Food Preservation in the Lands of the Stormborn

Describe the culinary traditions that are unique to an ethnicity in your world.

Across much of Marivar salting and drying are the main means of preserving food. In the lands of the Stormborn salt is difficult to produce and drying conditions are unreliable. This has lead to the emergence of a number of means of preserving and preparing food not seen in other cultures of the continent, though they have migrated to the northern parts of Tarusia with the Marian diaspora. Here we look at some of the and the dishes that you may encounter in these lands. Many of these traditional dishes are, shall we say, strongly flavoured and something of an acquired taste - but unlike some other cultures the Stormborn do not take offence at a dislike for one or two if their traditional dishes for few among them enjoy all.

The difficulties of cooking while onboard a wooden ship, especially if the seas are not calm mean that many of their dishes are intended to be eaten cold, usually with wad, a dense bread which is baked once for use fresh, and a second time to increase its shelf life into weeks when kept dry. On board ships this is achieved using barrels sealed with pine pitch.

History

The Stormborn were traditionally a coastal and seafaring people and their culinary traditions reflect this in the reliance on the sea and their need to be able to sustain themselves on long voyages or in temporary encampments. As they became more settled priorities changed and it is likely that the dishes we know today are less strongly flavoured than of old and the exotic spices used in some of the pickles are almost certainly a recent addition arising from the Stormborn's introduction to the trade routes with the peoples south of the Long Range.
Many of these foods had something of a renaissance with the expansion of the Mor into the northern areas of Tarusia, for though not of Stormborn stock the people of Morring and Murragh had been strongly influenced by the stormborn's culture. Variations of these dishes are therefore common in the Little Kingdoms , Kingdom of Mor and Moran Duchy. Recognisably different but clearly connected they show the spread of Stormborn blood and culture across the northern regions of the two continents.

Culinary Culture

Whilst all three of the methods detailed here were traditional to the Stormborn, they have spread with Stormborn seafarers carrying other elements of their culture with them. One key festival in their calendar is Upskall - occurring when the new season's ondraskall is judged ready to eat (if eaten too soon, while the fermentation is still in full swing it can cause severe digestive discomfort). At Upskall the community consumes the remainder of the previous year's production and starts consumption of the new year's. Thus the timing of the festival varies by household and village and rather than being a single point celebration it extends over 20 or 30 days, during which most people will attend several Upskall feasts (and after which they will probably not eat much ondraskall for quite a while).

Bit of an acquired taste, that ondraskall. Not really my kettle of fish, if you'll excuse the pun.

— Ullo Odragh, skipper of the Lady Njoragh

Ondraskall

The rich northern seas were an unmissable resource, but fish needs preservation if you want to be able to keep it any length of time. The glut of fish offered by the spring run of skallum - a small oily fish is the starting point for the fermented dish of ondraskall. The fish is gutted and put into a strong brine (often seawater that has been boiled down in order to reduce the need for solid salt) for three days before being transferred to a weaker brine for a a further 60 days or so before being packed into glazed pots. A layer of fish oil is used to prevent evaporation and an oiled cloth cover is tied on - it is important to allow the ondraskall to breath as it continues to ferment until autumn. After this it can be sealed more fully and transported as merchandise or rations, keeping for another year or so.

Picklecure

Picklecure is a technique which involves brining fruit, meat or vegetables to remove some of the water and then preserving them in a strong beer that has been deliberately soured. Unlike the brining technique used in ondraskall there is no fermentation so the flavours remain truer to the fresh produce and picklecure is more a dish of the landsman than the mariner. Following the wider use of Sweetroot in the Marivan Empire, some communities started adding sweetroot extract to the brine to create a sweeter product that can, at times verge on the marmalades described in The Kitchen's Book of Larch Hill. Picklecure is a versatile technique for preserving many foods but seldom works well with fish, which tends to stert to ferment during the brining stage.

Longmeat

For those who do not like the strong flavours of ondraskall, or the sharpness of picklecure a third option for preservation exists - longmeat. This is meat that has been slowly cooked in hot oil or fat for upto 24 hours and is then stored submerged in this medium. The cooking is done at a temperature well below that of boiling water and the extended duration results in a very dry but tender product. If the fat used is solid at storing temperatures then long meat is ideal for use on ships and when done well, it will keep for half a year or longer. The main difficulty in it's production is the skill required to manage the fire to maintain the required temperature in the fat. With the emergence of the whaling trade, whale blubber is now the most commonly used medium for longmeat in the coastal areas.