Kindly Eggs

Ah, a taste of home to bring with you, no matter how far your journey.
My favorite!

— Sodai, the Light-Bringer

A popular comfort food across Araea, Kindly Eggs are cooked balls of insect meat and egg, mushrooms, fungi, and herbs, with a deep savory taste and hints of sweetness. No matter the occasion, Kindly Eggs are always a welcomed treat, served at celebration and festival, given as treats to well-behaved children, or as snacks during a lively game of Saen-Kaw.

Mm, I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. Come on, give me one!

— Sodai, the Light-Bringer

Cooking Kindly Eggs

Please?

— Sodai, the Light-Bringer

All Kindly Eggs begin with a Coil-Gut Bug, both as an ingredient and a vessel. The top of the insect is cut off and its insides is scooped out carefully, organs and parasites removed with a sawtoothed, sickle-like dagger. Special care it taken to scrape the eggs out of the Coil-Gut Bug; each bug can carry as many as a dozen, fist-sized eggs inside her abdomen, vital to the rest of the preperation. The meat and organs are chopped and diced into small cubes, while the eggs are mixed together with seasoning - salt and a sprinkle of edible mud.

The presence of parasites are not a deterrent to enjoying a Kindly Egg, but believed to add flavor... As long as it is properly cooked.

by Midjourney

After that, the dead Coil-Bug is filled back up with its own meat, the egg-mixture, and seasoned to taste. Kindly Eggs are nicknamed by color depending on common ways of treating them, from red for children to black for the daring, and typically drunk. Most become a sort of pale green with splotches and open wounds of red from the most typical mix of mushrooms and meat.
The bug is sewn back up and cooked over an open fire for about an hour. The concoction within has turned into a sort of thick sludge, which is emptied out and hand-kneaded into the desired shape before being left to dry. To keep insects away, it's sometimes dried by smoke, sometimes with dung in the fire. Smoked Kindly Eggs have a distinctly different flavor, usually favored by adults.

The corpse left behind is mashed into an unappetizing paste and fed to either the poor or animals. The carapace is soft enough after the boil to chew through like tough rubber, and sometimes served with no preparation.

Once dried, the Eggs are ready to eat, with a firm but spongy consistency. They are usually sold in three on a skewer, or one large egg right in the hand. During dinners and celebrations, they are sometimes cut into slices and shared, dipped into or drunk together with strong spirits. Others prefer to mix in mushrooms and fungi to the dish, adding a complimentary freshness to the heavy, savory flavors of the egg. Male Coil-Gut Bugs are sometimes cooked seperately and served as a side, roasted over open fire.

The size of the Eggs are in the hands of the chef, ranging from pebble-sized snacks to monstrosities the size of a human head served at feasts.

Some cultures prefer to roast or bake the eggs after they've dried, adding a crunch to the outer layer of the eggs. When times are good, cooks will sometimes add other kinds of meat, like reptile or leech, to the mix or after cooking. When times are poor, mushroom flour and sawdust will bulk out the Kindly Eggs to make more of them.

TRADITIONS AND CUSTOMS

You finish this up without me. I'm going to get us some eggs!

— Sodai, the Light-Bringer

Kindly Eggs occupy a hallowed place within many cultures in Araea. They are often the first meal served to particularly honored guests, or during important events like weddings and parties. It does not competes with Chnagahn, but is served either along or to complement its place as the focal point of a social gathering.

But while Chnagahn is an event in itself, Kindly Eggs are a more casual celebration of life and food. As long as there are Coil-Bugs to hunt, they are served as treats here and there, as thoughtful presents and little delights to make a hard life easier. It is a delight taken very seriously in some cultures - in Dhanû, some retellings of the saga of the The Oath-breaker include his poisoning of Kindly Eggs as proof of his villainous nature.

In many stories and plays, it is a tradition that the protagonist first express their love or initial interest with a gift of Kindly Eggs, and much can be infered of the plot by how the gift is treated.

Likewise, stories that want to emphasize a character's virtue and generosity will often have them gift Kindly Eggs to those in need - a gesture sometimes mimicked by the wealthy and powerful looking to appear the same as in those stories. In many places, Kindly Eggs are even a form of peace-offering between feuding parties, similar but lesser than Chnagahn. While eating Chnagahn together signals that a quarrel has ended and shall never return, an offering of Kindly Eggs is an invitation to talk and perhaps resolve whatever troubles the parties might have.
It is considered rude, even inauspicious, to deny such a gesture.

Besides, who'd turn down some more of these delicious eggs?!

— Sodai, the Light-Bringer

Cuisine in the Caverns
Necessity and starvation have guided the culinary traditions of Araea. Everything that can be eaten finds itself in the pot, over a fire, or subject to more esoteric ways of preparing them. While mushrooms and insects are staples for everyone, rich or poor, humanity races with everything that creeps, crawls, and stalks through the caverns - eat or be eaten.
Read More About Araea Cuisine

Coil-Gut Bug

At about the size of a small child, Coil-Gut Bugs combine a fearsome appearance with a skittish, herbivore way of life. Besides Kindly Eggs, they are prized for their meat and soft carapace - with some preferring their eyes as a food to be served as drunken dares.
The bug gets their name from their unusual mating habits - males resemble mouth-less, scaleless snakes, long as an arm, with no ability to survive for long on their own. To live and spread their kin, they burrow into the female Coil-Gut Bug and lives among their organs, absorbing food and blood from their host. In return, they fertilize the eggs she carries inside of her until they hatch and emerge from her body.
A female can, and often do, carry several males inside her, and their movement can sometimes be seen from without as they press against flesh and shift carapace.

Old males become vestigial things, little more than a limp flap of flesh long since atrophied. If you are lucky, you'll happen upon fresh, young ones - a delicacy in some circles, served together with the Kindly Eggs.

by http://www.tribalartasia.com/

Chnagahn

More than just a meal, Chnagahn is an event - a social gathering disguised as a meal. It is a hot stew served in large cauldrons over open fires, with raw ingredients dipped into the broth to cook them before eating.
Like the Eggs, the Chnagahn carries meaning well beyond the meal. To say "he doesn't like Chnagahn" is to levy a subtle condemnation of someone's character and good taste.