ALL NOVEL Chapter 692 – A Taste for Cooking
“The phenomenon where merfolk that live near the shore or land generally ended up living as much on land as underwater ws far from a rare case. This had been noted to happen in the vast majority of such settlements, and in practically all cases, the main reason was typically the same: Cooked foods.
Understandably, it was difficult to cook underwater for rather obvious reasons. As such, merfolk who were used to simple, uncooked meals often had a revelation when they tried foods cooked in various ways on land, and many found it hard to go back to how they usually did things in the past as a result.” - From a Sociology paper by Leigh Wainswrought, Student in the Levain Institute for Higher Learning, circa 689 FP.
“Ma! Pa sent some customers over again!” yelled one of the young merfolk children who looked to be in their early teenage years by Aideen’s best guess.
“Not an unusual occurrence here, I see?” commented Aideen as she led her group towards the simple wooden stall that divided the small kitchen area from the customers and doubled as a table for them to eat on. There were no seats and the people ate while standing, but nobody seemed to mind it that much. The table part of the stall was set higher than Aideen expected, but then again, dwarves were rather rare on the topside, so it also made sense in a way.
“Not really,” said the merfolk woman who ran the stall with the help of her two young children. There was enough room for Aideen’s group to stand together since the stall wasn’t particularly crowded at the time so they did exactly that. “He always tells his passengers to come to our place when it’s not the lunch or dinner rush hours, so Aicla here tends to keep an eye on his boat docking outside those times.”
“Anyway, since you’re all here I assume you’re here for some grub?” asked the merfolk woman. Her dwarven was cleaner compared to her husband, with barely a trace of accent to it. Then again, she likely got more practice with it given her occupation as a food stall owner. “We got several dishes here, all made from locally harvested stuff.”
“Give us a taste of all of them, enough to feed the six of us, at least. Actually, give us enough for nine. Some of us eat a lot,” said Aideen after a moment of thought.
“Dwarven portions, then, got it!” replied the merfolk woman cheerfully as she turned back to her kitchen area.
“Dwarves eat a lot, so we usually give them half again as much food,” said the older of the children in explanation as he came over and poured some fruity-smelling ale into wooden mugs for the group. The older child seemed to be in his late teenage years, with a more demure disposition compared to his younger and more active sister.
The cooking area in the back of the stall itself was a simple place. The far wall of the stall’s area was dominated by a grill, which was simply a long, shallow metal trough on legs with removeable net-shaped meshes on it. A bed of charcoal burned quietly in the trough and cooked whatever was placed top the meshes with their heat.
To the side, there were a couple metal tripod structures that held large clay pots with holes on its sides that likely held more charcoal within. A metal stewing pot was placed atop each of the clay pots, simmering away and giving off a nice scent that wafted through the surroundings as they cooked from the gentle heat beneath.
On the other side was a rack where all sorts of fresh ingredients were stored, with the fish and shellfish still alive and actively moving in the water-filled troughs they were kept in. Vegetables, cheeses, and various spices were arrayed in the racks behind the trough, while several large barrels on their side, stacked atop one another on their stand, were set next to the trough and rack.
With deft hands, the merfolk woman picked a dozen large oysters from the water trough, as well as three large fish, each as long as an adult’s forearm and almost as wide on their thickest midsection. She used a knife to gut each of the fish within moments, throwing away part of the guts but keeping some like the intestines in a container.
Then she scaled the fish using the back of her knife and butterflied it, making several incisions on the skin side of the fish before she brushed it with a sauce that was made with a mixture of oil, various herbs, and plenty of spices. The greenish-red sauce had a rather strong, almost pungent aroma that wafted out as she brushed it liberally over all three of the fish.
Afterwards, she placed each butterflied fish on top of a mesh set atop the charcoal grill where they began to sizzle and cook. The woman left the fish for the time being and turned her attention to the oysters. AFter washing them, she shucked them skillfully using a smaller knife, and ran the blade quickly underneath the flesh to completely separate it from its shell.
She arranged the dozen shucked oysters – still on their half-shells – on another mesh but did not place them on the grill yet. Instead, she dropped a dollop of butter and a pinch of herbs onto each oyster, then topped them further with a generous chunk of what seemed to be fresh cheese curds. Only then did she place the mesh on the grill and let the oysters cook.
While the fish and oysters cooked on the grill, the merfolk woman stirred the stew in the pots a few times, and then went back to the rack and brought out what Aideen recognized as the egg sac of a fish, with thousands of tiny eggs inside. The egg sac had a different color than usual, and given that the woman took it out of a closed jar, was probably pickled or fermented.
Aideen watched attentively as the merfolk woman sliced the egg sac and placed a slice on top of the melting cheese in each oyster half-shell.
