Talechasing Topic of the Week ~ Meals
Nov. 26th, 2007 02:13 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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yrae
Meals
What types of food do they commonly consist of? Do people eat alone, in small groups, or is mealtime a festive event which brings together several families at once? What sort of customs are observed? Is grace given to some deity? What about manners?
Raykin
Breakfast is usually just something bought on the side of the road on the way to work, unless they're particularly posh and have servants to make them something, but even then a lot of the upper class will buy a piece of fruit toast or something on the way to (usually) the palace. Lunch is entirely a non-event, and a lot of people will skip it in favour of a longer siesta. Lunch is never cooked, unless it's left-over meat from last night's dinner or something. Usually just fruit and a cold beer. Because the two go together so very well, don'tcha know.
Dinner's the big one, usually a stew of various veggies thrown together with spices, then eaten with flatbread. The middle-class will usually have meat maybe three or four times during the week, most often fish of some sort, caught fresh from the river that afternoon, and maybe red meat once a fortnight. That'll either get chopped up and thrown in the stew, or thrown on the barbie. Mmm, flame-grilled X9
Most people will eat out on the roof, except for the particularly stuffy nobility (I can't imagine Kaen eating outside, for example. Melraan, on the other hand, couldn't see him eating inside XD) or if it's raining. Which is, what, six or seven times a year? So yeah, it sorta has the potential to end up being like a community event. If the house next door or across the road is having dinner at the same time, conversations will more than likely strike up between the two, and there's nothing to stop them ending up on the same roof, either =D Always fun.
The upper class, who have bigger houses that would require a lot of shouting between rooftops to talk, probably have a dinner party once a week, either to attend or to put on themselves. They also have a nightlife, unlike the other three kingdoms, which mostly happens in the pubs (standard pub meals and beer, obviously. You've seen the Golden Thrai =P) and restaurants, which are a totally foreign concept to the other three kingdoms. Kazin has cafés, but they're hardly the same, and anyway I'm talking about Raykin.
Grace, neh, they're pretty relaxed about their goddesses. Lin doesn't give them food, just the water in the Ra-Lin and (the very little) rain. It's the farmers with their camels and pitchforks out in the heat of the day who give them food. Manners, again, pretty relaxed. Nothing different between meal time and any other time in terms of manners. You want to put your elbows on the table? Go for it. If there is a table, I mean. Since most of the population eats with their legs over the edge of the roof, that'd kind of a moot point, really.
Kazin
They have cafés that they go to for lunch if they're upper-middle class or above, or cocktail bars. Lunch is the big meal of the day, etc etc, I'll get back to them. I'm feeling lazy.
Llayad
Dinner parties all the time because they have nothing better to do. Also, lords will hold a yearly banquet thing with all the people living in their land, even with imported food if they're a particularly rich lord. Yeah, Llayan peasants aren't exactly peasants in the true sense of the word. Very proper, etc etc, will get back to them as well.
Tsayth
Tsaythis I will finish now, because they are, as ever, simple and practical.
Tsaythis eat raw fish and seaweed, and that's it. No cooking because you can't very well have a fire on a boat without burning it to ashes, and besides, what a waste of wood. Fish tastes brilliant raw, anyway. Mealtime will generally consist of catching a fish, killing it, skinning it and shaving off strips of sashimi and eating it like that. THAT is fresh sashimi, ladies and gents X) Also oysters if they can get their hands on them. Yeah, they don't exactly have it bad despite their lack of variety X) (This is assuming you like oysters. I don't. I think they look like a bird pooed in a shell, but hey, each to their own.)
They hardly need 'bringing together' since they live on a boat. No ceremony, they just eat. Praying to deities? They have none to pray to. Manners? They're cutting meat from a fish that was alive five minutes ago, for God's sake. Long as they don't start knifing each other, it's all good.
What types of food do they commonly consist of? Do people eat alone, in small groups, or is mealtime a festive event which brings together several families at once? What sort of customs are observed? Is grace given to some deity? What about manners?
Raykin
Breakfast is usually just something bought on the side of the road on the way to work, unless they're particularly posh and have servants to make them something, but even then a lot of the upper class will buy a piece of fruit toast or something on the way to (usually) the palace. Lunch is entirely a non-event, and a lot of people will skip it in favour of a longer siesta. Lunch is never cooked, unless it's left-over meat from last night's dinner or something. Usually just fruit and a cold beer. Because the two go together so very well, don'tcha know.
Dinner's the big one, usually a stew of various veggies thrown together with spices, then eaten with flatbread. The middle-class will usually have meat maybe three or four times during the week, most often fish of some sort, caught fresh from the river that afternoon, and maybe red meat once a fortnight. That'll either get chopped up and thrown in the stew, or thrown on the barbie. Mmm, flame-grilled X9
Most people will eat out on the roof, except for the particularly stuffy nobility (I can't imagine Kaen eating outside, for example. Melraan, on the other hand, couldn't see him eating inside XD) or if it's raining. Which is, what, six or seven times a year? So yeah, it sorta has the potential to end up being like a community event. If the house next door or across the road is having dinner at the same time, conversations will more than likely strike up between the two, and there's nothing to stop them ending up on the same roof, either =D Always fun.
The upper class, who have bigger houses that would require a lot of shouting between rooftops to talk, probably have a dinner party once a week, either to attend or to put on themselves. They also have a nightlife, unlike the other three kingdoms, which mostly happens in the pubs (standard pub meals and beer, obviously. You've seen the Golden Thrai =P) and restaurants, which are a totally foreign concept to the other three kingdoms. Kazin has cafés, but they're hardly the same, and anyway I'm talking about Raykin.
Grace, neh, they're pretty relaxed about their goddesses. Lin doesn't give them food, just the water in the Ra-Lin and (the very little) rain. It's the farmers with their camels and pitchforks out in the heat of the day who give them food. Manners, again, pretty relaxed. Nothing different between meal time and any other time in terms of manners. You want to put your elbows on the table? Go for it. If there is a table, I mean. Since most of the population eats with their legs over the edge of the roof, that'd kind of a moot point, really.
Kazin
They have cafés that they go to for lunch if they're upper-middle class or above, or cocktail bars. Lunch is the big meal of the day, etc etc, I'll get back to them. I'm feeling lazy.
Llayad
Dinner parties all the time because they have nothing better to do. Also, lords will hold a yearly banquet thing with all the people living in their land, even with imported food if they're a particularly rich lord. Yeah, Llayan peasants aren't exactly peasants in the true sense of the word. Very proper, etc etc, will get back to them as well.
Tsayth
Tsaythis I will finish now, because they are, as ever, simple and practical.
Tsaythis eat raw fish and seaweed, and that's it. No cooking because you can't very well have a fire on a boat without burning it to ashes, and besides, what a waste of wood. Fish tastes brilliant raw, anyway. Mealtime will generally consist of catching a fish, killing it, skinning it and shaving off strips of sashimi and eating it like that. THAT is fresh sashimi, ladies and gents X) Also oysters if they can get their hands on them. Yeah, they don't exactly have it bad despite their lack of variety X) (This is assuming you like oysters. I don't. I think they look like a bird pooed in a shell, but hey, each to their own.)
They hardly need 'bringing together' since they live on a boat. No ceremony, they just eat. Praying to deities? They have none to pray to. Manners? They're cutting meat from a fish that was alive five minutes ago, for God's sake. Long as they don't start knifing each other, it's all good.