There are, as with most things Balazaring, two different approaches
to food in Balazar, that of the hearths and that of the citadel dwellers. The hearths lead
their traditional, semi-nomadic lifestyle, living off of the game they hunt and the plants
and animals they gather while the citadels have a much greater reliance on wild grains and
their herds of semi-domesticated swine.
Beliefs
The Balazarings collectively believe that the Wild Mother
is the source of all the foodstuffs they gather and hunt. Every Balazaring is very careful
to offer praise and prayers to the Wild Mother lest She take her bounty away. The
Hearthmother taught the Balazarings how to gather and eat plants and how to cook while
Foundchild taught the people how to hunt and what animals could and couldn't be eaten.
Votank gave people the tools they needed to gather and prepare food and taught the people
to live together. Balazar stole for the citadel dwellers the knowledge of how to keep pigs
and showed them how to build the citadels. Every activity the Balazarings engage in is
accompanied by prayers to the diety they know to be responsible for teaching their
ancestors the activity in the first place. Harvesting, gathering, hunting, cooking and
tending the pigs all have their prayers.
The Hearth Dwellers
The hearth dwellers will hunt and eat virtually any animal
that runs, swims or fly (with the notable exception of dogs (taboo) and some wild
carnivores whose taste doesn't appeal to them). They also gather and eat any edible
plants. In both cases they do not tend to go into woods where the forest people (aldryami)
live and they never fail to first ask permission from the Wild Mother before hunting,
fishing or gathering. They also always perform the Peaceful Cut on all animals (except
insects-see How Brother Dog came to Foundchild).
The hearths' mobility makes it easier for them to move from location to location timing
their arrival for times when food is plentiful. They laugh at outsiders who see Balazar as
a barren wilderness and only rarely go hungry (mostly in the winter when the herds are
elsewhere).
Citadel Dwellers
Plants
(The following account relies heavily on Reay Tannahill's Food in History for information).
The citadel dwellers have a great reliance on wild grains
and their semi-domesticated pig herds. Each of the three citadels was built near sites
that had plentiful supplies of wild grains. They needed these grains to feed their
relatively large sedentary populations. Research has shown that groups could easily
harvest enough grains to feed small populations like those of the citadels.
"An experiment more than 25 years ago by Dr. Jack
Harlan, an agronomist at the University of Illinois, demonstrated the likely importance of
wild einkorn [a type of wheat] in the diets of post-ice age hunter-gatherers in the region
and what might have encouraged them to domesticate it. Harvesting wild einkorn by hand in
southeastern Turkey, Harlan showed that in only three weeks, a small family group [of six
members1] could have gathered enough grain to sustain them for a full
year."2
They harvest wild barley and wheat using flint toothed sickles. Dr.
Harlan discovered that "...[i]n an hour he gathered enough to produce over two pounds
of cleaned grain, which was incidentally, twice as rich in protein as the domesticated
variety."3
"One of the characteristics of wild grains is that as soon as
the plant reaches maturity, the ear shatters and sprays its seeds out to burrow in the
soil for protection until the next growing season. Sometimes, if the weather is hotter
than usual, a field of mature grain can turn into a field of barren stalks in as little as
a week." 4
This means that the citadel's disadvantageous lack of mobility
preventing them from easily gathering diverse foodstuffs and not being near the herds has
been turned into an advantage in that they are near the grain fields when they ripen. This
also means they don't have to haul large amounts of grain long distances for storage.
(Though the advent of horses would seem to make this task easier they don't use horses as
beasts of burden since they're so rare).
Turning a pile of wheat into edible grain is no easy task though.
Humans are pretty much incapable of eating whole grain and it has to be prepared somehow.
One of the possibilities is to germinate the grain and then eat it. But this requires
spreading the grain out evenly (to avoid the development of molds) and keeping it moist
which is impracticable on a large scale.
"The desirable part of wheat and barley consists of an embryo
(the nutritionally valuable "germ") embedded in a starchy mass called the
endosperm, to which is attached a thin, tough coat of bran. This whole seed unit is
encased in a harsh outer sheaf, the chaff, and tufts of the sheathed seeds, protected by
further shells of chaff, make up the ear of the grain. The first thing that had to be done
when clean grain was needed was separate the edible part of the grain from the husks
surrounding it. In the case of wild types the seed and chaff are reluctant to be parted,
and it was therefore necessary to toast ('parch') the ears to make the chaff brittle
enough to be loosened."5
The citadel dwellers do this by building fires on their threshing
floors and then sweeping the fires away after the floor is hot and threshing the grain on
the hot surface using willow beaters. Then the grain is winnowed using baskets specially
woven for this purpose. Even after threshing and winnowing some of the husks remain and
the grain has to be rubbed between two rocks to remove it. This is back breaking,
laborious work (except at Elkoi where the Lunars have introduced the rotary mill).
Depending on the skill and/or patience of the grinder the end result can be clean grain or
a gritty, chaff and groats mixture.
The resulting grain is then prepared in two main methods. It is
either cooked in huge, communal stone pots where families come to get their share as a
sort of porridge or it is pounded some more, mixed with water and baked as a flat cake on
a hearthstone. Threshed and winnowed grain is stored in large, stone communal silos.
Leavened bread is unknown.
Many other plants, fruits, berries and roots are collected and
whatever can be preserved for the winter by drying is. The citadel dwellers are very
careful to never take too much from the land and they always give thanks to the Wild
Mother.
Game
While the citadel dwellers still hunt their hunters have to range
further afield as game is relatively scarce in the immediate vicinity of the citadels.
Wild game is THE favoured meat though.
Pigs
The main supply of meat for the citadel dwellers is pork. (Though
they do eat the many pigeons that nest in the citadel's walls as well). Balazar stole the
knowledge of tending pigs from the dragons and the goddess Mralota is known and worshipped
in all three citadels. Her worship is what allows the citadel dwellers to raise the mostly
wild swine with little danger. Prayers and sacrifices to Mralota ensure that the boars,
while never tame are at least relatively placid. [The reality is that the pigs now
raised in the citadels are pretty much domesticated. Worship of the goddess shows
the pig herders how to raise their charges properly].
Recently the Balazarings captured two semi-divine boars. See The Boar Wars for more details.
Footnotes
- Food in History p.21
- New
Clues Show Where People Made the Great Leap to Agriculture
- Food in History p.21
- Food in History p.21
- Food in History p.22-23
Bibliography
Alternative Wheat
Cereals as Food Grains: Einkorn, Emmer, Spelt, Kamut, and Triticale by G.F.
Stallknecht, K.M. Gilbertson, and J.E. Ranney
Interesting information on early cereals.
Food in History by
Reay Tannahill 1988 New York: Three Rivers Press
New Clues Show
Where People Made the Great Leap to Agriculture
Good article on early agricuture.
Plants
and People in Ancient Anatolia By Mark Nesbitt
Good overview of a RW region that I feel is similar to
Balazar.
A Species
Profile: European Wild Boar [Sus scrofa]
Good, general information on wild boar.
Wild Boar
Good information on wild boar from Manitoba Agriculture.
Wild Boar Production
How-to guide from the Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food. PDF
file.
This page last updated July 08, 2003
|
Table of Contents
