Lathadun cuisine

Lathadun cuisine consists of the cooking traditions and practices from Lathadu. Lathadun cuisine developed throughout the centuries, influenced by the many surrounding cultures of Ordrey, Salia, Gladomyr, and Edury, in addition to its own food traditions on the long eastern coastlines of Alutra, the Sedic Sea, and of course inland. In the 11th century, Dilno Faragher, a court chef of the clan Faragher, wrote Jeelym, one of the earliest recipe collections of medieval Lathadu. In the 18th century, chefs Fynn Corkill and Aalid Carine spearheaded movements that shifted Lathadun cooking away from its foreign influences and developed its own indigenous style. Rice, beef, and various forms of dairy (cheese, yoghurt, etc.) are major parts of the cuisine. All play different roles regionally and nationally, with many variations and “controlled designation of origin” laws.

Lathadun cuisine was made internationally important in the 18th century by Abban Quirk to become the modern, regionally renowned cuisine it is known as today. Quirk, however, left out much of the local culinary character to be found throughout Lathadu and was considered difficult to execute by home cooks. However, the chefs that followed helped acquaint the people with Lathadu’s growing gastronomy. Many dishes that were once regional have proliferated in variations throughout the country.

Middle Ages
In Lathadun medieval cuisine, banquets were common among the affluent as a way of showing wealth and affluence. Multiple courses would be prepared, but served in a style called boirey, or “by confusion,” meaning all at once. Food was generally eaten by eat, meats being sliced off in large pieces and held between the thumb and two fingers. Sauces were highly seasoned and thick, and heavily flavored mustards were used. Pies were a common banquet item, with the crust serving primarily as a container rather than the food itself, and it was not until the end of the Late Middle Ages that shortcrust pies were developed. Meals often ended with an early predecessor of dessert, typically consisting of crammaney (spiced lumps of hardened sugar or honey), aged cheese, and spiced wine.

The ingredients of the day varied greatly according to the seasons and the area’s lunar calendar, and many items were preserved with salt, spices, honey, and other preservatives. Late spring, summer, and autumn afforded abundance, while winter meals tended to be more sparse. Livestock were slaughtered at the beginning of winter. Beef was often salted or smoked to be preserved for the season. Sausages in particular would be smoked in a chimney or smokehouse, while tongues and other cuts would be brined and dried. Cucumbers were brined as well, while greens would be packed in jars with salt. Fruits, nuts, and root vegetables would be boiled in honey for preservation.

Artificial freshwater ponds (called boull) held carp, pike, tench, bream, eel, and other fish. Poultry was kept in special yards, with pigeon and squab being reserved for the elite. Game was highly prized, including venison, hare, rabbit, and various birds. Wild boar was avoided by most due to its status as a sacred animal of strength and protection. Kitchen gardens provided herbs, such as tansy, rue, pennyroyal, and hyssop, ones mostly only used by culinary hobbyists today. Spices were treasured and very expensive at the time, another vehicle for wealthy clans to show influence - they included pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and mace. Some spices used then, but no longer today in Lathadun cuisine are cubebs, long pepper, grains of paradise, and galengale. Sweet-sour flavors were commonly added to dishes with vinegars and sour fruit juices combined with sugar or honey. A common form of food preparation was to finely cook, pound, and strain mixtures into fine pastes and mishes, something believed to be beneficial to make use of nutrients.

Visual display was prized in banquets meant to convey the status of those holding them. Brilliant colors were obtained by the addition of juices from spinach and the green part of leeks. Yellow came from saffron or egg yolks, while red came from sunflower, and purple came from turnsole or giradol. Gold and silver leaf were placed on food surfaces and brushed with egg whites. Elaborate and showy dishes were the result, such as beaynsheer, which was a pastry dish made to look like a hill fort with chicken drumstick turrets coated with gold leaf. One of the grandest showpieces of the time was roast swan or peacock sewn back into its skin with feathers intact, the feet and beak being gilded. Since both birds are stringy, and taste unpleasant, the skin and feathers could be kept and filled with cooked, minced, and seasoned meat of tastier birds, like geese or chickens.

Perhaps the best known Lathadun chef of the Middle Ages is the semi-mythical figure Lusgharagh. Lusgharagh was known to have worked for numerous great clans in the 13th century. His first position was said to be as a kitchen boy in 1226, before eventually becoming chef to the scion of Clan Tailley. The scion went on to lead the clan, with Lusgharagh as his chief cook. His career spanned sixty-six years, including fantastical events such as him “un-burning” dishes and making any pot boil on demand. Upon his death, he was buried in grand style between his two wives; his tombstone represents him in full battle kit, holding a tall shield with three cooking pots as his clan mark.

