Lightning leaf pickle

Made from the Ekoski plant, one of the few plants that survives in the desert, the pickle is a sometimes spicy sometimes sour fermented dish popular with the Vu'Ko'Kita for its long shelf life and distinctive flavour. Every clan has a variation on the recipe for the pickle but the method and the meaning remain the same and have for generations. Requiring lots of space to produce due to the long salting and fermenting processes, the dish can only be prepared once every few seasons when all the clans come together at The Glass burrow. This has added to the meaning behind the pickle, it is a dish that sparks fond memories of family not often seen and reminds them of what came before.

History

One of the things that makes surviving in the desert hard is the lack of available food. The arts of pickling and salting foods for longer life are key to survival. As such the first Jun developed the technique to create the food now known as Lightning leaf pickle.  
Made only in the Glass burrows the town was one of the few permanent settlements in the Vu'Ko'Tin, the salting rooms specially built to circulate the air and promote the speedy drying of the leaf, and the fermenting pots that were sunk into the sand and designed to regulate the heat and allow the gasses produced to escape safely. When the Rending happened and the Tear appeared the Burrows was lost, but the desert is fickle, and it sees fit to recede every few seasons and reveal the old settlement once more. When this happens the clans all descend on the place and the pickling has become almost a celebration of what was lost.

Execution

Traditionally made from the leaves of the Ekoski plant, the clans of the Vu'Ko'Kita will gather as much of this as they can on their journey to the Glass burrows when it is revealed by the sands. Once they are arrived at the burrows, the work begins. Each person in the clan knows their role, and each role is taken on often by a different age group.
Firstly the leaves must be cut off the plants body, this job is usually done by they older clan members, their movements smooth and practiced. Next the leaves are salted and laid out to dry, the children and smaller adolescents of the clans take on this role, scurrying up and down the long low drying rooms that sit beneath the town square. Left to dry for two days at this point the clans will start to prepare the spices and other ingredients that they will put into their version of the final product. 
Once dry the leaves are gathered and along with the spices and other ingredients placed in the fermenting pots to sit for a further two days. It is at this point that the celebration begins in ernist and the clans join together in revelry.

Primary Related Location

The Vukotin Desert

Important Locations

• The Glass Burrows

Related Ethnicities

• Vu'Ko'Kita