Faldir Region: Food and Meals

Food and mealtimes are an integral part of Faldir’s culture and economy. Every step of making food – from farming and harvesting, to the preparation and cooking of the food, to the serving of meals – is cherished, and is one of the cultural element that ties everyone in the town together. Food is also history: while there are several core dishes cooked often in Faldir, each family has their own version of it tweaked here and there with signatures of the region they used to belong to; and recipes are passed down to younger generations with the same reverence reserved for family heirlooms.

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Ingredients
Faldir sits in a transitional zone between climates and biomes; as such, many plants grow well in the region, and many animals fare well also. Faldir is hot with alternating wet and dry periods and relatively consistent sunlight throughout the year; there is rainforest to the south and savannah running into chaparral to the north. Additionally, seeds in Faldir come from three very distinct regions: Oldmin, Falnin, and Eldspel. While not all crops thrived in Faldir, many were able to grow well enough.

• Grains: Corn, Rice, and Wheat (in that order of availability). Faldir also uses several grain-likes, particularly plantains, but also some potatoes, yams, and cassava.
• Vegetables: Peppers (Chili and Sweet), Tomatoes, Beans (many kinds), Okra (lots), Squash, Zucchini, Tomatillos, Onions, Amaranth, Taro.
• Fruits: Bananas, Oranges (and other citrus), Mangoes, Papayas, Guavas, Mangosteen, Soursop, Cherimoyas, Passion Fruit.
• Meats: Bushmeat; particularly zebra, antelope, warthog, peccary, agouti, and various ground-dwelling birds. So far as livestock goes, Faldir primarily has goats, chickens, and ostriches. Fish – especially catfish – crustaceans, shellfish and turtles are also eaten frequently. Some large types of grubs are also eaten.
• Dairy: Butter and milk are made almost exclusively from goat milk; and eggs are typically either chicken eggs or ostrich eggs.
• Seasonings: Spices are a big deal in Faldir and widely available. Includes Cinnamon, Cardamom, Cloves, Nutmeg, Cumin, Pepper, Vanilla, Allspice, Ginger, Turmeric, Sassafrass, Sesame, Tamarind – the list goes on.
• Drinks: Chocolate, Tea, and Coffee are widely available and used often. Alcohol is also popular and brewed widely; rum and whiskey are the most common, but alcohols made with banana, chocolate, and oranges are also brewed. All of these drinks are often flavored with other spices when possible.
• Other: Sugarcane also grows well in the region, and honey is produced as a byproduct of the town bees (whose primary use is pollination). Nuts are limited to cashews and agouti nuts, and used infrequently.

Food Production
Faldir incorporates a great deal of both farming and gathering in its food production. Grains, along with the most common vegetables, are farmed; sugarcane is also farmed. Farming styles are adopted and blended from all three regions, but Oldmin’s styles are most widely used. Most fruits (and plantain), spices, and nuts, however, are gathered and cultivated in their natural patches of rainforest in a style of forestry adopted from Xucu’an.

Hunting and fishing, rather than livestock, is the primary source of meat in Faldir. Hunting is more prevalent than fishing overall, as it also yields leather that can be used for clothes; and tools and bones, hooves, and horns that can be used as crafting materials. Livestock are more commonly used for their dairy products than as meat, though from time to time livestock are slaughtered for meat as well.

In either case, food production is a communal activity. Many farmers will work larger swaths of shared food plots so that they can talk while they work; and hunters tend to work in small groups both to make it easier to take down large game and for the companionship. Gatherers, too, work side-by-side both as a safety measure as well as for the social sharing. The same goes for processing food, whether it comes in the form of grinding, drying, or skinning; people tend to do these activities together. This leads to many close bonds within various methods of food production – hunters grow to know other hunters well, farmers grow to know other farmers well, and so on.

Food and Trade
Food is one of the major trade goods in the Faldir region. Faldir itself primarily trades crops out to other villages in exchange for a variety of other food goods. Many gathered food goods and spices come from villages to the south, such as Orange River Town and Spice Outpost; fish and other river goods sometimes come from these villages as well, but since Crosswater is closer most fish comes from there. Faldir also trades crops with some of the northern villages such as Plain’s Walk; certain crops, such as wheat and cumin, fare better in the slightly drier weather and are primarily grown there.

In Faldir itself, food is traded across craft groups as a matter of both practicality and principle. In a practical sense, the trade ensures that everyone has access to a wider variety of food; and in a sense of principle, the act of trading is a community activity that helps facilitate and strengthen ties not only within but across food-producing groups. It is something of a ritual for Faldir’s farmers, gatherers, and hunters to assemble in the plaza in the late afternoon to swap both the day’s yields as well as stories, news, and gossip. Because what a given person produces may vary widely from day to day, people tend to trade with many others rather than with one or two of the same people, and this also reinforces intra-community connections.

