[Flashback] A Suitable Trade

[Hilana]

Flashback, Winter, 498 AV

Sarala had bartered with her young niece. If she made the evening meal, and she would see to it that she would be able to get a new sling. Hers was an old one, and as well used and looked after as it was, it had been old before Hilana had even been born. But now, it was on its last strings, and the girl was in need of a new one. Her aunt, from years of dealing with the girl, was finally figuring out just what buttons to push to get the result she wanted from her sister’s youngest daughter, now 11 years of age. In this case, it was the sling. She wanted the girl to learn other skills that would at least enable them to marry her off on some poor, unsuspecting man who would be totally unprepared for the hellion.

It was a suitable compromise. Cooking was a valuable skill, and if the girl was willing to learn recipes and how to prepare them for a family, then that, at least, would be a start. Sarala could have sworn she noticed Hilana paying attention to the others while they were cooking, though every time she looked at the girl, the girl’s attention seemed to be elsewhere. But the devil-eyed child was sharper than most gave her credit for, and while she may not have seemed to have been paying any mind, her ears were keen as she listened and went about her tasks. You picked things up that way.

There was no meat tonight, but, the girl told herself, they didn’t need any. Lentils were just as good. Besides, she was going to make a pomegranate-lentil soup. And if they didn’t like it, well, then they could make themselves something else. But she’d have to do her best – because a new sling was in the balance, here, and she darn well wanted it.

[Hilana]

Hilana hummed to herself as she gathered up what she was going to need for evening meal from the tent. Lentils, some freshly made goat’s butter, sweet onion, wild green onion, garlic, water, barley, herbs and spices, raisins. And, of course, the pomegranates. One simply did not forget pomegranates. Not when you needed them for the highlight of the soup. If there was a wow factor, it was going to come from there. Well, there and the spices. The Benshira were well-known for their spices, after all, and a lot of them. Several scoops of red lentils went into a large bowl, and she gave it a slight shake to level the contents.

With the lack of any bodies of water in Eyktol and only being surrounded by it, refining seawater had become an art. When you took to the Burning Lands, after all, a man’s water was worth more than his life. But Hilana was resourceful. You took one container, heated the sea water in it, and kept the condensate, which was then drinkable. It worked out well. It was enough to keep them, anyway. It was into one of the barrels of salt water that she lowered the dipper – the lentils had to be rinsed.

Hilana emptied the dipper onto the lentils, adding a few more scoops of salted water and a few scoops of desalinated water for a bit of balance, and let them soak. She eased her fingers through them, enjoying the feel of the water against her tanned skin, as she stirred to mix the lentils to make sure that they were all loosened and coated. The water was pretty clear, which told her that the lentils had been rinsed, somewhat, before. But a quick second rinse wouldn’t hurt them, and the bit of salt would help to season them. She carried that bowl over to a sieve over a boiling put, and slowly poured the lentils into the sieve, letting the water strain off. It would go into a barrel to be boiled, and purified for drinking.

That was the first step done, she mused as she hummed, and began a song to Yahal.

[Hilana]

“Yahal, we are your children
Yahal, our spirits are lifted
Yahal, your children of the desert
Look to you for guidance.

Yahal, our protector,
Yahal, keeper of the lost
Yahal, let us walk with you
Your faithful children for all of our days…”

Hilana sang to herself, her childish voice somewhat high, but carrying and holding the notes as sweetly as she could, ignoring everyone else as she lit the cooking fire. They’d passed by the Redstone Cliffs recently, and there was always plenty of scrub there, more than you’d find elsewhere in Eyktol at any rate, so it counted. Steel and flint worked to spark the scrub, and from there it was a matter of carefully tending it and coaxing the sparks into a fire. Once a satisfactory blaze for cooking was burning merrily, she set up the stand and set the wide-mouthed pot above the flames. Butter was scooped from the clay pot it rested in, and measured out with a practiced eye. The butter went into the pot, and began to melt.

