soldiers, as was cleaning up after a meal.\u00a0 (The more people who know how to cook a grain mush and redroots, the less chance of hungry troops if the cook gets killed.)\u00a0\u00a0 Troops liked to visit inns in the neighborhood, but the dangers of poisoning (accidental, from spoiled food, or intention, by an enemy) were more than negligible, so they were allowed into towns only during ‘safe’ periods.<\/p>\n
“Inn food,” like restaurant food today, varied from plain to fancy.\u00a0\u00a0 Small inns might offer only one menu a day; large ones (like the White Dragon in Valdaire) would have several choices.\u00a0 But all had to be food that could be cooked in a standard way to serve many people, unless the patron paid for special service.\u00a0\u00a0 Another source of income for inns was renting out oven space for those who had none–for a very small fee, someone could bring in a pot of something, or dough to be baked. \u00a0 (In the smallest towns, there would already be a town bread oven.) \u00a0\u00a0 Inns sourced their food locally, but that included the local market–they did not grow their own, especially in cities.\u00a0 (In smaller towns, like Brewersbridge, they might keep chickens for eggs.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Householders in the city bought their flour already milled and bought most of the other ingredients in the market, though some had plots on which to raise “kitchen” food (vegetables, perhaps berries, even a fruit tree.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 They had access to seasonal fruits and vegetables without having to grow them.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Some bought bread from a baker, but many bought flour and made their own.<\/p>\n
Elaborate meals certainly were cooked here and there, but only the very wealthy had fancy food every day, and the various religions all had beliefs about what level of fancy was acceptable (and what was just showing off.)\u00a0\u00a0 Feasts always included rich foods–meat and sauces for it,\u00a0 abundant other foods in more variety than usual, sweets.\u00a0\u00a0 The lowest class of workers (rural or urban) subsisted mostly on bread, steamed and boiled grains and beans, a few vegetables, and occasional meat, mostly cooked in with the grains and beans.\u00a0 Up from that, class by class, came better-quality bread, more variety of vegetables, more condiments and preserved foods (jam, pickles, cheese etc.) , more meat, and more total calories.\u00a0 Even the richest could not get delicate berries out of season, except as preserves.\u00a0 But they could afford everything available in their city or region, and thus enjoy more variety than others.<\/p>\n
Table-settings and utensils:\u00a0 different qualities of pottery were available to all, with regional differences in both quality and design.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In cities, everyone above the lowest class would eat off of pottery plates and out of pottery bowls, and have at least a pottery mug to drink from.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The very lowest class would probably have flattish wooden tray-plates, and perhaps a bit pottery bowl or pot (the one they cooked in) to serve from.\u00a0\u00a0 Eating utensils included (with variations from place to place) forks (2-4 pronged),\u00a0 spoons (round and narrow),\u00a0 and knives (all sharp, all derived from daggers if not actually daggers.\u00a0 Some were sharp on both sides, some only on one.)\u00a0 In the lowest class, one dagger might be shared around the table, and the forks and spoons might be wooden or bone.\u00a0 Above that, most people had at least some metal utensils.<\/p>\n
Those living near one of the large rivers eat larger fish (with the attendant problems of larger fish going bad faster!) and baked fish is a staple at inns in cities along the Immer drainage–less so in V\u00e9rella.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Fish is definitely a staple food in Pargun, Kostandan, riverside-and-coastal Dzordanya, and Preal\u00edth.\u00a0\u00a0 The Seafolk arrived in the north with a tradition of smoking and salting fish for preservation.\u00a0 They eat fish year-round.\u00a0\u00a0 Other seafood is popular in these areas as well, but they haven’t convinced their neighbors yet.\u00a0 Rivers in both north and south have the kinds of fish you’d expect in streams and rivers in equivalent latitudes and climates here.\u00a0\u00a0 Marine fish was just as diverse and include some…um…local specialities.\u00a0 Alas, they don’t enter the story.<\/p>\n
So…there’s an overview of what people eat, sort of.\u00a0 Recipes–more or less, because I’m an instinctive cook who looks at recipes as suggestions–to follow.<\/p>\n
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So…Paksworld’s northern kingdoms are more like Europe north of the Alps, in terms of what they grow and eat, and Aarenis is more like the Mediterranean countries.\u00a0\u00a0 But there are variations.\u00a0\u00a0 Paks’s family had a small amount of land under plough,\u00a0 for grain and the few vegetables they grew; they also harvested field herbs, wild […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,4,53],"tags":[108,106,112,12],"class_list":["post-1968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-background","category-contents","category-life-beyond-writing","tag-background","tag-contents","tag-life-beyond-writing","tag-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1968"}],"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=1968"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2598,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1968\/revisions\/2598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}