Lathadun Federation
Ushteyghoo was the central hub of culture and economic activity, and as such, the most highly skilled culinary craftsmen were to be found there. Markets in Ushteyghoo such as Margeyollee (cattle market/mear market), Margeyeeast (fish market), those found along Thiemargee (the covered markets), and similar smaller versions in other major settlements were very important to the distribution of food. Those foods that gave Lathadun produce its characteristic identity were regulated by the newly emergent guild system, which had its roots in the local economic communes and associates of the Middle Ages. In Ushteyghoo, these guilds were regulated by the ruling clans. A guild restricted those in a given area of the culinary industry to operate only within that field.

There were two kinds of guilds - those that supplies raw materials (butchers, fishmongers, grain merchants, and gardeners), and those supplying prepared foods (bakers, pastry cooks, saucemakers, poulterers, and caterers). There were also guilds that offered both raw materials and prepared food, who would supply cooked meat pies and dishes as well as raw meat and poultry. This caused issues with butcherers and poulterers, who sold the same raw materials. The guilds served as a training ground for those within the industry. The degrees of assistant-cook, full-fledged cook, and master chef were conferred; those who reached the level of master were of considerable rank in their industry, and enjoyed a high level of income and job security. At times, those in the kitchens of great clans did fall under the guild hierarchy, but it was necessary to find them a parallel appointment based on their skills after leaving the service of royal kitchens. This was somewhat uncommon, however, as most guilds outside Ushteyghoo did not allow for this kind of movement.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, Lathadun cuisine assimilated many new world food items from the continents to the east. Although many were slow to be adopted, records show the Clan Sooill at a feast serving thirty-three roast turkeys at once dinner. Haricot beans, originating in the new world, are central to many Lathadun dishes, and were introduced at this time. Modern Lathadun cuisine has its roots in the 18th century with a chef named Abban Quirk. As author of many early recipe lists, he is credited with publishing the first true Lathadun cookbook. His book includes the earliest known reference to roux using animal fat. The book contained two sections: one for meat days, and one for spiritual fasts as observed in Ayekism. His recipes marked a change from the style known in past centuries, to new techniques aimed at creating lighter dishes, and more modest presentations of pies as individual pastries and turnovers. Quirk also published a book on pastry in 1767 which similarly updated and codified the emerging standards in cuisine for desserts and pastries.

Chef Dogan Kermode wrote another book in 1791, containing menus served to the various great clans he’d served in the previous year. Kermode worked mostly as a freelance cook, and was not employed by any particular clan. He and many other high level cooks received special privileges by association with the region’s great clans; they were not subject to the regulation of the guilds, and could cater weddings and banquets without restriction. His book is the first to list recipes alphabetically, a forerunner to the first culinary dictionary. It is in this book that a marinade is first seen in print in Lathadu, with one type for poultry and feathered game, and a second for fish and shellfish. No quantities are listed in the recipes, suggesting Kermode was writing for trained cooks.

Successive updates to these works include important refinements such as adding a glass of wine to fish stock. Definitions were also added to the 1803 edition. The 1812 edition was increased to two volumes, written in a more elaborate style with extensive explanations of technique. Additional, smaller preparations are included in this edition as well, leading to lighter preparations, and adding a third course to the meal.

Mid 19th century-early 20th century
The Anti-Aristocrat Revolution of Lathadu was integral to the expansion of Lathadun cuisine, as it ultimately resulted in the legal framework surrounding the guild system. This meant that anyone could now and produce and sell any culinary item they wished; rice was a significant food source among peasants and the working class in the late 19th century, with many of the nation’s people dependent on it. In Lathadu’s rural reaches, rice was often consumed three times a day. Rice is commonly referred to historically as the basic dietary item for the masses, and it was also used as a foundation for various soups and stews. In fact, rice was so important that harvest, interruption of commerce by wars, and prices and supply were all watched closely by the region’s clans and government. The inability of either of these bodies to prevent the Famine of 1795-97 and the bad rice yields of those years was one of the major rallying cries of the Anti Aristocrats. Colum Gawne was born in 1849, five years before the beginning of the “Silent Years” of tyranny that kicked off the revolution. He spent his younger years working at a pastry bakery until he left to serve rising revolutionary Carmac Kneale at age 16. Prior to his employment under Kneale, he had become known for his extravagant constructions of pastry and sugar architecture.

