You guys, I love having scenes in fantasy stories where the protagonist has to eat.
- It shows the culture of the world and what they are familiar with.
- It shows what they like or don’t like to eat.
- It makes the readers hungry.
Disclaimer, I’m not a cook, so I would like to apologize to all you cooks out there if my dishes make no sense. In terms of flavor, however, I consider myself as having a pretty good palette. Just sayin’ 😛
Without further ado, here’s a short list of some of the fictional foods that appear in The Choice of Aurvandil specifically foods that Kathula eat.
Main Dishes
Here’s a savory dish you can eat alone if you make it small or with your family if you make it large.
Ratta Pie
A buttery meat pie made with cinnamon as one of the main ingredients. Also included is nutmeg, mint, thyme. Wild berries add a sour-sweetness. Ratta meat is from Ratta which is similar to a rat (don’t go away yet) but smaller and if you boil it, the bones are soft enough to eat without removing and have a natural saltiness to them. The chopped meat, hence, is slightly crunchy. Ratta pie is baked with oak wood or lemon grass to give it extra flavor.
Does this world have bread? Oh, sure it does! In fact, there’s plenty of wild wheat to go around and also cultivated.
Paste Bread
Wheat is ground with water and made into a pulp. The pulp is spread thinly in a bowl and cooked in a wood-burning stove. When you take it out, the thin bread is in the shape of a bowl. You can then put any kind of paste on the bread to eat. A common paste is one made from the meat of wild berries and honey.
A nice warm stew for a cool winter’s night? You got it! 😀
Wheat and Meat Stew
Rather self-explanatory. The same processing methods in Paste Bread is used for the wheat. Extra dry wheat is added to the mixture and that is rolled into balls and fried. The meat is anything on hand often chopped up in small chunks and boiled until cooked.
Stew is cream-based using hazelnut milk or any other kind of plant milk.
A common ingredient used is lemongrass and salt for taste.
All ingredients are thrown into the cream and simmered.
Before eating, a few sprigs of rosemary are added along with a honey-cream sauce.
Dessert
On a cold night, or just when you want something comforting to drink, here’s a warm milky dessert drink you can quickly make yourself without the help of mom or dad. Also, the perfect drink for all you sweet-tooths out there.
Keibeck
A warm drink with finch egg yolk, cinnamon, dried raspberry powder, and maple sugar all melted in warm hazelnut milk.
In this world, Kathula farm finches and eat their eggs. First, warm up some hazelnut milk over a stove. Add in raspberry power and maple sugar. Plop in yolk and stir until all are combined.
And yes, hazelnut milk is a real thing. I did my research.
I would say Keibeck is like eggnog but much sweeter (who am I kidding, I have never had eggnog in my entire life so how would I know how sweet it is or isn’t?)
Pastes / Sauces
Wild berry and honey paste
Peel and mash sour berries into a pulp. A little warm water is added and stirred in thoroughly. Warmed honey is also added and stirred in while it is still melted and liquid-like. A few minutes in a cool area, the liquid concoction will harden and become more like a paste.
Honey-cream sauce
Warmed raw honey over a stove is added into milk along with some butter. Raw honey is not as sweet has the honey you guys all see in stores. It can even be a bit bitter. Nonetheless, it is a favored sauce even without extra sweetening.
A sweet version will have melted chunks of maple sugar.
Maple sugar and strawberry paste
Maple sugar keeps. So any maple sap from trees is quickly hardened into a sugar. To make it a paste, crush sugar and add cream and butter slowly in a pot over a stove. Add in a little bit of wheat to thicken it.
Mash strawberries and add that into the concoction on the stove. Stir until well-combined (sounding like real recipe instructions, huh?).
Leave in cool area and a few minutes later, the liquid concoction will harden and become more like a paste.
FOXWOOD FOREST 