Cuisine of the River Province
The food found in the River Province, known also as the Scavenger Lands, is varied, with strong flavours predominant.
Contents
Grains
Cereals constitute the basis of the River Province diet, due to the highly productive agricultural lands stretching between its riverbanks. Wheat is the staple food grain, used nigh-universally, with barley displacing it towards the southern reaches of the province along the Marukan Plain.
Bread is a universal staple in the region, made from wheat flour and eaten, in one form or another, by all classes and groups, practically at every meal. Aside from bread, wheat is also used in the forms of bulgur and pebble-noodles.
- River Flatbread: An oven-baked wheat flatbread, slightly leavened, which grows internal bubbles during baking. It is used for a variety of purposes: as a sort of plate on top of which food is served, torn and used as cutlery to scoop up food, opened and stuffed, or wrapped about meat and vegetables. This bread has spread across Creation, but remains known as a Scavenger Lands staple.
- Pebble Noodles: Small grain-like wheat noodles, created with a sieve, used in the role occupied by rice in many cuisines, mixed with sauces and vegetables or used as a base for meats and stews.
- Bulgur: ‘Cracked’ wheat, made by partially cooking the wheat grains in water, drying it in an oven or in the sun, then breaking it into pieces).
- Herb Salad: A salad made of bulgur, tomatoes, cucumbers, finely chopped parsley, mint, onion, and garlic, and then seasoned with olive oil, lemon juice and salt. A traditional appetizer.
Oils
Olives are widespread across the River Province , eaten in a number of dishes, stuffed and/or pickled. Oil from pressed olives is the preferred medium of cooking.
Spices
The River Province uses a wide array of spices in its cuisine. These are not necessarily full of heat as is found in the South, but always flavourful. Local-grown spice varieties are outnumbered by those imported into the region, their ready availability due to the River Province serving as one of Creation’s major trade hubs. Typically, a stew will include a small amount of cinnamon, cloves, cumin, and coriander. Black pepper is common, and chili peppers are used occasionally, especially as a separate sauce or as a pickle. Parsley and mint are commonly used in cooking and in salads. Varieties of thyme are common, used fresh or dried, and sour sumac berries are dried, ground, and sprinkled over grilled meat or used in a breakfast dish called Denfed. The River Province is also a major grower of lemons, which are employed in many dishes both savory and sweet.
Garlic is common to many dishes and salads, both cooked and raw… in this, River Province cuisine is similar to that of the Blessed Isle, residents of other Directions often commenting on the ‘civilized odours’ birthed or rampant garlic consumption.
- Denfed: A mixture of dried thyme and sumac, spread over bread with olive oil, is a common breakfast in many cities of the River Province .
Meat
Lamb and mutton (which is a term used for sheep or goat) have always been the favored meats of the region, with poultry such as chicken also favoured, and beef available in many areas. Pork is traditionally viewed as unclean. The consumption of rats is encouraged in Nexus, but less popular elsewhere in the River Province.
-Kebabs: Kebabs in the River Province are grilled meat dishes adapted from the cuisines of the South, though they are smaller and spiced with far less heat. The most common are cubed cuts on skewers, interspersed with vegetables and sometimes even fruit, though another common variety is made from ground spiced meat shaped around the skewer like a long sausage and grilled. Kebabs are typically a street food, sometimes served with bread, salad, and pickles.
- Stew: Meat and vegetable stews, served with rice, bulgur, or bread, are a common form of meat preparation in the region. The poorer the kitchen, the more root vegetables and less meat appear in the dish, though at minimum a few bones will be scrounged for the stock base.
- Meat Egg: An egg-shaped croquette of bulgur, stuffed with minced onions and ground red meat (usually beef, lamb, or goat).
- Arczeckhi Meat: A dish of raw ground meat (usually beef, lamb, or goat, though some claim that wolf and ape are the truly ideal meats), pounded together with bulgur and seasonings, then served with dips of lemon juice and chili sauce.
- Spun Meat: Spun meat is a large block of stacked meat, sometimes mixed and sometimes of one type, made by alternately stacking strips of fat and pieces of seasoned meat (beef, veal, lamb, mutton, Seven-faced Bird, or marinated chicken) on a stick. An onion, a tomato, or a halved lemon is sometimes placed at the top of the stack for additional flavoring. The meat is roasted slowly on all sides as the spit rotates in front of, or over, a wood or charcoal flame for many hours. Meat is shaved off the sides of the block for serving over bulgur or in street wraps (see Spun Wrap).
