Ordrish cuisine

Ordrish cuisine encompasses the cooking styles, recipes, and culinary traditions associated with the Ordrish culture. It is a subset of the East Alutran and Sedic culinary traditions as a result of local, regional, and continental influences from over the centuries, as well as minor influences from the period of the Ordrish colonial empire, including Fieloani and Huenarnoan culinary practices.

Ordrey's endemic larder of vegetables, fruits, oats, fish and other seafood, dairy products and game meats are the principal features of traditional Ordrish cooking. It is often thought of as the most unaltered cuisines from its pre-imperial era in comparison to other historical powers, as simplicity and subtlety are generally prioritized, with native herbs and flavors prioritized over historically more expensive and rare spices from outside of East Alutra.

History
Thanks to its temperate climate and wide range of indigenous game species, Ordrey has provided its residents with a wide range of foods. The earliest Sedic communities were largely reliant on and other forms of seafood, primarily, for their primary staple protein. With the transition of continental Sedic culture to one based on a more pastoral lifestyle, the inland palate was built around wild game (primarily and ) and later, goat and sheep. and would become the established staple grain in the Ordrish diet with the widespread adoption of agriculture.

As meat was an expensive commodity throughout much of Ordrish history, animals themselves would only rarely be consumed, with dairy being a far more commonly-used food among most for nourishment. Especially during the era of, most Ordrons' meals were composed of a form of or a light  composed of herbs and roots (occasionally enriched by some form of animal protien, generally seafood or a stock for flavoring), with bread and/or eggs, cheese, and some other vegetable, or  in coastal regions. The usage of wild game in cuisine, especially boar, came to be a symbol of status among the nobility of Ordrey and Salia alike during the Concordat Era, while domestic meats, while still prohibitively expensive for much of the population, were seen as the domain of the emergent merchant classes up through to the 18th Century. ,, and were commonplace, while imported spices like , , and  were luxuries typically only seen among the nobility.

A primary feature of Ordrish cooking for much of antiquity and middle ages was a high degree of thrift in meal preparation - excavations of across Ordrey and Lathadu reveal very little wastage; only the toughest bone was consistently found, suggesting that all parts of animals consumed were used in Ordrish cooking. With the independence of the Kingdom of the Ordreys in 1650, the ruling classes in Ordrey sought to differentiate the national palate from Salian cuisine. Generally, this saw the decline in popularity of wheat-based carbohydrates in favor of the recently-introduced potato, as well as a rise in the use of root vegetables, as well as a general turn away from ocean-caught seafood in favor of those which can be harvested from riparian sources, such as the and. became a renowned feature of Ordrish cuisine from this turn, to the point where control of sturgeon hatcheries in the Aarnieu Delta became one of the greatest economic disputes between Ordrey and Lathadu following its departure from the Kingdom in 1751, leading to aquaculture being the main source for roe in the proceeding centuries. The 19th Century would see the emergence of a new phenomenon of conflict around food sources: the "Oyster Wars". These took place in the Sedic Sea between Lathadun and Ordrish fishermen, with shots perioically being exchanged over use of oyster beds up until the 1930s.

The 19th Century saw land enclosure greatly affect the development of Ordrish cuisine, with dedicated hunting estates forming a new industry among the upper classes of Alutra at large, especially following the development of the Ordrish railroad system, which greatly expanded the market for Ordrish game, leading, and  to become a delicacy in neighboring countries. The Sedic Boar population would come under considerable strain by the early 20th Century, leading to some of the first sweeping conservation legislation in the world.

20th and 21st Centuries
Developments in Ordrish cuisine during the 20th Century was largely defined by the nation grappling with industrial agriculture at home, imported culinary traditions from abroad in its sphere of influence, and resource shortages that resulted from periods of rationing during the World Wars and periodic economic downturns which often book-ended conflicts in East Alutra. Huenarnoans and Fieloani were the most important immigrant groups which contributed to Ordrish culinary development, with the former bringing a revived standard of the usage of fresh produce, and the latter bringing a number of spices and unique cooking techniques (including the use of earthen ovens and insect proteins) that continue to develop Ordrish cooking.

Post-Revolutionary culinary developments
The economic instability of the early 1970s and the subsequent Ordrish Revolution had a profound effect on all aspects of society in Ordrey, including cuisine. Supply shortages from embargoes placed on the country during the Revolution and prior to its reentry into the World Forum and the struggles adjusting to the new cooperative agricultural system under SGAO administration saw a revival in culinary thrift, with practices which required minimal preparation and use of gas and oil for fuel becoming vital to maintaining the nutrition of Ordrish citizens while devoting maximum resources to the revolutionary forces. Grilling and usage of wood fire in cooking became more commonplace among rural communities, and meat portions typically became smaller and shared by multiple households, with the preparation of barbecued and smoked meat becoming a common feature of community meals that would be held regularly throughout the Revolution and hence. Diets among most shifted back towards primarily vegetarian ones, and continues to be favored among Ordrons today.

Household gardens were encouraged, and as lawns fell out of favor during the Reconstruction Era, many in rural communities began to maintain community vegetable and grazing plots, which had the effect of reviving regional palates that often corresponded to the "Old Duchies" which constituted the Five Ordreys of the Middle Ages, sans Lathadu. These developments would be reflected in the adoption of the Coran system, which established standard allotments of domestically-produced foodstuffs and key ingredients which are accessible to all Ordrish citizens, which include potato, oats, flour, eggs, salt, vegetable oil, milk, cheese, and a range of proteins, including beef, pork, chicken, herring, and salmon. While herbs, fresh produce, and other goods, usually those which cannot be produced at scale in Ordrey, can be purchased at grocery stores around the country, Bonwenat encourages contribution to the aforementioned common plots to supplement one's diet. The culinary achievements of the Revolutionary Period were compiled in a series of cookbooks titled Beyond Survival, first written by Velorenkyan travel writer and journalist Veranil Konti in 1979 as part of a series of articles written describing day-to-day life among SGAO-administered communities during the Revolution for Velorenkyan publication New Folk. In the time since, community kitchens and multi-household meals remain a fairly commonplace feature of many Ordrish communities, which in turn has promoted similar developments abroad.