Duza Linassorro grew up fascinated by her nation's food culture. Her grandfather had been one of the many food cart dealers in the city of Solas, and her father had used that knowledge to open a restaurant there. She was always trying out foods from various carts and stands growing up, so it's no surprise that she decided to write a book on the subject, sharing the simple recipes inside with the rest of the world.
History
Cookbooks have never been considered important documents in the history of Sedesta. Food has always been treated as a plain necessity, not something akin to an art. Even two hundred years ago, at the height of the long peace between the Sedestan nations, there was never any need to pass down recipes and culinary traditions in written form.
Delectable De'arian Cart Meals changed that, first by being attached to a very interesting and quaint tradition and second by being written from personal experience. Most cookbooks until that point in time had been written by travelling "food authors" who had made fortunes by learning (or stealing) recipes from their original cooks. Most of them did not have direct experience in cooking or at least did it for a living.
Public Reaction
The book has made quite a stir in culinary circles, and many copycat books from other regions of Orkanis have been made in recent years. None of them, however, has been as popular or as well-cited as this one.
Not long after this book came out, the Galloping Goose, Duza's eatery, became a key point of pilgrimage for connoisseurs and food-motivated travellers. Now in the hands of her great-grandchildren, the Galloping Goose still receives a large portion of its funds from the sale of her book, as well as replicating the recipes in it for interested tourists.
Delectable De'arian Cart Meals
Ponetta
These "breadlets" form the ground of De'arian cooking, being nearly as important as bread among those who can afford it or have the time to make it from scratch. We call them breadlets because we make them from some of the same things as bread: flour, eggs, and salt. No yeast though; these things are meant to be cooked right away or dried to be cooked later.
One of the timeless joys of De'arian breadlets is the shapes. Once you have the dough made up, you can make them into any shape you desire. I've seen people roll them into long thin strips like rope, take two squares of it and seal filling inside, and even stranger shapes. It doesn't really matter, as long as you don't overwork the dough!
The flour here is a very grainy flour. Don't grab any old flour; I often go to local hardwheat farms and ask for their grain so I can get it milled to the right consistency. It helps the breadlets cook evenly and keep their structure. From experience, if you use regular wheat flour, you will be disappointed when your shapes flop, melt or cook unevenly when you cook them!
Possible shape ideas:
Take a thin rod and roll the breadlet dough around it to make a tube. Make sure not to seal the ends, or they will likely unexpectedly explode when you cook them!
Cut the breadlet dough in thin strips (thinner than your pinky finger). If you need to, cut the long strips in half to fit in your pot.
Make a filling of meat and vegetables, and cut the breadlet dough into squares. Put a little bit of the filling in one corner of the square, and fold them over, using some water to seal it shut.
Cut the dough into small strips, and curl the strips along a thin rod to make an interesting spiral shape.
Ingredients
There aren't a lot of ingredients here; the shapes are the important part here, not strange flavours!
15 stone-weights coarse flour
Several dashes of salt
8 eggs, 6 of them yolk-only (save those whites for desserts!)
Directions
Take all but 1 of the stone-weights of flour and mix it well with the salt.
Add the eggs and mix until it begins to make a bread-like dough.
Using the remaining flour, knead the dough until it becomes smooth.
Put the dough in a cool place for a couple of hours so that it is chill to the touch.
Knead the dough for a few more moments, then roll it out and cut according to the shapes you prefer.
Boil some salted water, and add the breadlets. Cook until it no longer tastes like flour.
Remove from the water, use a towel to dry them off, and then add your preferred sauce.
Delectable De'arian Cart Meals was immediately hailed as an important step in recording this important tradition, but was nearly instantly shrouded in scandal. Up until that point, most cookbooks had been made by male cooks, so an older De'arian woman writing such a book was controversial. This was mostly due to the fact that she had disguised her name by authoring it under the name of Dusso
Really enjoyed this one, I've recently decided to write a cook book for my world Delirium, I have over recipe posted and one other just about finished, so I really liked the subject of this.
Again really cool!
Really enjoyed this one, I've recently decided to write a cook book for my world Delirium, I have over recipe posted and one other just about finished, so I really liked the subject of this. Again really cool!
Aww thanks :)