Caergwynn: Difference between revisions

Caergwynn (view source)

Revision as of 07:01, 10 February 2024

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→‎Cuisine: General description, plus integrated existing draft lore about the Caeric national dish.

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 ''How are families or kinship groups structured in your country?''
 ===Cuisine===
-''What do your people eat?''
+Caeric cuisine is roughly balanced between the products of land and sea, with a heavy emphasis on the quality of Caeric meat (chiefly lamb), dairy, and fish-ranging from river trout to the codfish that has supported the Caeric economy for centuries and is the chief ingredient in the Caeric national dish, ''Cawl o Garreg''.
+Though largely similar to the cuisines of its neighbors in northern Levantia, Caeric food stands out for its long-standing reliance on many relatively exotic spices such as ginger and cloves (as a result of strong trading links with the southern world dating back to the early days of the Republic), and heavy meat consumption during Lent and other Catholic fast periods as a marker of Caeric Protestantism. More broadly, Caeric cuisine places much emphasis on mixtures of flavors (such as meat rubbed with sugar and spices then doused in sour-sweet blackberry juice) and cooking techniques such as simmering and stewing that lend themselves to such combinations-rather than on expressing the individual character of the ingredients. This has often led to some derision from foreigners-it is an old Fhain joke that "a lazy cook will make only Caeric meals", alluding to the perceived ease of preparing Caeric cuisine, with its heavy use of spices, to cover for a supposed lack of real flavor in the food or genuine talent in the chef. It was also neglected both at home and abroad for much of the 20th century, with upper-crust Caerics aping the cuisine of [[Yonderian cuisine|Yonderre]] or [[Cuisine of Caphiria|Caphiria]] (their humbler compatriots meanwhile being influenced by the arrival of [[Urcea|Urcean]] fast food) and international gourmets finding Caeric cuisine a poor fit for fashionable concepts of elegant simplicity in preparation. However, Caeric cuisine has been rising in prominence in the last few decades, as tourism to the Land increases, and foreign flavors are reinterpreted in Caeric fashions by a new generation of Caeric cooks.
+In Caergwynn's northern climate, wheat-growing has always played a relatively minor role in subsistence, compared to other grains such as barley, oats, and rye, root vegetables including beets, carrots, and parsnips, and (since their introduction from Kiravia a few centuries ago) potatoes above all. Wheaten bread is more common than in centuries past, but the "default" Caeric loaf is still dark and largely based on rye. Apples and pears are esteemed above all other fruits in Caergwynn, as they grow easily, keep well, and are the respective sources of the country's first and second-most common alcoholic beverages. Both often serve as sweet components in savory dishes such as meat stews or pasties, and apple juice or cider-vinegar usually substitutes for vinegar's uses in southern lands. Wild fruits such as blackberries and cranberries are more often used to flavor other dishes than as standalone foods. Caeric dairy products are highly-prized, with sheep and goat's milk cheeses more prominent than those made from cow's milk (trade in Caeric cheese for Fhain butter has long been a mainstay of border communities regardless of the broader state of the relationship between the two countries, though Caergwynn does produce much of its own butter supply). Lamb, pork, and mutton are the chief meats, with beef trailing behind and largely sourced from old dairy cattle or oxen. Perhaps as a consequence of the sweet components of the rest of Caeric cuisine, desserts are not especially prominent in Caeric eating culture, though trade connections with the tropics have made cane sugar relatively widely available for centuries (claims that Fanerian beetroot sugar is noticeably inferior to that sourced from sugarcane are a constant, if minor, bone of contention between Fhain and Caeric eaters).
+==== Cawl o Garreg ====
+Cawl o Garreg-“Soup of Stone” has been Caergwynn's official national dish since 1927 and has enjoyed that status ''de facto'' for the last two centuries, at least in the coastal parts of Caergwynn. Sometimes just called Cawl-"Soup" or Cawl Caerygg-"Caeric Soup", the ingredients of Cawl o Garreg vary slightly, but the most common version of the dish consists of a stockfish (dried cod) base, simmered with potatoes, parsnips, leeks, scallions, and carrots, with cider apple juice poured in to taste-and to remove any lingering stockfish odor. According to Caeric folklore that is inherently unverifiable but has been traced to at least the 1860s, the soup traces its origin and name to at least three centuries ago. The name supposedly arose when Caeric soldiers mustered on their way to war would encamp near a village. Though legally they were forbidden from scrounging the food of the population to supplement their stockfish ration, it is said that the men would put a stone in their pots and ask for a “garnish” to go with the stone and fish broth. People would then contribute ingredients until a proper stew was made. Whether this is a charming fable on the rewards of sharing, or a sanitized depiction of the depredations wrought by a foraging army, depends on the storyteller. Though something of the soup’s slapdash origins is still recognizable, the ingredients gradually became standardized as Cawl o Garreg grew to be seen as a culturally important “national dish.”
 ===Religion===
 ''What do your people believe? Rather than demographics, as above, think about how important religion is to your people and their view about their own and other religions. What is the relationship between the prevailing view and minority religious groups? Is it an official religion, and do any laws exist about free worship?''