Sustenance of The Empire

In the massing months, there was an incident that has caused concern among the general public. There have been some who used this as a way of spreading false accusations that have shocked even the Emperor. He, himself, has decided to call for a full investigation of the matter and on behalf of The Food Production Office, This document has been commissioned to inform the general population about health concerns in the food supply. First, we will discuss the ingredients that go into the food. Then we shall have an overview of the storage and canning of such foods, Then a discussion of the food products commonly found on the shelves of the empire will be introduced, Finally, we will have a brief discussion on the incident that sparked conversation for this reading.

Foods of the Empire

Be assured that the Empire takes much care in growing all of its food. The growing process is vital for good wholesome food. Do know that many of the foods we enjoy today can be found out in the wilderness of Mophu. However, many citizens do not know what it is like to be out there. There are several informative books one can purchase to learn about the wilderness. For our discussion just know that because of the mountainous terrain, it is very dangerous to explore. There are many hot springs whose water may be too acidic to touch and will burn your skin off, the cliffs and walls along paths can cave in at any moment; not to mention the horrifying creatures that can eat you alive.

Plants

Thanks be to Ithim, the wonders god of knowledge. He has revealed to our beloved one past Emperor Mothus Dictum the great revelations we use today. He has revealed the power of farming plants patches rather than forging the shrubs of the land. Along with that, he was also shown how to select the best of the crops to breed into a new generation of crops.
You may have heard about how our crops are much larger than those found in the wilderness. There have been some false claims, categorized by our complaint center, that we have identified as nutrition per volume. These arguments claim with strong vigor that plants can only grow a specific amount of nutritional content and because our foods are so much larger, they hold less nutrition per unit. This becomes an issue as large quantities of plants are ground together and by comparison, only a 10th of our food by weight is equal to a natural plant. Because of this, a single serving of our food gives you a 10th of what you should have; leaving you full but malnourished. This is complete and utter lies. We have selected plants for several generations that have both the maximum amount of volume and nutrition. The nutrition is not limited to the size but rather the quality of the plant and the nutrition it is given. The soil is what gives plants their nutritional value. This is vastly complicated and can not be explained in a simple manual as such.
Some have concerns that the plants we grow in a greenhouse are tainted because they do not enjoy the same conditions that their wild cousins do. They say that while in our greenhouses they become bitter and start acquiring poison fluids. Rest assured, this is not true, we try to simulate the conditions of nature in all of our greenhouses as best as we can. As previously mentioned, the soil composition is critical and ash from the mountains is brought in, air vents bring it air that comes straight from outside the walls, water from hot springs is pumped in at the correct temperatures for each plant's growth.
There has been a concern about how the greenhouses tend to glow in different colors. This is because of the specific light needs of the plants. This topic is far too complicated to explain, but what has been discovered is that light can be split into different colors using different types of glass. This is why different bottles have different colors. The process is far more complex than what is described, but the lights that illuminate the streets are used in the greenhouses as needed. They use specifically designed lights that shine a blinding bright white color. From there, they place different dyed classes around the lights to get specific colors. Different colors of lights help each plant grow more than others. Because of this, different greenhouses glow different colors and it has been found that they need different amounts of time exposed to these lights. This was not a concern brought up directly from the incident but many complain about the greenhouse lights at night. The Greenhouse Consortium requested that we add this information, in hopes that people will stop filing complaints. Be assured that the Greenhouse Consortium has given us this knowledge.
The land of Mophu is harsh and unforgiving. Many of the plants in the mountains can kill a single person from just a nibble. Because of that, specific plants have been chosen and bred through the years. All plants in Mophu have some level of acidity and to a degree contain toxins. This is a fact that the fear spreaders have been repeating. The flow, however, is assuming that our plants are too toxic to eat. This is simply not true. We have selected and bred plants to reduce these toxins each generation so that by now the harm they pose is minimal. Not to mention our ancestors who live in tribes in these various mountains ate the same foods we enjoy now. We, through multiple generations, have developed a resistance to such toxins so much so that the average citizen is not affected. Yes, it is true that foreigners have trouble eating our food from time to time. That is only because they cannot naturally stomach our food without the generations of resistance built up. We will discuss some of the plants that have caused the most concern for the general public. We assure you these are safe:

Mushrooms

• Dhuth: This mushroom is orange with a shriveled-looking cap. When it grows it normally has several heads sprouting on top of long stringy roots.
• Rrautv: This is a black mushroom with large red dots on the cap. It has large iron content in it and often has a fiery flavor to it.
• Gumtav: This white mushroom has translucent outer skin and a cloudy jelly inside. Many children love eating this for its sweet and slightly sour taste.
• Lyonau: This gray mushroom often tastes like meat and requires short cooking time or it will become rubbery and early impossible to chew.)
• Tivtip: This mushroom glows either blue or purple and comes in long stringy fibers. Many find them rather chewy in their raw form and should be cooked, combined with different types of flowers and they can be used for pasta.

