[Genteven - Solo] Preparations of Foodstuffs for the Season of Frost: I
Posted: Sun Jul 31, 2022 5:54 am
45th of Searing, 4622
Whether or not drinking light ale, mead and cider were enjoyable was up to everyone’s own opinions. However, for the petty thief, drinking low alcoholic beverages was a staple for the main diet in Daravin, especially for those who lived poorly.
“It would be nice to have shrubs, nectars or cordials... But, they tend to last long on the shelf & can add a variety of flavours; Fruits, flowers & spices. So yeah, we have some leftover fruits, and Searing this year was quite bountiful for Genteven.”
For the amber-eyed thief, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise for the Alistian male was spoiled for choice regarding anything related to foods & beverages. After all, before leaving for Genteven, Jared often had his hideout raided by his partners in crime/friends every night so that they could enjoy Jared’s cooking despite the massive annoyance it would pose to the young man.
Just the thought of having to cook for a bunch of men & ladies every single night was exhausting enough, but at the very least, they had some courtesy of bringing foodstuffs to work with.
Jared could fondly remember asking all of his associates why they insist on coming to his hideout and cooking for them & the playful responses would often shut the petty thief’s mouth, grumbling & sulking about, only to smile underneath his cloth mask as the company soothes the lonely soul.
Recollecting his rambling thoughts, Jared walks over to the kitchen counter, taking stock of what was available, what would need to be restocked & what foodstuffs he could stretch until he needed to head out to the markets to buy or ‘borrow’.
“Okay, I will need to restock on the basics. I am forgetting the flour, eggs, milk, butter, anything else; I can do another check after I finish making the concentrates now….”
Jared nods to himself before making his way over to the various fruits, herbs & spices he could use, Washing some hesperidium, pomes & drupes in preparation for converting the raw materials into processed foodstuffs.
Syrups were easy to create; it was a 1:1 ratio of sugar to water, and making flavoured syrups also varies depending on the material.
Shrubs are also simple, following a 1:1:1 ratio of sugar to vinegar (preferably apple cider vinegar, but any vinegar can work) & fruits/berries.
Cordials are a bit more complex even though it is mainly sugar, fruits & water; the ratios require a bit more experimentation depending on which group of fruits, berries, herbs and spices are being made with but in terms of variety; Cordials can make an incredible array of flavours.
Either way, minor adjusting would need to be made depending on a variety of factors that the thief had to consider, from how vicious he wanted his jam to be to how sweet it was; Hell, even adding some herbs and spices to mix to add more complexity was also a given as well, but for now, the basics shall do.
“Oh, let's not forget to make some jams & marmalades; better to use every part of the fruit. Will need to get more honey & sugar since this will take a bit of material to make.”
Jared could turn the skins of various citrus into marmalades which last for a decent amount of time if Jared did the cooking correctly. Either way, one thing for sure was that Jared could use every bit of fruit, vegetable, flesh or edible foodstuff in one or another.
The first thing on the do-list was to prepare the fruits for making the necessary syrups, cordials, shrubs & jams, which mainly consisted of washing the fruits & setting up his pot to start making his syrup solution. In the case of the citruses, lemons, oranges & limes were abundant since they were in season and often at their peak of ripeness & flavour.
Meanwhile, the clay jars that Jared would use to store the various fruit preserves would be washed & treated with boiling water to ensure that the preserved fruits would not go off so quickly on the shelf or cabinet. After all, the goal was to hold the food for extended periods, and every tool must be clean to ensure the quality last long.
It was best to use what is available in the season before Frost rolls in, where the main staples for foods would be root vegetables such as carrots, potatoes and squashes, depending on how the growing season of Ash goes. Pickling will probably be the best choice to store foods for the season of Frost as well.
All that Jared knows from his experience with cooking is that root vegetable store well in cool, dark places & that if they start to sprout roots, Jared can use them to grow more seeds for the next season of Glade, but farming wasn’t his area of interest for the time being; possibly a tiny herb garden could be a good start.
In any case, it was simply adding the thinly sliced rind, inner pulp & juices of lemon into the pot of boiling sugar water and allowing it to simmer for over an hour while the lemon marmalade was cooking. Jared would repeat this with the remaining citruses, which included oranges, bergamots, limes, grapefruits & tangerines for a variety of flavours to play with for this week’s jarring session.
While the marmalades were simmering and developing their viscosity, the jam production was almost the same but with less hardy fruits, mainly berries & certain types of pomes. It is possible to make stone fruit jams such as apricots & peaches, pineapple & even rhubarb. Still, the apprentice chef would need some citrus peels to the solution from his experimentation with making fruit preserves.
“Ummm… I will probably need to get more jars; I might have gone a bit overboard with the food preservations, but at least it will last us for some time and hopefully throughout Frost… I know Genteven is all warm & all, but better to stock up while you can.”
