Cuisine of the Raft Villagers Tradition / Ritual in Hislariya | World Anvil

Cuisine of the Raft Villagers

WIP - Summer Camp quality. This will continue to be edited during July and likely after the prizes adjudication.
The Raft Villagers have to make the most of the scarce land resources available in their atoll, and this is reflected in particular in their cuisine.   The main ingredient used in their day to day diet is obviously fish and shellfish, of which they have a vast variety, including the mostly white, lean fish that populates the inner lagoon, the heart crabs and the meaty pink cones.   From the open waters on the other side of the atoll, they can capture larger fish like the red crested tuna and oily fish like sardines and herrings. The sea also gives the biggest part of the vegetable components of the Zem atoll's cuisine, with the abundance of algae, soft and chewy types in the inner lagoon, and more leafy variants in the outer coast.   The land is carefully cultivated and tended to gain the most of the little terrain available. The atoll has several bread fruit trees, that have a bread like consistence when sliced and cooked, but they are rationed to only a few slices a year per person.    A few fruit trees and berry bushes also grow in the island and are consumed when they are in season either on their own or as accompainment to the fish.   The sea birds in the islands are common and the community makes use of the extra eggs that sometimes the bird lay (the two most common birds that nest in the island only lay one fertilized egg per season).   Out of these ingredients, the islanders manage to have a fairly varied cuisine, mostly made up of raw, dried or salted fish and dried seeweed gallettes, but they can also roast small quantities of fish and bread fruit slices on the sun powered ovens they keep over the Zem's Palace roof and  they occasionally mix the eggs to the chewy algae to get a nutritious and tasty see omelette.   The fish and crabs can also be cooked in a broth when the villagers have a surplus of wood that they can afford to burn and a special delicacy is considered to mash the breadfruit with the crab meat in small doughballs and then cook them in the fish broth in what's considered a dish for the big occasions.

Cover image: by Thom Milkovic

Comments

Please Login in order to comment!