The Great Compendium of all things fish

Purpose

To inform anyone not native to the island of Zelesny Zaliv about their peculiar cooking style and their ability to create an eight-course menu only using fish. It also serves as a regular cookbook to the natives, who find it practical because it includes almost all recipes ever conceived by Zelesny cooks.

Document Structure

Clauses

1. Introduction: Zelesny Zaliv and Fish
2. A small history of Zelesny Zaliv
3. The kind of fish known to the world
4. Methods of using fish
5. The delicate art to use fish and fish
6. How I learned to love the fish and eat nothing else
7. Note of thanks
8. Editorial Notes: Differences between food cultures

Publication Status

One of the most influential pieces of Zelesny culture to be found throughout the world, it is widely available and can be found with almost any reputable seller. In Zelesny Zaliv even every food vendor keeps three or four copies on hand, hoping that some foreigner may pay their ludicrous prices for them.
In essence, even if wished, it is practically impossible to bar sapient creatures access to the Compendium.

Historical Details

Background

Annoyed by his foreign guests always asking for his recipes, inn owner Vilém Ševčík decided to write down all he knew about Zelesny cooking and recipes. The resulting book was massive, spanning four hundred pages (Monstrous for the time), but only covered about half of the recipes and cooking techniques available to him. Despite the lack of complete coverage, the book was a great success, finding great appeal in coastal and river cities where many a noble attempted to convince their servants to cook something so outlandish like grilled fish, served with fish soup and some fish mash seasoned with more fish.
Building upon the success of the first book a second one was published only six years later. While not meeting the same success as its predecessor, it still sold enough to make Ševčík impressively wealthy. Perhaps the idea of eating fish with more fish was not something that people outside Zelesny Zaliv would find much pleasure in.
Decades after his death, a group of fish enthusiasts from Vakana made it their primary mission to recirculate the book and spread its fishy goodness around the known world. To ensure that all information was delivered in one piece, both books were combined into the Great Compendium of all things fish, serving as the ultimate guide to using fish in the Zelesny style.

Public Reaction

While many were initially aghast by the notion that fish was enough to make an entire meal, three times a day, the sheer fascination lead to many buying the book out of interest. Eventually, it dawned on them, that while the book only describes pure fish recipes, parts of it can also be used in normal recipes, providing a nice addition to everyday meals.
Today, most owners hold it in an honorable place in their libraries, as a strange, yet satisfying attempt at diversifying food culture.

Type

Manual, Culinary

Medium

Paper

Authoring Date

1342

Location

Zelezny Zaliv