Nuts

• Gaunum: This nut is extremely hard and requires steel lead balls to crush it into a flower. They are small, round, and gray.
• Teedz: These nuts are rather peculiar in that, their inner shells have a sweet resin that can be attracted and used to make different treats. The inner seed, however, is extremely bitter and used for brewing strong drinks.

Herbs

• Fraystring: This yellow grass is the most commonly found throughout Mophu. It is easy to grow because it needs very little water. You may notice its dry, stiff tube-like structure when passing by.
• Peppergrass: This grass is hard to cultivate which is why many products that include it are more expensive. The seeds grow inside the blades of the grass giving it a crunchy texture. The blades are normally blue-green and the seeds can be seen embedded within them as a dark purple color.
• wiregrass: This grass grows in long blades and has a citrus flavor to it. Many do not like the flavor of this grass in its raw state so it is used to enhance other dishes in small amounts.
• Gray leaves: These are the leaves of the small gray bush that grows knee-high. Stems are soft and fuzzy often drooping to the sides where the leaves can be harvested.
• Woodstems: This is a flowing plant that grows straight from the ground and has a fiber stem that is used in many dishes. It is highly versatile. In its raw form, it is not really edible as small slivers may slice their way into the tongue or cheeks. Often it is boiled before using, loosening into fibers.

Roots

• Brown Root: the outer skin of the room is brown while the inner flesh is a cream white. It can not be eaten raw and must be cooked.
• Sweet Root: The outer skin closely resembles Brown Roots but the inside is orange when cooked, it has a sweet that is best complemented with sweets.
• Red Radish: This root grows in a bulb shape and often has a bit of a sharp flavor to it. It is one of the few foods that are chopped up and served raw.

Meats

Some concern has been made about the meat butchered in the Empire. Yes, it has been known and articles have been raising awareness of the diseases that may be contracted by rats. The rat problem in the Empire has been rather persistent and many of the rat-catchers do bring in their catches to some of the butcheries. They can only accept rats from catchers that meet high-quality standards and must go through a cleaning process that ensures they are disease-free before using. Butcheries do not use these rats as their main source of meat. Instead, most of the meat comes from specialized facilities that grow the rats to ensure the best quality. These rats are used and they are kept in cages that are placed into cages. These cages contain groups of rats that grow together and when one group shows signs of poor health, they are instantly brought to the incinerator so nothing is left to chance.
The Geelymaur are similar to moles in anatomy but are stronger and can burrow through solid rocks. They contain large amounts of fat and meat as they are often oversized. We do not use Geelymaur that has been found in the wilderness, but again instead we farm them in special facilities. There has been concern about the fish. Some say these fish contain large amounts of toxic metals. At fisheries, they are dunked into alchemic solutions that completely remove all traces of metals they contain. This process is so efficient that we can make bars of the metals after processing the liquid afterward. Most of the fish used, are tuna, Salmon, Mackerels, Sardines, Herring, whales, and octopus.

Storage of foods

One of the many reasons the Empire has an abundance of resources is because of our ability to store food efficiently. Many have tried claiming that natural foods are only safe to eat for several days after picking. The fact that our foods last for several years, they say, is proof that it is not natural for you. No mold will grow on it because it is highly poisoned. To understand this is not true. There are three methods used to store our food so well.
Smoking is done primarily with meat and mushrooms. We burn charcoal and have the smoke slowly dry up and cure all meat minutes after butchering any animals. This ensures the best quality.
It has been found that mold cannot grow well on alcohols that have been easily concentrated. This would burn a hole in your throat if you ever drink it because of how strong it is. We filter a special brew until it is as clear as water, then we add green salts to it (which gives that signature color). The reaction between the green salts and this concentrated alcohol creates a safe-to-drink liquid that kills mold. This is then used to pickle all kinds of foods as needed. Mills are used to both create finely grounded powders and are also used to mash paste of all kinds. The powders often dry up any mold so they can grow. The Paste can be fresh for years so long as it is not exposed to the air for several hours.
Raw foods generally go into two paths, either they are canned right away, or they are cooked into many of the delicious food we have, then they are canned. The canning process helps seal in the freshness and keeps out mold from growing. This is the largest factor that contributes to the long life span of our food. You can ask the many machine operators around the Empire that you know who work in a food factory. The foods are cooked in large quantities if desired, then scooped into metal containers. From there a press adds a lid and crimps the circumference of the lid to form an airtight seal.

