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Dec. 2nd, 2007 03:24 pmDo you write long travel scenes for novels? Do you wonder what your characters might eat when abroad and unwilling to spend the hours over a campfire that serve to bond strangers in so many fantasy novels? If you do, I have a generous offer.
On an aside, I especially like it when everyone's in hurry because they're being chased or have to save the world or both and they choose dishes that require fresh ingredients and long slow cooking. This means means buying or finding the ingredients, sorting out fire issues and hours of cooking time. I guess the scenes while they sort out enough fuel and ingredients and get the fire to the right stage and start cooking and then finally eat their meal of the day late, late into the night are very important in terms of character-building, but that much leisure while everything falls to pieces around them is just not convincing. I also wonder why none of them start bushfires by mistake when they're city people travelling in midsummer.
Anyhow, to return to my generous offer, in my culinary researches today I found a rather interesting historical recipe for a soup that travels. All you need is hot water (not even boiling water) and you have a hot meal. I've seen these recipes before and I know the techniques involved, but haven't ever made them. If anyone would like to share the work and learn one particularly important type of travel food, I would be very happy to share the experience and the cooking techniques.
Why am I being so generous? Mainly because it's a two day process with ebbs and flows in the work involved. I can do day one by myself and even part of day two, but I know that by the last 4 hours I will be stir crazy and the last four hours will make or break this recipe's suitablity for epic travel.
What I'm suggesting is that the interested party or parties (and yes, it can be done in a party-like fashion, with several folks and various comestibles etc) come shopping and start off the process one afternoon or early evening and the next afternoon come over again (or pick me up and we go to a more comfortable kitchen - this could be a *hot* process) for the last few hours of it. Both days can include interludes of DVD watching and food and stuff - there are only certain periods when we have to keep a close eye on things.
There's one big warning (and I know two of my friends may well curse me forever because of this): the recipe is not adaptable for vegetarians.
On an aside, I especially like it when everyone's in hurry because they're being chased or have to save the world or both and they choose dishes that require fresh ingredients and long slow cooking. This means means buying or finding the ingredients, sorting out fire issues and hours of cooking time. I guess the scenes while they sort out enough fuel and ingredients and get the fire to the right stage and start cooking and then finally eat their meal of the day late, late into the night are very important in terms of character-building, but that much leisure while everything falls to pieces around them is just not convincing. I also wonder why none of them start bushfires by mistake when they're city people travelling in midsummer.
Anyhow, to return to my generous offer, in my culinary researches today I found a rather interesting historical recipe for a soup that travels. All you need is hot water (not even boiling water) and you have a hot meal. I've seen these recipes before and I know the techniques involved, but haven't ever made them. If anyone would like to share the work and learn one particularly important type of travel food, I would be very happy to share the experience and the cooking techniques.
Why am I being so generous? Mainly because it's a two day process with ebbs and flows in the work involved. I can do day one by myself and even part of day two, but I know that by the last 4 hours I will be stir crazy and the last four hours will make or break this recipe's suitablity for epic travel.
What I'm suggesting is that the interested party or parties (and yes, it can be done in a party-like fashion, with several folks and various comestibles etc) come shopping and start off the process one afternoon or early evening and the next afternoon come over again (or pick me up and we go to a more comfortable kitchen - this could be a *hot* process) for the last few hours of it. Both days can include interludes of DVD watching and food and stuff - there are only certain periods when we have to keep a close eye on things.
There's one big warning (and I know two of my friends may well curse me forever because of this): the recipe is not adaptable for vegetarians.