Vegetables and Fruit
Vegetables are part of the everyday food of the great majority of the people of the River Province . They are boiled, stewed, grilled, stuffed, and cooked with meat and with rice. Among the green leaf vegetables, many varieties of cabbage, spinach, and chard are widely used. Root and bulb vegetables, such as onions and garlic, as well as carrots, turnips, and beets are equally common. Squash, tomato, eggplants, and okra are distinctive elements in the cookery of the region. The tomato is ubiquitous ingredient in River Province cookery. It is used fresh in a variety of salads, cooked in almost every stew and broth, and grilled with kebab.
Grape leaves and chard are often stuffed with wheat, ground meat, pine nuts, and spices, and then stewed in oil and tomato. Many vegetables are similarly stuffed and stewed or baked, such as squash, onion, tomato, eggplant, peppers, and even carrots.
Pickled vegetables (cucumbers, olives, turnips) are popular, not as the main source of plant matter as in the North (where pickling is vital to preserve produce through the winter) but as flavourful accents, used akin to condiments to supplement dishes.
A number of fruits are consumed in the River Province , but the most common by far is the lemon or ‘sunbright fruit’, used in a variety of dishes and sauces, even preserved for use as a pickle. Pomegranates are also used, being a notable source of sugar in River Province cuisine, cooked down into sweet molasses and syrup as well as consumed as a drink or snack. Sugar beets are grown as well, and provide the bulk of the region’s sugar, but pomegranate is invariably used to add flavour to any beet sugar produced in the River Province.
- Concubine’s Splendor: Popular dish, said to have been invented by the concubine of an Anathema in ancient times in order to satisfy the monster’s demanding palate. It is made of roasted, peeled, and mashed eggplant, mixed with finely diced onions, tomatoes, and other vegetables, then blended with tahini, garlic, salt, white vinegar and lemon juice. Cumin, parseley, mint, and chili powder can be added. It is normally served with a dressing of olive oil and pomegranate molasses.
- Pickled Turnip: One of the more distinctive pickled dishes of the River Province , turnips are cut into small rectangular shapes then pickled in vinegar and brine coloured with the juice of red beets. The resulting pink pickles have a mild but unique flavour, and are popular as a side dish or condiment for dishes such as Spun Wraps.
- Leaf Rolls: This dish has its origins in the Cuisine of the North, where cabbage rolls are a staple. In the River Province, minced meat (usually beef, pork, veal, or a combination thereof, but also lamb, goat, sausage and various bird meat such as duck and goose), bulgur, onions, and various spices, including salt, pepper and various local herbs are mixed together and then rolled into large plant leaves, which may be chard or grapevine leaf (fresh or pickled). The combination is then boiled for several hours in large clay pots.
Legumes
Beans and pulses are crucial to the diet of the region, second only to cereals.
- Ful: Dried fava or black beans, boiled then mashed and dressed in oil, lemon, and chilli, served over flatbread as a common breakfast or street food, finding particular popularity in Sijan.
-Bean Fritters: Fava beans and/or chickpeas, crushed and formed into a rissole with herbs and spices, then fried.
-Green Fava: Fresh fava beans, boiled and dressed in oil, a common snack after heavy drinking. Particularly popular in Great Forks.
- Hummus: A thick spread or dip, made from chickpeas and sesame paste as well as lemon juice, salt, garlic, and olive oil. Eaten spread on, or scooped up by, River flatbread.
- Lentil Soup: A soup made from meat-bone stock, lentils, lemon juice, wheat, and barley, as well as an array of spices which vary by region within the River Province . A popular appetizer at most meals, with a thicker paste-like version spread on bread and sold as a street food.
Dairy
The River Province makes use of some dairy, mostly from the milk of goats, sheep, and water buffalo. Yogurt, a thick dairy-based bacterial culture, is commonly consumed plain, used in cooking, used in salad dressing, or diluted as a drink. White cheeses are also seen, usually salty and crumbly, preserved by packing in brine or oil.
Sweets
Sweets in the River Province are varied, with many techniques imported from elsewhere. Pastries, stuffed with nuts and dried fruits then drizzled with sweet syrups are common, as are dishes with marry the tartness of the land's lemons and a strong sweet element. Cane sugar is available to the upper classes, despite much of the crop originating on the Blessed Isle or in regions loyal to the Realm, due to the commercial machinations of The Guild.