Food around the Empire

There are five main families that run factories around the empire. Each family was been hand-picked by Emperor Mophsus many years ago. They took an oath, that of which they still hold, to ensure the quality and safety of all their foods. They have committed to this so well, that their recipes have not changed since the day they first took charge of the factories. Their products can be expected to taste the same in any city, at any time of the year without fail. There is a difference between the recipes, not in the ingredients used, but in flavoring added. Again the full process is far too complicated to explain in this discussion. What can be explained comes from alchemy. Different essences can be combined together, and when this happens they create the flavor that helps enhance the dishes. These essences come in many forms, with a full listing of difficult colored powders, jellies, resins, salts, waxes, and so on. These can be mixed together to add heat, or imitate sweetness.
A certain alchemist who has been known to spread false words about the empire, and is currently under investigation according to treason laws, has tried to “educate the public”. He is correct in that yes, The essence of fire can burst forth into flames when specific essence is combined then undergo a strong impact like throwing against the wall. But rest assured, the stomach does not come close to the conditions needed for this to happen. Many of the other health risks he claims can come from are simply not true. Yes, some health risks can come from drinking different combinations of essences, but we have checked to ensure that no combination used can directly kill any consumer. In fact, it is impossible for this to happen. The amount of essence added is so small that I only leave the taste, not the effect. Normally a single serving that would have a large noticeable effect on a single person is diluted into a production batch that yields around five hundred servings. This ensures safety for all, a person would need to eat many servings before they experience any side effects. A person is more likely to burst from stuffing themselves too much before any effects start to show.
Many in the Empire tend to stick with one or two family brands at the most. We encourage people to try some of the other brands for those who have never tried them before. Tudhz is known for a spicy kick on all their products, Grrom normally has a bitter gingery aftertaste, Detem uses an acidic source flyer on their products, Zumz tends to taste earthy and gives their consumers a natural flavor, and Brrofh has the most savoy canned foods in all the Empire. Each of them serves their own twist on the following dishes:

• Bitter soup: This soup canned soup is the most commonly eaten throughout the empire. Many of its ingredients are chopped up finely and boiled before canning. Consisting of Peppergrass, Red Radish, Gaunum, flavorings (Essence added for flavoring).,
• Source Soup: This soup is thick and slimy with the stringy fibers of that Tivtip Mushroom making most of the meal. Traditionally it is boiled down until the mushroom loses its structure and then it is smashed into a paste then mixed into a pot with other ingredients before canning. (Essence added for flavoring)
• Meat Soup: Generally these are an assortment of meat to get nutrition for all sources. The largest portion of meat used is rat meat seasoned with wiregrass. Normally these ingredients are ground together and formed into small meatballs. After the meatballs are fried in oils and then the meatballs are cut into large pieces often being boiled with brown root and Red Radish. Flavors are then added as they are ready to be canned. (Essence added for flavoring)
• Fish Stew: Many have noticed that these cans have small bits of bone still left inside of them. That is because many different fishes are ground together to form a paste. There are some amounts of water that are then added as it cooks with Rrautv and Tivtip before canning. (Essence added for flavoring)
• Nut paste: This is created when Teedz are boiled and the water starts to become saturated with the sweet resin inside. The rest is typically discarded and fed to animals. Gaunum nuts are then ground down into a flower and added to the resin. This is then mixed with Gimar milk and jared in a glass. (Essence added for flavoring)
• Sweet jelly paste: This formed from crushing Peppergrass into a pound, then grinding Gaunum in as a filler. After that Teedz resin is added for flavor. Tivtip is then turned into a paste and these are all mixed together and jared. (Essence added for flavoring)
• Hay salad: this is often a mix of chopped Rrautv, Red Radis, Gray leaves and Fraystring that have been canned with vinegar. (Essence added for flavoring)
• Fire drinks: This is a blend of finely mashed, wiregrass, Red Radish, Peppergrass, and Rrautv that has been mixed with water before bottling. (Essence added for flavoring)
• Carbonated sugar: This is created by using special essence that releases gases into a liquid. This process is far too complicated to explain. But before this process, dried Sweet Root is added to Gilmer milk to make a thick sugary cream. Everything is then bottled when the essence is added right before sealing the bottle. The space in the bottle allows for the bubbles to form when opening without overflowing, assuming you don't shake the bottle. (Essence added for flavoring)
• Balam Caramels treats: Please do not be alarmed by this entry. There has not been any growing concern but many are worried about the nature of these threats. Yes, Folcar of Balam who we have adopted into our colonies invented the great taste of caramel. Of course, they are not capable of upholding our quality standards or have the facilities to create the massive volumes needed to fill shelves. We simply import the sugar-filled plants to the empire and we create the caramel treats here in the empire. It is done under civilized hands so no one has to worry about lesser quality or inferior hands tainting the product. (Essence added for flavoring)

