Azoturian Vegetarianism
Ascetic temple practices adopted as a regional cultural preference
The spiritual communities of Azoturia have always fostered a kind of peculiar asceticism. Close proximity to the weird wonders of the Oraculum will do that, I suppose. The solar orthodoxies impose no restrictions on the eating of flesh; nevertheless, leave it to the "Secret Council of the Twin Autumn" or "The Awakened School of the Crimson Elements" (pick any cult-of-the-week): all these religious communities are constantly dreaming up new mortifications with which to demonstrate their true devotion to the Sun Path. Fortunately, most of these apocryphal customs are harmless spiritual vanities. Such is the case with the Azoturian custom of abstaining from meat. It started as a random cult practice and now it's the cultural commonplace throughout the southern reaches of the Green River Valley!
What started out as a sporadic custom of selective fasting came to eventually form the basis of a significant aspect of daily life in the lands of Azoturia. Over half of the people inhabiting these lands follow a culturally prescribed practice of vegetarianism, a practice which has given rise to an unmistakable Azoturian regional cuisine.
History
Religious fasting has been practiced by many of Azoturia's myriad esoteric cults over the years, but the popular cultural rejection of meat originates with the Common Comrades of the Primordial Truth. This cult, founded by a landowning host and vintner named Tazzi Naradu in 852 PCE, extolled a pantheistic belief in the divinity of all animal life. According to the Comrades, the rational consciousness of human beings was not qualitatively different from the sensate consciousness of so-called lesser beasts. For this reason, the Comrades considered the beasts of the forests and fields and even the smallest insects to be as brothers within the shared fabric of the universe. This sense of common feeling formed the core of the tenets of the Primordial Truth.
Tazzi began hosting public celebrations of the Primordial Truth and used his wealth and connections to turn these gatherings into lavish affairs. He not only presided over the rituals but also led the meal preparations himself and took great pains to make the act of cooking spiritually clean meals a significant part of the Comrade cult's mystery. As word of Tazzi's culinary skill spread so too did the allure of the Comrade's message and fellowship. For Tazzi was no common prophet or guru. He had a way of connecting with people and, through the communal meals shared upon the ritual grounds, he began to draw more than mere curiosity and would eventually come to preside over a sizable community of followers. The people would come to have their bellies filled and left with another hunger sated as well.
The sense of community and fellowship was the powerful draw for the Comrades. Tazzi would eventually lose his spiritual zeal and stopped preaching sermons but with the sponsorship of other community leaders he continued to host socials in his own culinary style. Azoturians shared Tazzi's recipes for sacred dishes such as lentil stew and quince leek pie and continued to prepare them on holy feast days. As a result, though the dogma of the Comrades dissipated, their spiritual practice of vegetarian eating endured as a common cultural touchstone, a vestigial token of the original religious intent.
Execution
The recipes vary but the essence of Comrade-cooking lies in the choice of ingredients and the way in which they are prepared. Because even insects are sacred, the recipes include meticulous cleaning and proper harvesting. For example, leafy greens must be rinsed and strained multiple times to ensure not even a single bug egg remains. All of these manners of preparation originally owed to religious observance but even with no force of faith to enforce them they are still practiced for the sake of correct and cleanly method. What once was once considered sacrosanct is now simply proper cuisine: the way things are done.
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