- Lemon Cake: Lemon cakes are a type of sweet baked cake, frosted with sugar. Small and round, the cakes combine the tartness of lemons, whose juice goes into both batter and icing and whose zest adds colour to the cakes, with the sweetness of cane sugar. They are typically served on small plates as a snack or appetizer, accompanied by tea, in a manner whose similarities to Dynastic Dim Sum are rarely admitted amongst nobles not inclined to look kindly on even culinary associations with the Scarlet Empire. Lemon cakes are most popular in Calin and Thorns, and from there migrated across the Inner Sea with homebound Dynasts, seeing occasional presence in the upper-class kitchens and teahouses of the Realm.
- Crampbark Plant: The Calinti are known to enjoy sweet biscuits filled with an intensely sour jam made from the berries of the Crampbark plant, perhaps as keeping a serene face while doing so is a sign of one's perfected social graces in their Great Game of politics. The jam retains some of the plant's medicinal qualities.
Beverages
- Khave.
- Beer: Common alcoholic beverage consumed by the lower classes, providing starch and water accompanied by alcohol which repels little gods of illness, beer is produced in huge quantities within the River Province due to ready availability of barley and hops, as well as wheat. Hundreds, if not thousands, of small breweries produce the drink in their own unique variations, and many peasant homes also brew a basic form of the beverage according to close-guarded family recipies. More complex and costly varieties are also consumed by the wealthy.
- Milk of Lions: An alcoholic drink most famous for its potency and milky-white color when water is added (water is almost always added to the Milk of Lions because of an alcohol content of about 60%). The Milk of Lions is colorless in its pure form and is aniseed-flavored. It is typically served at social gatherings or with meals.
- Apricot Water: A thick and sweet apricot drink. The apricots are boiled with sugar and water until they are thick and placed on wooden planks left in the sun until dry. A fruit leather is left, which is easily transportable. When time to drink arrives, the leather is melted with water and sugar, and drunk. This drink has proven popular amongst the merchants of Guild caravans, who have brought it with them to the five Poles of Creation.
-Syrup Water: A drink made by diluting a syrup made from pomegranate molasses, dates, and rose water, which has been smoked in incense. The syrup is mixed with cool water (ice if available) and served topped with raisins and pine nuts.
- Ayran: A beverage made from yogurt diluted with cool water and a little salt, mixed vigorously until frothy. It is consumed mostly in the Southern River Province, on the Marukan Plain and in Thorns. Some say that the Deathlord Mask of Winters sups on a version of the drink using the pus of the dead in place of yogurt, feeding it to his guests, but there has never been evidence this is the case.
- Tea: Green Tea is produced in the River Province , and some black tea is imported, but the primary tea served is one brewed from mint leaves, sweetened to an extreme degree by addition of sugar or sweet syrups.
- Grape Wine: The River Province produces some grape wine, though nowhere near as much as the Blessed Isle or Harborhead… the bulk of production is in the vicinity of Great Forks, which produces high-end vintages in demand across Creation, though much wine must be imported to satisfy the thirsty gullets of those with lighter purses. Wine is often consumed mixed with sweet fruits and honey.
Small Dish Dining
‘Small Dish’ dining is becoming increasingly popular across the River Province , outside the Marukan plain. A Small-Dish meal consists of a number of small dishes that are picked at leisure: cheeses, melon, nuts, various salads and dips (such as hummus and yogurt), sweets, an assortment of pickles, and also more substantial items, such as grilled meat, meat eggs, and Concubine’s Splendor. It is considered a social way to dine, in use frequently amongst merchants meeting clients or nobles entertaining guests.
The origins of this dining style are found in Dynastic Dim Sum from the Realm, though few in the Scavenger Lands would admit to this fact if confronted.
Street Food
Of all Creation, the River Province has perhaps the highest concentration of large cities… the Blessed Isle may have more, and some larger, but they are spread out far and wide. Because urban life is so present in the Scavenger Lands, it has influenced food here to a significant extent.
For nearly every dish there is a street food variant, where meat or pulses are topped with sauces, pickles, and vegetables and wrapped in a River flatbread. Soups are cooked longer to thicken into pastes which can also be spread onto bread and sold as street food, while the peasant stereotype of city food being ‘rat meat on a stick’ comes from the prevalence of skewered and grilled meats (and, in Nexus at least, it is not a stereotype at all).
