“Like everything else, cooking is a skill one acquires through experience and practice. Just learning the recipes without practice would do you no good, no good at all. One has to practice to be able to cook properly!” - Nochu Bor’Leoj, chef-proprietress of The Dining Table franchise of eateries popular in Elmaiya, circa 435 FP.
“Aunt Aideen, you have to tell us, how do you always cook so well like this all the time!?” asked Eilonwy with a somewhat frustrated tone as he munched on the roasted leg of the large, rabbit-like creature they caught for dinner that night. Aideen was cooking that night, and for some reason, her cooking was always far better than what any of the rest managed to make during their turn to cook while they traveled.
“We actually took lessons and classes on cooking back home. Even asked moms for tips. We still can’t come anywhere close,” admitted Áine with a defeated look on her face as she gnawed on the tender meat attached to the creature’s rack of ribs, cooked to toothsome perfection and tasting amazing despite the meager amount of spices used on it. “You have to teach us the trick, please?”
“Hear, hear!” chimed in Celia from the side with an amused tone. “I think I’ve been traveling with you for nearly two centuries now, and I’ve definitely done my share of cooking in that time. Still can’t get anywhere near your cooking even with that, though.”
“I mean, you’re the next best cook amongst us, Miss Celia, so don’t look down on yourself,” placated Rhys.
“I know, but it still annoys me that I can’t catch up even after so long, you know?” said Celia with a shrug of her shoulders. “Do you actually have any secrets, Miss Aideen? Secrets for cooking good food in the wild like this, that is.”
“Don’t look at me. You all know I can’t cook worth shit compared to any of you,” said Kino with a shrug as she was by far the worst cook of the group, something about therians and how they had a somewhat different sense of taste – depending on breed – being the cause.
The group was camped at a small clearing only a few hours away from Alfheim, close enough to see the city in the distance. They stopped there since they didn’t feel like barging into the city late at night, where most places would already be closed and finding a place to stay might be troublesome, and would instead cover the remaining distance the next morning.
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“To be honest, it’s not really any secret,” said Aideen with an amused chuckle at her group. “The secret to cooking good food while on the road like right now mostly relies on two things: Fire and familiarity.”
“By fire, I assume you mean the skill to control the open fire to get it just right for what you are cooking, right, Aunt?” asked Áine with a thoughtful look.
“Correct. Open fires tend to be harder to control compared to the fire you have in a closed, covered place like the stoves or hearths we usually cook on, so keeping the fire at just the right intensity for what you are cooking is something you’d have to learn to do well,” explained Aideen. “This would mostly be something you learn by experience, and usually a lot of charred or underdone pieces of food in the process.”
“As for familiarity… it is more complicated than what you probably think,” Aideen added as she raised the chunk of meat she was gnawing on. “Familiarity with the ingredients is one thing. You need to know the characteristics and nature of the ingredients you are using to cook, or else you might not be able to get the most out of it. For example, I might not be familiar with this particular creature in specific, but from its appearance, I could tell that it likely shares some characteristics with hares and rabbits, and from there we can infer potential ways to cook them properly.”
“Like how their meat is usually very lean and needs to be cooked until well done for safety?” asked Rhys.
“Precisely. That’s the basics you can infer just from that knowledge alone. By knowing that you can plan out how to cook them properly so that the end result would taste better,” said Aideen in return. “In this case, these creatures turned out to have some fat layers beneath their skin, which made for a good way to keep the meat juicy and tasteful without needing to resort to other methods.”
“Other than familiarity with the ingredients itself, you also need to be familiar with other things, like the various herbs, plants, and animals that grow around you,” she added. “Many wild plants are edible, or could be used as seasoning to enrich the flavor of whatever dish you’re cooking. Needless to say, this familiarity would also help you avoid the poisonous plants and animals and spare yourself some food poisoning that way.”
“I still remember teacher’s courses on those when we trained in the Death’s Hand… those were some of the worst days of my life…” groaned Eilonwy as she reminisced over the time when she and many other trainees were taught about poisonous plants by having them directly experience the effects they had on their own bodies.
“It sure helps keep them in your memory, though! You won’t forget what you’ve experienced as easily as things you just read or heard about,” replied Aideen with a chuckle. “It’s not just that, though. One thing that people often forget about is that you also need to be familiar with the wood and grass you use to fuel your fire.”
“Many kinds of woods, grasses, and herbs impart some flavor through the smoke they produce while you cook, and far too many people forget to take this into account as well. This is usually the last piece of the puzzle many fail to notice when trying to get some good food going out in the wild, and Deities forbid if you accidentally use wood from say, poison ivy to cook with.”