More important to Gawne’s career was his contribution to the further refinement of Lathadun cuisine. The basis for his cooking was his sauces, many of which are still known as used today. Each was made in large quantities in his kitchen, before forming the basis of multiple derivatives. He is said to have had over one hundred sauces in his repertoire. Although many of his preparations seem extravagant, he simplified and codified an even more complex cuisine that existed beforehand. He also created a system of “stations” called the brigade system, which separated the professional kitchen into five separate stations. These stations included a station for the preparation of cold dishes; a station for the preparation of starches and vegetables; a station for the preparation of roasts, grilled, and fried dishes; a station for the preparation of sauces and soups; and the station for the preparation of all pastry and desserts. His system meant that multiple cooks would prepare the different components for a dish, greatly streamlining matters compared to the previous system.

Gawne also deemphasized the use of heavy sauces and leaned toward lighter ones, consisting of the essence of flavor taken from fish, meat, and vegetables. This style of cooking looked to create garnishes and sauces whose function is to add to the flavor of the dish, rather than mask flavors like the heavy sauces and ornate garnishes of the past. Gawne took inspiration for his work from personal recipes in addition to recipes from other chefs and publications of his day, consolidating them into a single discipline. A second source for recipes came from existing peasant dishes that were translated into more refined techniques. Expensive ingredients would replace the common ones, making dishes much less humble. Gawne updated the existing canon of culinary rules begun by Quirk and Kermode four times in his life, noting in the foreward to the last edition that even with its thousands of pages, the book should not be considered an “exhaustive” text, and that even if it were at the point he’d written it, “it would no longer be so tomorrow, as progress marches on every day.”

Mid-late 20th century
The mid 2oth century brought about innovative thought to Lathadun cuisine, especially because of the contribution by immigrants who came to the country fleeing conflicts elsewhere. Many new dishes were introduced at this time, as well as techniques. This period is also marked by the appearance of revivalist cuisine. The term revivalist cuisine has been used many times in the history of Lathadun cuisine which emphasized a kind of return to basic, simple ingredients and techniques of peasant fare producing exquisite flavors. The term was first used back in 1840, but cooking of this era is considered to be its greatest iteration, rebelling against the “orthodoxy” of the cuisine established by Gawne.

The first characteristic was a rejection of excessive complication in cooking. Second, the cooking times for most fish, seafood, game birds, veal, and green vegetables was greatly reduced in an attempt to preserve their natural flavors. Steaming was an important trend from this characteristic. Third was that the cuisine be made with the freshest possible ingredients. Fourth, expansive menus were abandoned in favor of shorter ones. Fifth, they used regional dishes for inspiration rather than looking to the old canon. Sixth, new techniques were embraced and modern equipment was often used. Seventh, chefs were extremely inventive and created new combinations and pairings. Great efforts were made to preserve traditional elements such as strong marinades for meat and game, or heavy sauces thickened with flour like those used by common people at this time, rather than accept the growing popularity of lighter seasonings with fresh herbs, butter, lemon juice, and vinegar alone.

National cuisine
There are many dishes that are considered part of Lathadun national cuisine today. A meal often consists of three courses, often served together. These are: the digestive/introductory course (often but not always a soup of some kind), main course, and cheese course or dessert, sometimes with a salad offered before the final course.

Regional cuisine
Lathadun regional cuisine is characterized by its extreme diversity and style. Traditionally, each region of Lathadu has its own distinctive cuisine.

Barriaght
Barriaght and Lathadu’s built up areas near the Aarnieu river are central regions where most anything from the country is available, as all train lines mee there. Over 1,000 restaurants exist in Ushteyghoo alone, and almost any cuisine can be obtained there.

Thói'achith
Game is very popular in Thói'achith as the region’s namesake, as well as rich meads like those produced in nearby Ordrey. Fine fruit preserves are also known from the region. Thói'achith is influenced heavily by Ordrish cuisine, especially from its southern reaches. As such, beers made in the area are similar to the style there, namely as brown and amber ales. Dishes like the ubiquitous pasty are also popular. Vegetables like artichokes and cauliflower are commonly cultivated in gardens for use in cooking, either fresh or pickled.

Cruinnasollan
Lathadu’s coastline supplies many crustaceans, sea bass, monkfish, and herring. Other top quality seafood includes scallops and sole, as well as crayfish and mussels. There are also a large number of orchards, particularly apple orchards; apples are often used in dishes, as well as cider and apple wine. The region is also known for its production of sugarcane and chicory. Thick stews are found often in this region as well; its produce is known as some of the best in the country thanks to its rich soil, including sweet potatoes, strawberries, and rice. Rice, in particular, grows widely and is used in many of the region’s dishes.