Finally, various alcohols are made as named: Mushroom wine, Mushroom champignon, Radish Mushroom Ale. (Essence added for flavoring)

A Brief Assurance

The Emperor himself wanted to address the people about the incident that happened. For those who do not already know, Zagim Fhedm a forty-two-year-old man was sitting on our side on a public bench. He opened up a can of Brrofh’s canned sardines and started eating (which is illegal to do in a public place restricted for waiting). It was reported that two young ladies passing by found him passed out on the bench. They reportedly told the city watch, who were investigating, that the can had a suspicious blue liquid in it (not green as we discussed, some fake news speakers got this detail wrong when retelling this story over and over again even if they tried to mean well). Some have claimed that the blue liquid found came from a fungus that secretes this liquid and it is highly poisonous causing a sharp rash and swelling of the throat.
After investigating, it seems that the elderly man went and started mixing essence himself to try and create the sweet flavor to add to his food (again this is illegal for this very reason. This should only be done by a professional). Many of the so-called “truth-tellers” did not have the investigation report that was written up about his home. He purchased many cans, opened them, and added his homemade sweetener himself (breaking the freshness seal as discussed). In his old age, his body could not handle the rapid change in his body, which gave rise to the kicking and screaming that was spread around. He was not assassinated as some have claimed, the great royal families of Mophu did not, and have never felt any threat to him. Even if his alleged claims about the watering down of Ale were true, the Royal families would not do such acts again the citizens for they are sworn by the gods to protect. Signed
~ Emperor Palaius Dictum
~ Mothus Dictum, Grandmaster of The Order of Mophu
[Chairman’s seal of the Greenhouse Consortium]
[Seal of The Food Production Office]

Purpose

This document was put out as propaganda from the Empire to ensure the quality and safety of their food. It talks about the process of growing different foods throughout empire, list different plants and some animals used in food production, the methods of storing and a generalized process of how different foods are canned and some ideas of what goes into them. The writers did not go into great details and instead talk about generalizations, about all these topics and along the way, the writer tries to dismisses and answer any claims that might lead the general public to think that the food supply is bad in any way.

Document Structure

Publication Status

This document is one of the few in the Empire of Mophu that explains the process of a particular trades work to the general public.

Historical Details

Background

In the Empire of Mophu, knowledge is kept on a need to know basis and only given to people who have relevant jobs that could use specific pieces of information. Jobs are given based on family trades, you can often tell what a person's occupation is based off of their last name alone. The Empire is heavily industrial. They mass produce everything from cheap tin silverware, metal cloth to canned food. Regarding food, the Empire has at most five brands for several food products. Each one tastes exactly the same at all times as part of their special recipes. Some people started getting worried after a man was found to be poisoned by one canned food he ate. Normally these issues would be suppressed by the government protecting the Royal families who own these factories, but this time the news spread faster than the Empire could cover it up. This document was created to try and assure the public that everything is perfectly fine and safe.

Public Reaction

The public felt satisfied by this. Many of the people saw this as informative and interesting. There are some who feel that based on the wording of the article, they are just trying to cover things up.

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Sustenance of The Empire

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Type

Manual, Culinary

Medium

Paper

Location

The Mountains Mophu

Signatories (Organizations)

• The Darwin Empire