Chapter 446: Chapter 430 – Wonders of Nature

“Just take a trip to the neighboring country, really, no need to go around the world. Just your next door neighbor alone would likely have some things that were commonplace there and nearly unheard of where you came from. Traveling around is probably one of the best way to know more about the world as a whole, instead of being cooped up in a tiny slice of the world you call home all the time.” - Saying attributed to the Silver Maiden.

“Please, have some,” said a younger elf as he proffered a platter of fruits to Celia. 

 

Celia nodded politely and took some from each kind on the offered plate, though she never saw some of the fruits there in her life before. Some she recognized easy enough, like the slices of mango which while typically served ripe, where the flesh was orange and sweetly fragrant, was instead served while the fruit was still unripe, the flesh still white and rather firm instead of soft.

 

There seemed to be some sort of seasoning dusted on top of the slices of unripe fruit as well, and she took a bite of it out of curiosity, only to be surprised by the strong sourness she tasted, which the seasoning – a salty and spicy one – intensified in a somehow pleasant way rather than mollified. It was a strange taste experience for her, but one she found rather addictive pretty soon.

 

As for the fruit with the spiky shell and a stink reminiscent of some sorts of stinky cheeses, it was one she had seen and tasted before, as it seemed quite popular in the Lichdom as a whole. It was a strange flavor to Celia at first, the pungency of the fruit making it taste almost like it was some sort of custard… mixed with raw onion. Once she got used to it though, she could appreciate the flavor and even the stench quite a bit more.

 

“How do you eat this one?” she asked to Aideen who was seated next to her when she ran into a fruit she couldn’t make heads or tails of. The fruit looked like a large clove of garlic, almost, with several distinct bulbs instead, and a raspy, almost wooden skin divided into tiny segments that looked almost like the scales of a snake.

 

“Oh, that one, you just peel it like this,” said Aideen as she skillfully tore off the thinner end of the fruit with her fingers and pulled the skin off in one long strip, which left three pale-colored bulbous chunks of firm fruit flesh that she handed over to Celia. “Make sure not to bite down too hard,” she added even as she picked one of the pieces and tossed it into her mouth. “They have a large, hard seed in the middle that you should just spit out.”

 

As if to demonstrate what she said, Aideen spat out the seed she mentioned to a small receptacle next to her, placed for that exact purpose as it also contained the skin and seeds of many other fruits.

 

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Celia gave the strange fruit a try, cautiously biting half the flesh off, noting the large seed that was exposed after her bite. Forewarned as she was, it was easy to avoid the seed, but she could see someone unaware of it breaking their teeth on the hard seed. Instead, Celia just plucked out the seed and tossed it to a similar container next to her before chewing on the remaining half of the fruit’s flesh.

 

It had a tart flavor, slightly sweet but also with a hint of a more mature, somewhat alcoholic taste because the fruit was very ripe. The texture was a bit on the grainy side, which was another indicator of ripeness apparently, as Celia later had another of the fruits which was less ripe and it had a more sour flavor with the flesh having more of a chewy texture instead.

 

“Some of the fruits that grow around here are pretty hard to find elsewhere,” explained Aideen while they ate. The meal they were having was more of some sort of light breakfast, hence the multitude of fruits present. The elves themselves favored lighter meals in the morning, when it was an option, though they were far less picky when out on travel or the like. “Try this, I bet you’d recognize the flavor, though you never ate it in this form.”

 

What Aideen handed over to Celia was a fruit that looked like a pod of peas, but brown in color. The outer shell shattered easily, so removing it was simple. Inside it was what looked like a veiny brown pulp around lumps she suspected to be the seeds. She removed the veins as Aideen told her, before pulling off a segment and tasting it.

 

The flavor was sweet and sour, the flesh soft and pasty, and it was a taste that she immediately found as familiar, as some of the cooking they encountered along the way had a similar taste to it. She immediately guessed that the fruit was also used in cooking to lend its flavor to various dishes. There was also a hard seed kernel in the center of the pulpy flesh of the fruit which she spat out to the receptacle.

 

“Oh, we’re in luck today. These aren’t often available,” said Aideen as she picked up a strange fruit with yellow, spiky skin from a new platter brought by another young elf. With a deft movement of her hand, she sliced the fruit in half with a knife, exposing the insides which had a layer of cream-colored flesh along with pale green sections that held the seeds. “You can eat the seeds as well, so just scrape everything off from the inside.”

 

Celia did as Aideen told her, and found that the cream color part of the fruit was soft and had a mildly sweet taste. As for the green interior, they had a slight jiggle that reminded her of meat aspic – a sort of dish made from boiling animal bones and skin into a clear broth that was left to set until it becomes firm – and had a refreshing sourness that mixed well with rest. Even the seeds had a pleasant flavor and a nice, crisp texture to them.

 

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