Axiem wrote:What do your conpeople eat on holidays?
Firebird766 wrote:What do your conpeople eat that others might find disgusting?
Can knock both birds off their perch with one answer here...
Teleranian cuisine, especially all those particular and special dishes found around holiday time, are a true adventure for the bold of stomach. "Nothing says loving like hot fried
Emperor Haristos's Five Spice Surprise Double Fried Lung Stuffed Stomach Delicasy Dish!, just like Mom used to make!! Only now with more thymus stuffed gall bladders! Try it with a side order of our famous
Queen Nurz's Pickled Fire Spiced Eyeball Kebob!!! Now stuffed with fresh live
galing worms!!!!!!"
Basically, in Teleranian holiday cuisine, if they can tease some organ out from a freshly slaughtered animal and find a way to stuff it into something else, they will do so. And enjoy the resulting mess with a gusto bordering on the nationally insane!
Perhaps I could tempt you with a plate of
Emperor Wang Lang's Seventy-Two Hour Pickled Lung Barbecue? Made with only the freshest of lungs, smoked and roasted on an open flame! It's a guaranteed hit at any
Metranes festival, especially when served with
Not-Quite-Hatchling-Duck Egg Pickle Surprise, stuffed right into the trachea! Wow!
Holiday food in Teleran is, from a certain perspective, one of the more interesting aspects of the culture. And from any perspective, it is certainly an adventure. How about trying some down home
Empress Zong's Dog Pericardium Wrapped Century Eggs? Wow, they really pack a punch! Especially when served in a bed of live chilled
galing worms!! Or take just one bite of
Sharma Master Tomas's Thymus Stuffed Fried Ox Eyeball Amazement! Served fresh, just the way yer granma made em, drenched with No. xlvij qijap! You'll be amazed at the flavor and delicate crunch of the fried sclera! And to wash it all down, be sure to order a cup of
St. Michael's Six Egg and Cream Nog of Spice and Wonderment. Can assure you, hardly any actual eggs were harmed in the preparation of this frothy, spicy drink! Just take some fresh creamy milk (mare or cow), some beer, an egg white, pepper and spice to taste -- oh, and don't forget, you'll need six fresh chilled rabbit eyes. Just stir it all up and enjoy a wonderful and refreshing treat -- just like Grandma used to make!!
Pro tip: It is considered a faux pas, in the eateries and great houses of the cities where they care more about these things, to eat fresh
galing worms with that fiddly little two pronged fork they use for skewering the rabbit eyes out of the crater. Proper etiquette enjoins one to use the little narrow oblong spoon for the worms. After all, according to all the etiquette handbooks, no one wants to find encrusted
galing worm entrails sticking to their poached rabbit eyes! Also, it is considered boorish to munch the worms! That's very back country. Just enjoy the tickle and let em wriggle! They'll soon find their way on down! Plus they taste less bitter that way, on account of there being no spillage of gut contents.
Notes:
The
galing worm is a little creature, about a five half-inches long, thin of body & pale white in colour. They kind of resemble wriggly bean sprouts, and share a similarly crunchy texture and coolth on the tongue. It's best, once harvested, to keep them in a cloth-lidded container for three days before washing. This allows the, time to evacuate their gut which will reduce the odd bitter flavor of the worms. Most folks just spoon a few up and happily munch --- they're really fine with a bit of salt and pepper or sprinkling of cinnamon and tumeric! In more refined locales, it is considered de rigeur to refrain from engaging the teeth. Again, a few at a time are spooned up and allowed to wriggle their way down your tongue.
It should be noted, however, that serving live
galing worms is illegal in Auntimoany (but not Rumelia): The
Safe Restaurant Cookery Act (1921) for example outlaws the use of live animals in cookery. This of course followed some while after the now famous "four and twenty blackbirds scandal", which occurred in the Year of the Twice Cooked Goose (1914) when Emperor Semlac IIII was at the great Yeolas feast.
Bloody things broke out of their pie and immediately swooped down on poor Empress Zunield and pecked off her nose! The chef was lucky that Semlac was quite the madman --- he thought it was all good fun and part of the show. By rights, he should have danced a last jig on Daniel Jones's Swing; but in stead he got a pension and a promotion to head pastry chef. I should note that Empress Zunield was not amused.
Neither was Parliament amused and after quite a wrangle, put paid to live animal use in the nation's cuisine. The Act stipulates that foods must be thoroughly cooked: "...that no living or half-alive thing of alman-kind may escape the confines of its dish and, by means of its native wings, fins or paws, make good its escape." But as with all good law, there are handy loop-holes! In essence, should the customer "be fully aware of any raw or alive products used in said dishes, and any potential effects of eating such dishes". Basically, if you get sick eating wiggly-worm soup, you were warned!
The
Metranes is what the mid-Winter festival is called in Teleran, and the name and certainly some of the cultural accouterments have been borrowed wherever Telerani cuisine has advanced. Notably that international gumbo pot that is Auntimoany itself. It happily coincided with
Yeolas and folks there have, with gusto, adopted and adapted the twelve-night festival to their own celebration.
The twenty-fifth of December is, of course, the Feast of the Nativity (whether of the Lord Krist for the Kristians, or Lord Mithras for the Mithraists) and marks the first day of the Twelve Nights which will end on 6 January, the Feast of the Three Astrologers.