Lastly – and perhaps most importantly – is the trade that goes on between food-producers and other craftspeople. Faldir is fortunate in that food is plentiful enough to support a variety of other crafts; this is part of what has allowed it to grow significantly larger than any of the other villages in the area. People of all crafts participate in the same ritual of gathering in the plaza to swap news, stories, and goods; and just as the crafters exchange their work for the week’s food, hunters and farmers are able to exchange their own work for work on their houses, new shoes, paper lanterns, and the variety of other crafts practiced in Faldir.

Cooking Technology and Tools
Though some homes have kitchens or hearths, most cooking is done outside. Groups of neighboring families build and share cooking spaces; these spaces are typically covered by a roof to protect from rain and have a large fire pit as well as ovens or griddles built in earthen frames with fires beneath and cooking surfaces atop. Families tend to use their own cookware rather than share; once upon a time cookware was shared as well, but after too many disputes over left-behind dirty dishes, it became the norm for each family or person to bring and use their own.

Cookware in Faldir is mostly made of clay: clay pots of various sizes and makes are the primary cookware used, along with clay griddles and occasionally pans. Most cooking implements – spoons, spatulas, and the like – are made from wood; both woodwork and cookware are usually colorfully decorated and well taken-care of. Metal is almost entirely absent from Faldir cookware with the exception of metal cooking knives, which are far superior to bone and wooden knives in most ways. Metal cooking knives are prized, given the degree to which cooking is a cultural pastime as much as it is a necessity for Faldir; and metal knives are passed down through generations until they are entirely worn out.

Given the available cookware, there are a handful cooking methods that tend to be most utilized. The most common method is stewing: it’s quite easy to throw some vegetables, meats, and spices in a clay pot and set it to boil a while. Grilling is also quite common; meats, vegetables, and even fruits are often grilled and seasoned (corn prepared this way is a favorite). Frying and roasting are done from time to time, but are not heavily favored; and baking, though greatly valued, is a tricky endeavor with Faldir’s available cooking technology and generally only approached by skilled cooks.

Meals & Meal Preparation
Meals in Faldir generally happen three to four times a day. Many people in Faldir – particularly food-producers – rise early, so breakfast is typically quick and relatively small. Depending on a person’s trade, breakfast can happen any time from before dawn to mid-morning; in general, it’s a solitary affair, as people eat quickly and then head out.

Lunchtime is taken anywhere from mid-morning to just afternoon, once again depending on one’s trade. Unlike breakfast, lunch is typically eaten in small groups – usually with one’s trade peers. Farmers will lunch with the other farmers, potters will lunch with other potters, and so on. This is another activity that tends to strengthen close bonds within a craft’s community; along with the act of eating together, lunchtime also tends to consist of light conversation and working through any issues one has come across in the morning. Lunch is another relatively small meal.

Dinner is the main meal of the day, and is something of a community affair. Starting mid-afternoon, families will begin to gather in the outdoor cooking spaces and prepare meals together. There is a great deal of camaraderie as people from different families take the opportunity to shout across the way as they work, laugh together, and visit and trade gossip with others now that the day’s work is over. By late afternoon, most of the town is out cooking together; most nights, large groups of people will end up eating together outside around town – or, during inclement weather, inside one family or another’s house. Dinner is an enormous meal and can take a long time to work through between volume of food and socializing with others.

For those who remain awake later into the evening, there is often a fourth, smaller meal as the night goes on. This is one centered around drinks, generally either alcohol or sweet chocolate, and accompanied by something small – often repurposed leftovers from dinner, the rare baked treat, or an easy-to-make dish such as fried eggs. This meal is generally shared with smaller groups; often with one’s family if one has a family or housemates, or perhaps at a table at Caden’s tavern with friends if not. During performance nights, this fourth meal can turn into a larger affair – it is often taken potluck-style instead and consists of several shared dishes brought by people in town.

With the exception of breakfast, meals are as much about conversation and community as they are about food. People who don’t share meals with others will often find themselves checked-up upon anyway by a group of people, and met with encouragement to come join in the fun (people who still refuse to join are then generally gossiped about as people speculate about why). An invitation to a meal is an early step in befriending another person, and seen as a good way to turn a stranger into a friend. When important conversations need to happen, they are typically held over a meal as well – food and discussion are all but inseparable in Faldir.

Typical Meals
The following are a few typical meals in Faldir:

• Breakfast: Sweetened/Spiced Rice or Corn Porridge; Fresh Fruit.
• Lunch: Leftover Burritos or Dumplings; Fresh Fruit.
• Dinner: Red Beans & Rice, Gumbo, or Jambalaya; Barbecue or Fritters; Tortillas or Cornbread; Fresh Fruit.
• Late: Omelettes; Fried Plantains or Sweet Banana Rice; Fresh Fruit.