The amber-eyed rogue couldn’t help but scratch the back of his head as storing foodstuffs was a way to prevent himself from going hungry during the frigid months. The cold nights & lack of warmth are some of the few memories he could recall during his time as an urchin; the empty, bellowing sensation and the need to plea for food & warmth is something that Jared would like to forget but lingers as a core of his personal history in life.
When it comes to syrups & cordials, it was as simple as adding the fruits (or herbs & spices), sugar & water into a pot and briefly cooking it for a short duration; allowing the fruits to soften and the sugar granules to dissolve altogether before allowing it to cool down to be stored away. The only difference between the two was how vicious the liquids were and what are their primary purposes, with syrups leaning more as dressings & cordials to be drunk with water.
As time passed, the apprentice chef continued to go through the leftover fruits he managed to retain throughout the weeks, checking if the jams & marmalades held their structure by dragging his index finger through some cooled samples. Then, one by one, Jared would fill multiple clay jars with various liquids of different colours, aromas & viscosity.
Overall, the time of making fruit preserves & syrups was not a lengthy process if Jared prepared everything. However, a quick trip through the Genteven marketplaces would be necessary to restore much of the depleted stocks that Jared has gone through and by no means are they cheap. The petty thief would have to keep something in mind, not that he would buy the most expensive items but merely acquire through various means.
Taking a moment to wipe his forehead with the back of his right hand, Jared couldn’t help but feel exhausted, which usually should be the case, especially if it was making some jams.
“Huh; Feeling a bit winded... Odd, but maybe I am overthinking it or training. Either way, let's take it a bit easy for now, money isn’t going anywhere anytime soon & it is better to be well-rested. On the bright side, extra training wouldn’t hurt as well, and contingency plans for escape routes would be good.”
Having done everything needed, Jared takes a moment to relax by cleaning up the rest of his cookery. Cleaning up sugary substances does take a bit of elbow grease & warm soapy water, but Jared needed this brief period of tranquillity.
“Alright, still have some food prepared for Alistair, and if he is desperate, he can have some bread & jam while I am gone; Nothing like a stroll under the waning moon to start the night and I still need to understand what I can do with this strange, eldritch magic I hold….”
With the fireplace in the kitchen dying low and the embers lulling themselves to a quiet slumber, the passionate dance of the candle flames snuffled by a wave of leathered-covered hands; The petty thief takes off into the night.
Genteven’s moonlit roads beckon those lingering in the shadows to come out and play, the looming shroud of murk protects all, whether good or bad; no one knows until the splendours rays of dawn come back to rein the skies.
“It would be nice to have shrubs, nectars or cordials... But, they tend to last long on the shelf & can add a variety of flavours; Fruits, flowers & spices. So yeah, we have some leftover fruits, and Searing this year was quite bountiful for Genteven.”
For the amber-eyed thief, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise for the Alistian male was spoiled for choice regarding anything related to foods & beverages. After all, before leaving for Genteven, Jared often had his hideout raided by his partners in crime/friends every night so that they could enjoy Jared’s cooking despite the massive annoyance it would pose to the young man.
Just the thought of having to cook for a bunch of men & ladies every single night was exhausting enough, but at the very least, they had some courtesy of bringing foodstuffs to work with.
Jared could fondly remember asking all of his associates why they insist on coming to his hideout and cooking for them & the playful responses would often shut the petty thief’s mouth, grumbling & sulking about, only to smile underneath his cloth mask as the company soothes the lonely soul.
Recollecting his rambling thoughts, Jared walks over to the kitchen counter, taking stock of what was available, what would need to be restocked & what foodstuffs he could stretch until he needed to head out to the markets to buy or ‘borrow’.
“Okay, I will need to restock on the basics. I am forgetting the flour, eggs, milk, butter, anything else; I can do another check after I finish making the concentrates now….”
Jared nods to himself before making his way over to the various fruits, herbs & spices he could use, Washing some hesperidium, pomes & drupes in preparation for converting the raw materials into processed foodstuffs.
Syrups were easy to create; it was a 1:1 ratio of sugar to water, and making flavoured syrups also varies depending on the material.
Shrubs are also simple, following a 1:1:1 ratio of sugar to vinegar (preferably apple cider vinegar, but any vinegar can work) & fruits/berries.
Cordials are a bit more complex even though it is mainly sugar, fruits & water; the ratios require a bit more experimentation depending on which group of fruits, berries, herbs and spices are being made with but in terms of variety; Cordials can make an incredible array of flavours.
Either way, minor adjusting would need to be made depending on a variety of factors that the thief had to consider, from how vicious he wanted his jam to be to how sweet it was; Hell, even adding some herbs and spices to mix to add more complexity was also a given as well, but for now, the basics shall do.