The girl gathered up the sweet onion she had found earlier and rinsed, before taking her cooking knife to it and the cutting board spread on her lap. She cut off the ends, setting them aside, and began to peel it. With the skin discarded for now, she began by slicing it, and then continued to carefully dice the sweet onion until it was in decent sized pieces. The board was lifted from her lap, and the onion gathered and moved into the pot. The butter was melting by then, and she gathered up the mixing spoon and ‘tossed’ the onion piecess to coat, making sure to cover them with the yellowy goat’s butter, and then she turned her attention to the garlic.

She sautéed the onions as they cooked in the medium-low heat, stirring them often as she stripped the garlic cloves and worked on mincing them. Like the onion, Hilana had gathered the garlic. The two of them were plants that weren’t too hard to find in Eyktol. One just had to know where to look. Garlic was an interesting ingredient, she mused to herself. One had to be careful with it. Like ginger, garlic was powerful. You would do well to tame it lest it overwhelm everything else in the pot. When mincing, Hilana knew, you wanted to get a nice, almost paste-like consistency. It helped spread the flavour more evenly, and the fine cutting helped bring out the juice and flavour of the ingredient. The girl checked on the onions, testing with the spoon. Nice and soft, and that was what she wanted. The garlic was transferred from cutting board to pot, and she continued to stir.

[Hilana]

As she stirred and sautéed the onions and garlic, Hilana inhaled the welcome scents of cooking food. Hilana absolutely loved to eat, and she found that when one loved food, a love of preparing it could follow. Of course, she would never admit that to her aunts or sisters or anyone else, really. If she told her father, there might be a wash of indulgence in the hobby, but it would come at the cost of other hobbies and habits, and the girl-child wasn’t ready to sacrifice them. No, this was a better way. Stick to what she liked to do that her family did not particularly approve of, and use what they wanted her to do against them.

Like the sling. A good sling wasn’t particularly expensive, really, but if she was going to be forced into cooking, and she would have been, sooner or later, Lana wanted to do it on her terms.

She carefully studied the pots contents. So far, so good… water was added, a pitcher at a time, carefully, slowly, to dilute the sweet-smelling concoction already brewing in the pot. In some ways, she felt like a witch, preparing a potion with incredible powers. But that was another thing that she wouldn’t ever tell anyone. She stirred the water, careful not to slosh. You never, ever, ever sloshed water. To waste it was a sin. She had heard tales of places where water was plentiful, where the rains fell all the time and nothing ever dried up. She wondered what such a place would be like. Rich and lush and green, an oasis as far as the eye could see… but how would you ever get dry? What did such constant wetness do your skin? One day, she decided, she’d find out. One day.

She measured the barley from the burlap sack, and brought it out to her pot again, slowly pouring it in, making sure to spread it around and not upset the pot or water unduly. She liked barley – it was an interesting grain. You could make flour out of it; you could shape it into balls and tie them up for snacks and storage. As an additional bonus, barley was marvelously filling. But, best of all, it was healthy. Barley water, soups, and broths worked wonders for fevers. Turmeric was next, and the yellow, powdery spice was carefully added to the pot. It kind of reminded her of ginger. Lastly, salt… easy enough, they had plenty of that… and then pepper. The corns were added to the mortar and pestle, and she set to work on grinding them down to a nice powder before sprinkling them into the pot. She began to stir it again, making sure to mix it well.

Hilana checked the level of the fire, and added more of the scrub to the fire, feeding the flames bit by bit. All she needed to do was cook it on low for the better part of an hour now, which would give her time to get everything else together…

[Hilana]

While the barley, onion, water, and spices simmered, Hilana gathered up the jar of fresh basil leaves, returning with them to the fire. Okay. This didn’t have to be diced or shredded or minced, at least, and that was a good thing. What she did have to do, though, was chop them. That was easy enough. She added another stick to the fire, and started with a few leaves, beginning to chop them roughly. Because of their size, she was essentially cutting the leaves in half lengthwise, and then chopping the pieces from there. Now they were a better size, and they’d still release their flavour. She scraped the basil into a bowl, measuring it as she went along, adding a few leaves here and a few leaves there. They’d break down further in the pot, she knew, but she’d watched Farinha, her paternal grandmother, cut basil that way, and so Hilana was cutting it that way.