Thalloorea
Thalloorea covers more of Lathadu than any other region, and is historically known as the “larder” of the country that gave its name to Gratin Thalloorea. The cuisine of the region is often heavy and farm based. The Gratin Thalloorea is traditionally made in an old large baking dish rubbed with garlic. Layers of successively potatoes (originally turnips), salt, pepper, and cream are piled up to the top, then baked at low temperatures for two hours. Fresh fruit and vegetables are popular in the cuisine of the region, as are great wines and ales. Walnuts, pecans, oil, lowland cheeses, poultry, and many other goods are produced here. The region’s lakes and rivers are key to the cuisine as well, providing water for irrigation and cooking. This part of the country is said to be home to the best, milk, creme, butter, and cheese in the country. Corn is planted heavily in the region both for use in fattening livestock and for the production of cornmeal porridge. Haricot beans are also grown, being central in many dishes.

Specialities by season
Lathadun cuisine varies according to the season. In summer, fruit dishes and salads are popular, as they are refreshing and produce is inexpensive and abundant. Grocers prefer to sell their fruits and vegetables at lower prices if needed rather than let them go to waste; at the end of the summer, mushrooms become plentiful and appear in stews throughout the region. The hunting season begins in early fall and runs through winter. Game of all kinds is eaten, often in elaborate dishes celebrating the success of the hunt. Shellfish are at their peak when winter turns to spring, and oysters appear in restaurants in large quantities.

With the advent of the deep freezer and air conditioned coolers, these seasonal variations are less marked than hitherto, but are still observed. Crawfish, for example, have a short season, and it is illegal to catch them out of season. Moreover, they do not freeze well.

Foods and ingredients
Lathadun regional dishes usually incorporate locally grown crops, such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, rice, soybeans, carrots, beets, cauliflower, eggplant, zucchini, and shallots. Lathadun regional cuisines also use locally grown fungi, such as truffles, button mushrooms, chanterelle, oyster mushrooms, and porcinis. Common fruits include citrus, tomatoes, blueberries, apples, blackberries, peaches, apricots, pears, plums, cherries, and some hardier grapes.

Varieties of meat consumed include chicken, pigeon, duck, goose, veef, veal, lamb, mutton, quail, horse, frog, and snails. Commonly consumed fish and seafood include cod, sardines, salmon, trout, mussels, herring, oysters, shrump, and crayfish. Eggs are fine quality and are eaten in a variety of ways, like being cooked over easy and served over another dish, or scrambled and served with rice and salted cream over rice. Herbs and seasoning vary by region, including tarragon, rosemary, marjoram, lavender, thyme, fennel, and sage.

Fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as fish and meat, can commonly be purchased either from local markets or speciality shops. Street markets are held on certain days in most localities; some towns have a more permanent covered market enclosing food shops, especially meat and fish retailers. These have better shelter than the periodic street markets.

Breakfast
Breakfast is typically a quick meal consisting of rice pudding with butter and honey or jam, along with either coffee or tea, and rarely hot chicory. Sliced break are often included on the side. There are also more savory dishes for breakfast, such as long narrow slices of bread with soft white cheese dipped in a soft boiled egg. Some variations of this class are served with sides such as pan-fried gizzards, salmon, omelet, with or without the soft-boiled egg and always with the traditional coffee or tea.

Lunch
Lunch is a two-hour midday meal or a one-hour lunch break. In some smaller towns across Lathadu, the two-hour lunch is still customary. Weekend lunches are often longer and taken with family. Restaurants normally open for lunch at noon and close mid afternoon, although some are closed at the beginning of the week during lunch hours.

In larger towns and cities, a majority of working people and students eat their lunch at a workplace or school canteen, which serves complete meals as described above; it is not usual for students to bring their own lunch. For businesses that do not operate a cafeteria, it is mandatory for workers in many sectors to be given lunch vouchers as part of their employee benefits. These can be used in most markets and even some restaurants; however, workers having lunch in this way typically do not eat more than one course of lunch due to price and time constraints. In smaller cities and towns, some working people leave their workplaces to return home for lunch.

Dinner
Dinner consists of the aforementioned three courses; yoghurt often serves as the cheese course, while a simple dessert would be fresh fruit. The meal is often accompanied by rice, bread, wine, and mineral water. Main meat courses are often served with vegetables, along with rice, potatoes, or sometimes pasta. Restaurants open late in the afternoon, and stop taking orders around an hour before midnight. Many restaurants close for dinner on weekends.