“Oh, let's not forget to make some jams & marmalades; better to use every part of the fruit. Will need to get more honey & sugar since this will take a bit of material to make.”
Jared could turn the skins of various citrus into marmalades which last for a decent amount of time if Jared did the cooking correctly. Either way, one thing for sure was that Jared could use every bit of fruit, vegetable, flesh or edible foodstuff in one or another.
The first thing on the do-list was to prepare the fruits for making the necessary syrups, cordials, shrubs & jams, which mainly consisted of washing the fruits & setting up his pot to start making his syrup solution. In the case of the citruses, lemons, oranges & limes were abundant since they were in season and often at their peak of ripeness & flavour.
Meanwhile, the clay jars that Jared would use to store the various fruit preserves would be washed & treated with boiling water to ensure that the preserved fruits would not go off so quickly on the shelf or cabinet. After all, the goal was to hold the food for extended periods, and every tool must be clean to ensure the quality last long.
It was best to use what is available in the season before Frost rolls in, where the main staples for foods would be root vegetables such as carrots, potatoes and squashes, depending on how the growing season of Ash goes. Pickling will probably be the best choice to store foods for the season of Frost as well.
All that Jared knows from his experience with cooking is that root vegetable store well in cool, dark places & that if they start to sprout roots, Jared can use them to grow more seeds for the next season of Glade, but farming wasn’t his area of interest for the time being; possibly a tiny herb garden could be a good start.
In any case, it was simply adding the thinly sliced rind, inner pulp & juices of lemon into the pot of boiling sugar water and allowing it to simmer for over an hour while the lemon marmalade was cooking. Jared would repeat this with the remaining citruses, which included oranges, bergamots, limes, grapefruits & tangerines for a variety of flavours to play with for this week’s jarring session.
While the marmalades were simmering and developing their viscosity, the jam production was almost the same but with less hardy fruits, mainly berries & certain types of pomes. It is possible to make stone fruit jams such as apricots & peaches, pineapple & even rhubarb. Still, the apprentice chef would need some citrus peels to the solution from his experimentation with making fruit preserves.
“Ummm… I will probably need to get more jars; I might have gone a bit overboard with the food preservations, but at least it will last us for some time and hopefully throughout Frost… I know Genteven is all warm & all, but better to stock up while you can.”
The amber-eyed rogue couldn’t help but scratch the back of his head as storing foodstuffs was a way to prevent himself from going hungry during the frigid months. The cold nights & lack of warmth are some of the few memories he could recall during his time as an urchin; the empty, bellowing sensation and the need to plea for food & warmth is something that Jared would like to forget but lingers as a core of his personal history in life.
When it comes to syrups & cordials, it was as simple as adding the fruits (or herbs & spices), sugar & water into a pot and briefly cooking it for a short duration; allowing the fruits to soften and the sugar granules to dissolve altogether before allowing it to cool down to be stored away. The only difference between the two was how vicious the liquids were and what are their primary purposes, with syrups leaning more as dressings & cordials to be drunk with water.
As time passed, the apprentice chef continued to go through the leftover fruits he managed to retain throughout the weeks, checking if the jams & marmalades held their structure by dragging his index finger through some cooled samples. Then, one by one, Jared would fill multiple clay jars with various liquids of different colours, aromas & viscosity.
Overall, the time of making fruit preserves & syrups was not a lengthy process if Jared prepared everything. However, a quick trip through the Genteven marketplaces would be necessary to restore much of the depleted stocks that Jared has gone through and by no means are they cheap. The petty thief would have to keep something in mind, not that he would buy the most expensive items but merely acquire through various means.
Taking a moment to wipe his forehead with the back of his right hand, Jared couldn’t help but feel exhausted, which usually should be the case, especially if it was making some jams.
“Huh; Feeling a bit winded... Odd, but maybe I am overthinking it or training. Either way, let's take it a bit easy for now, money isn’t going anywhere anytime soon & it is better to be well-rested. On the bright side, extra training wouldn’t hurt as well, and contingency plans for escape routes would be good.”
Having done everything needed, Jared takes a moment to relax by cleaning up the rest of his cookery. Cleaning up sugary substances does take a bit of elbow grease & warm soapy water, but Jared needed this brief period of tranquillity.
“Alright, still have some food prepared for Alistair, and if he is desperate, he can have some bread & jam while I am gone; Nothing like a stroll under the waning moon to start the night and I still need to understand what I can do with this strange, eldritch magic I hold….”
With the fireplace in the kitchen dying low and the embers lulling themselves to a quiet slumber, the passionate dance of the candle flames snuffled by a wave of leathered-covered hands; The petty thief takes off into the night.
Genteven’s moonlit roads beckon those lingering in the shadows to come out and play, the looming shroud of murk protects all, whether good or bad; no one knows until the splendours rays of dawn come back to rein the skies.
