“The best cook in the world isn’t one who makes extravagant dishes with the best ingredients. The best one is one who could make good dishes even with the worst ingredients.” - Saying commonly attributed to the Silver Maiden, veracity often debated.

After a good and merry drinking session that saw most of the villagers comfortably tipsy, the stew that had been simmering for days was served before them. Much like Aideen expected, it contained practically every part of the slaughtered cattle, from its rather tough meat, to even tougher tendons, and chunks of its innards, the latter of which was cleaned thoroughly before cooking, though they still had a touch of that characteristic innard smell to them.

That smell was one reason why some people and even some cultures considered them unclean and thus unfit for consumption, but anyone who had ever needed to make every little bit count knew all too well that they were perfectly edible, and even delicious when cooked right. Given her background, Aideen was naturally in the latter camp, so was Eilonwy as a born and bred Ptolodeccan.

As for Kino, due to her therian heritage she just found the smell appetizing to begin with instead.

The villagers served the thick stew – it had a consistency almost like a thick porridge, even – with a kind of flatbread they made from the local crop which was an oddity to both Eilonwy and Kino. At a glance the crops looked like gigantic stalks of herbs of some sort, ones that reached a height of two to three meters and could easily pass for trees.

Neither of them had thought that those “trees” were the main source of the local staple food.

Even how the villagers extracted the food out of those crops – which they were doing while the food was still being prepared – was quite novel in the method. The crop was composed of many large layers, each of which has a tough, bark-like outer layer and a more fibrous inside. The locals would lay a piece against the wall and use a rounded stick to “roll” a pulpy mess from the insides of the crop.

Which in turn left behind the bark-like outer skin and a collection of fibers that ran along the insides of the crop itself. The bark-like skin was used in all sorts of things in the village. Their food bowls were made out of them, as were the cups, and it was even used in the construction of their mud houses, where it served as structural support for the dried mud.

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The fiber on the other hand was woven together into the clothing that the villagers wore, which was an example of making the most out of what little they had. Literally every bit of the crop was used up, with pieces that were broken up during extraction – mistakes happened, after all – instead used as kindling or a firewood replacement once suitably dried.

As for the pulp itself, it was gathered and then allowed to ferment in jars that were stored in underground basements. They were left there for months to up to a year or more, with the older ones considered better. The villagers had brought out jars of such pulp that had fermented for over a year for the festivities, then extracted the sweet-sour smelling pulp from it, squeezed the liquids out back into the jar, and minced the pulp finely.

The minced pulp was then roasted over a flat, hot rock to form a kind of flatbread. When Aideen gave the flatbread a try, she found that it had a chewy texture that somehow crumbled after a while, with a taste that was slightly sweet-sour and a hint of alcoholic kick. They tore chunks of the bread and used it to scoop up some of the stew like the locals did.

To say that the stew was meaty was an understatement given that it had been simmering for days on end. The tough meat of the old cattle was flavorful, and had become so tender from the prolonged cooking that it easily broke apart when chewed. The cattle’s tendons turned soft and gelatinous, and had absorbed a lot of the meaty flavors from the stew it was cooked in, while the innards just reminded Aideen of home, with its stronger, gamey flavors and characteristic textures.

Each part had a different texture, after all, even after simmering for so long. The stomach and intestines had more of a chewy texture and a slight hint of bitterness to them, while the heart had more of a crunch to it. The kidneys and lungs were soft yet chewy at the same time, while the liver crumbled apart, its earthy taste easy to notice.

Not even liquids squeezed out of the fermented pulp were wasted. Instead, the villagers filtered it through a fine sieve after they used up all the pulp in one jar, then added in a bit of honey and diluted the mixture with water. The result was a sweet-sour drink with a slight alcoholic bitterness and kick to it on the aftertaste, which the villagers clearly loved to share around.

The feast went on till midnight until the villagers finally retired one after another, some carried on the shoulders or backs of others as they were too drunk to walk home on their own. There were a few empty houses in the village, ones that belonged to families that had since moved out or otherwise left, so Aideen’s group was allowed to stay in one while the local constable stayed in another as they would spend the night in the village.

Naturally, a few hours into the morning, when everyone was deep asleep, Aideen discreetly went out of the house her group was staying in. She had no plans to stay overlong in the village, but would repay them for their kindness and hospitality before she left nonetheless. She went out and snuck into the houses of the people in the village and healed their ailments one after another without even waking them up.

That said, someone turned out to be awake and alert when she snuck into their place, namely the young constable, who was understandably nervous about finding an intruder in his resting place in the wee hours of the morning.