Chapter 350: Chapter 334 – Palating the Unpalatable

“Biggest shock for me about the human culture in Alcidea? How utterly wasteful they are with their food. So much good food just thrown away to the dogs, or people they consider even *less* than dogs, rather than properly cooked and served. It chafes this old chef up, for certain.” - Baran Ver Nabod, later best known as the Royal Chef of the Hassid Caliphate, circa 67 VA.

“Still not used with those yet, huh?” asked Aideen when she noticed how Andromarche winced slightly and scrounged up her nose while she cleaned up some internal organs of some beasts caught by the Clan’s hunter on the day’s hunt. From her stay in the Empire, she knew that the people there generally had considered the internal organs of beasts as unclean, and as such they were usually discarded, fed to dogs and the likes, or eaten by the dregs of society who often wrestled them off the mouths of wild dogs.

 

“It’s a bit hard to get over a couple decades of norms, I guess,” admitted the former knight as she turned the stomach she was handling inside out and scrubbed the exposed membranes vigorously. Even Aideen would admit that the job was not a very pleasant one, since such organs always had some unpleasant stench to them, both from the remainder of the half-digested food inside and from the mucus that usually lined them, though the orcs had not seemed to mind it one bit. “It still baffles me how they were not even bothered by the smell.”

 

“Well, in this case it’s not just a case of cultures but also of biology,” explained Aideen with a bit of a smirk on her face. “You see, the orcs are built somewhat differently to us. They have better eyesight, especially at range, which is one reason they tend to be so good with the bow, and great hearing too. In turn however, they barely have much of a sense of smell compared to even us. They literally didn’t notice the smell that bothered you in this case.”

 

“That explained a lot…” said Andromarche in realization. At first she just thought that the orcs were used to the at times unpleasant stenches around the camp, from the various pack animals and whatnot, as well as some of the foodstuff they kept and fermented - those sometimes stink to high heaven to her, even if they weren’t that bad at all when she gathered her courage and gave it a try - amongst others.

 

“It’s just how it is. I’ve lived many years alongside a therian myself, so I was pretty used to such differences. For example, he could not really taste much of anything sweet, like most of his kind,” said Aideen as she reminisced a bit about her own past. The person she mentioned was quite naturally Artair, her late husband, who spent a good six decades of life with her. “Living with others inevitably meant getting used to the differences between people.”

 

“Fair point, I guess,” said Andromarche as she finished cleaning the offal. The orcs camped near a small stream that day, so they naturally made good use of the flowing water to clean things. While it dirtied the stream somewhat, such small amounts of blood and other things would barely affect the flowing stream and by the time it reached a bit further downstream nobody would have noticed a thing about it. “Still surprised me how nice these things are when cooked properly, though.”

 

“That’s probably the best part about the different cultures. Each one always had their own ideas of what constituted good food!” said Aideen in agreement. “Honestly, your Empire got some of the pickiest people I know of. Most people in the other nations I’ve been to here in Alcidea would consider you people wasteful for throwing away perfectly good food.”

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“Was it also a common thing to eat the innards like these where you’re from?” asked Andromarche. Over the past couple of weeks she had naturally learned that Aideen was an unliving from Ur-Teros, as well as a general idea about Celia’s past and the circumstances of her turning into an Unliving. The former knight had to admit that she was quite curious about how life in the southern continent was, as she only ever knew what it was like in Lavinja County in her life.

 

“A few smaller countries in the north abstained, but it’s commonly eaten most everywhere else, yeah,” replied Aideen with a nod to the question. “I have to admit few did so well with it with so few additions to the offal like these orcs, though. Most usually spiced it quite heavily where I lived.”

 

What Aideen referred to was how the orcs cooked the various offal that particular day. They stuffed the various offal in the stomach cavity, with the other bits like the lungs, hearts, liver, and kidneys amongst others chopped up and stuff in there, before the whole thing was then wrapped around with the intestines until it looked like it was tied with a bundle of ropes.

 

The whole parcel was then parboiled briefly before it was roasted over the open fire until it was thoroughly cooked and the intestines on the outside had turned into a crisp and crunchy layer. While it was quite heavy and rich, the flavors were pleasant without overdoing it in any direction despite the minimal amount of spices used in the cooking process.

 

Even those who were unused to eating internal organs like Andromarche had become a fan after she had a taste of the meal that night, where the orcs served thick slices of the roasted parcel together with their usual thick buttered porridge, where the fatty cuts further enriched the flavors while adding its own nuances to the meal that night.

 

Nights like those made Andromarche feel like she did the right thing when she had made the decision to stay, rather than to strike out on her own, which amounted to little more than throwing the dice where the results might well have ended her life.

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