No point in fixing something if it wasn’t broken, now, was there?

She gathered a handful of green onions, then, and cut off the ends, and began to chop them as well. Green onions were easier to deal with. Wild green onions were powerful, and these required a finer chop than the basil had. These were right up there with the garlic and turmeric, after all, and if she chopped them into small pieces, then the flavour would distribute better and it wouldn’t overwhelm everything else when someone bit into them. She remembered Athalia doing that once when she had made a meal, the onion left too large, and as potent as it was… For the first and last time in her life, Hilana was not scolded for complaining about some food. But her sister had not been scolded, merely corrected. The onion went into the bowl on top of the basil.

The pomegranates were next. Hilana loved pomegranates. They smelled incredible, and the taste lit up her tongue. She cut the pomegranate in half, and upturned it over a juicing bowl, beginning to juice the pomegranates and squeezing all of their juicy goodness out. She repeated this until she had enough juices, and checked on the soup’s progress. It had reduced considerably, so she slipped her spoon in and stirred it before mixing and getting a spoonful of barley and lentils. They steamed in the desert air, and she blew on them gently to knock the steam off, and nibbled on the grains and lentils. Almost tender… maybe another five minutes.

She stirred them, and added a bit more wood to the fire, and nibbled a bit on the rind of one of the pomegranates, still tasting the last bits of sweetness as she waited for the lentils and barley. A few minutes passed, and she tipped the onion and basil in, stirring them, and then picked up the heavy bowl full of pomegranate juice, and carefully began to tip it into the soup. Once it was all in, and she had nothing to scrape out, she set the bowl aside and began to stir the thickened soup. It was much heavier and required considerable care, what with the heavy lentils and thickened barley. She removed the spoon, tasting it. It tasted great, at least, to her, and she had a feeling it would taste even better once the flavours had a chance to blend. The pomegranates really offered a tart, tangy flavour to spice it up, too.

That sling was as good as hers!

[Hilana]

”I will sing to Yahal
For He has triumphed so gloriously
Yahal, amongst the celestial
Yahal, majestic in holiness
Yahal, with Your love
You lead the people
You have forgave…”

Hilana sang some more. Even if it was somewhat disjointed… but in flowing, beautiful Shiber, it didn’t matter quite so much. It flowed, and the words came from her heart. Yahal would hear her, and He would know that they were faithful to Him. She went back to her earlier verses, repeating them and trying a different word occasionally as she looked for the best… fit… of words. She couldn’t explain it better than that. She just knew when they sounded right.

She gathered up her cutting board again, and began to chop up some fresh mint, cutting it neatly. She didn’t need a whole lot of it, really, but she needed enough. When she was nearly done that, she got some more of the creamy yellow goat’s butter, which went into a little copper pan. She propped that up by the fire, and let the butter began to melt. As it melted, she finished the mint, and dumped the lot of it into the pan with the butter, and began to sauté it, stirring constantly and slowly, making sure to distribute it evenly.

While she was doing this, the soup was simmering and thickening nicely. She tested it with her spoon, noting with satisfaction the thickness. The barley and lentils had absorbed most of the juices, and they, in turn, would be sweet and spicy. Hilana taste-tested, and blew quickly through her mouth when her enthusiasm got the better of her. Hot! Hot! Hot! Once her mouth had cooled down, she drizzled in the minted brown butter, enjoying the designs it made on the top, before gathering up a handful of raisins, and beginning to drop them into the soup, watching them rise to the surface. They’d plump up by the time her family gathered, she was certain.

She gathered up the sweet honey-bread, and began to break it off into chunks. These went into a trio of woven frond baskets, so that they could be shared. She risked another glance at her thick stew-like soup, and decided all was in proper order as she began to clear up her dishes and knife, moving them aside later for cleaning. “Dinner!”

[Colombina]

A wonderful thread with attention to detail. Thank you for keeping to plants and menu common to the area! I am grateful for that. Also, I love to see PC's worshipping gods in their own way. 3 xp Cooking 1 xp Singing.