TUYO World Companion by Neumeier Rachel

Author:Neumeier, Rachel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-08-19T00:00:00+00:00

Food in the winter country

The Ugaro cook over open fires. In the forest, there’s plenty of wood; otherwise, they generally use dried dung as fuel and concentrate on cooking methods that are fuel-efficient. They therefore generally cut meat into small pieces to cook it; they would spit-roast a large piece of meat only in the forest.

Ugaro pots, bowls, and cooking utensils are made as light as possible for easy transport; also because a thin metal cooking surface heats up fast. They do have some iron pots with tight-fitting lids for braising meat and making sugar dumplings, and also iron griddle-like pans for making flatbreads, but very thin flatbreads are made using a thin metal implement like a small wok, which is set upside down—that is, convex side up—over a fire or coals. This utensil is just like the sajj used by Bedouin communities in the real world. Breads can also be baked directly in the coals, which is, again, a technique used by nomadic peoples in the real world.

The Ugaro don’t use drinking cups, but bowls. Although there are probably various reasons for this custom, one reason is that you need two hands to lift a bowl, and therefore you can’t grab a knife while holding a bowl. This is yet one more means of reducing the risk of sudden violence under various circumstances that might arise.

Ugaro eat a lot of foods with their hands—flatbreads and pieces of meat cooked on skewers. They do make soups and braised meat; they eat foods like that with utensils made of wood or bone.

The Ugaro have few spices but quite a few herbs. Their diet is meat-centered, but also includes some grain—wheat, barley, and the mysterious grain from the starlit lands, which isn’t much like any real grain. The Ugaro use flours ground from all these grains to make various kinds of breads for themselves. While the Ugaro don’t have to have bread, their animals do need grain, and trading for that grain is important. The reader probably remembers that, as part of his plans to take the throne of the summer country, Lorellan caused disruption to the trade in grain in order to create problems between Ugaro and Lau in the borderlands.

The Ugaro gather and eat wild plant foods, including all parts of cattails, for example. In the high north, they may make flour out of reindeer lichen to supplement flour ground from grain. They also eat spring greens such as wild sorrel, wild parsley, and wild spinach. They pick berries—gooseberries, blackberries, juneberries, black haw, elderberries—and wild plums. There are probably cranberry bogs here and there, though we haven’t seen any. Ugaro also trade with the Lau for fruit, though not much for vegetables. Fruit from the borderlands is a luxury item for the Ugaro; they don’t need it, but they do like it.

The Ugaro eat beef, but they value their cattle at least as much for milk and hair (wool) as for beef and therefore eat more game than beef except

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