Red Tundra Cuisine

The Red Tundra is a basin that has a mountain range on the east of it where most of the rain comes from the sea. The Red Tundra is in the southeast of Anicarta. It is northeast of the Ceelkayo Wilds. The land is very arid and sparsely populated but it does have a big river running through it that provides for the area. The cuisine that comes from this area is unique as it consists mostly of dried food. Because of the low humidity in the area, the people found that drying the food was the best way to persevere their food. A specialty of the area is Dried Chaos fire finch is spicy dried meat. The Red Tundra does dry agriculture and ranching of cows and other large bovine animals. The people found several of the native plants do well as crops and are eatable. Some examples are the Hazel Sprout, Red Ambrosia, wild nettle, and a desert poly-nut. The hazel sprouts and wild nettle are dried and used as spices to flavor the fish and meat that people dry. The Red Ambrosia is dried and used to flavor drinks. This is also exported. The desert poly-nut is slightly toxic and for a long time was not considered to be good for food. When fresh it is a medium-sized nut that is brown throughout with a hard but easy-to-break outer shell. This fresh poly-nut is good for use as a pigment for painting or as a stain. Then one year a painter gathered far more than they needed. They left the extras out in the sun and forgot about them. When they remember about the nuts the nuts had flattened out the shell had hardened a little but once cracked the inside had changed to a white tan and was creamy inside. Drying them released the toxic part of the nut and transformed it into a sweet paste that is now used to sweeten the dishes.