On the Delectable Foods of the World and the Joy of Eating Them: The Culinary Voyage of one L*********, Son of M******** T*********, Swordsman Extraordinaire. Liber Primus.

Abridged and censored by request of the distinguished M. T. and his royal Majesty King Ælfwynnd II

When dreams be endless, shalt thy path be boundless.
Bravery, not fear, shalt set thy way ablaze.

Sir Scætha the Dauntless, XII. Knight-Captain of the Order of the Heron’s Wing

It is with the heaviest of hearts––yet holding onto the loftiest of ideals––that I leave behind not only the ancestral home of my esteemed family, but also the great kingdom which it has stood guard to since time immemorable. Never once, spending the days of my youth wandering through the shadows casted by the imposing manor of the T*********, skipping and frolicking through the well-tended garden while brandishing a stick as a pretend sword under the watchful gaze of the statues depicting my most honourable lineage, have I entertained the notion that I would one day abscond like a thief in the gloaming hours of the foredawn. Alas, yesternight’s altercation with my honourable father M******** and my fair younger sister L******––not the first of its kind, and most assuredly not the last––has finally steeled my will in pursuing what in my heart of hearts I have always known to be my destiny.

[THE FOLLOWING CONTENT WAS DEEMED INAPPROPRIATE BY THE HAWRYNDELLIAN ROYAL CHAMBER OF LITERATURE]

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My common sense––and also my self-preservation instinct in the face of those cleavers––prompted me to silently wait on the door, savouring the aroma of chives clinging to the air. However, a rather unflattering growl from my abdomen ruined my intent almost immediately.

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«Gardes des don, the lil’ ta-taille up!» the other, which I now recognized as a female orc thanks to the inflection and the fangs protruding from the sides of her similarly swarthy visage, peered over her shoulder, directing me a toothy––or rather, should I say fangy?––smile.

I did not really understand what she said, being woefully unfamiliar with the dialect of this region, but I did catch the words ‘little’ and ‘up’, so I presumed she was commenting on my waking up. Mustering my courage, I cleared my throat, only now stopping to at least make my unruly hair presentable.

«Ah yes, indeed, that is the truth, my fair madame» I said, offering my humblest of bowing «I, L********* of name, of the T-» I painfully stopped myself from adding my family’s name, coughing to cover it «thank you from the deepest reaches of my heart for saving my most inept person from the predicament in whi-»

[THE FOLLOWING CONTENT WAS DEEMED INAPPROPRIATE BY THE HAWRYNDELLIAN ROYAL CHAMBER OF LITERATURE]

Cleaver still clutched in the hand, she pointed to a huge bowl to her right, near which I espied three huge eggs, the size and colour of which I had never seen afore.

«Be a cher,» she continued «crack an’ beat deese.»

After an initial moment of confusion, I nodded with a broad smile and, rolling up my sleeves, I made my way towards the bowl; near the eggs, which quite surprisingly emanated a smell reminiscent of that of

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almonds, I found a hammer and a chisel. Taking the size of these eggs into consideration, comparable to that of a citron melon, I did not even stop to ask what the tools were for and got to hammering. When I bored my way through the astonishingly hard shell, I started pouring the liquid in the bowl, repeating the process ‘till all eggs were emptied; looking around the counter, I saw an imposing whisk.

«May I, Miss…?» I tentatively asked, only then noticing I had forgotten to ask for my host’s name.

«Edmée.» she simply answered, while nodding; I had not the faintest clue whether that was her name or it was another word for giving me permission to use the whisk.

«Thank you, Miss Edmée» I tried my luck and, seeing as the woman simply smiled at me and went back to what she was doing––she had just finished preparing the mincemeat and she was adding it to the wok pan––I guessed that I was correct.

Grabbing the whisk with two hands, I started to beat the eggs, feeling my shoulders growing ever so sorer due to the exertion of working such an unseemly sized whisk; with a tinge of sarcasm, I thought to myself that I was finally following a workout routine as my father had so insistently tried to force me for all those years. When I felt satisfied, I took the bowl and moved near Edmée.

«Is this to your liking, Miss Edmée?» I gingerly asked, much like a schoolboy showing his favourite teacher a picture he had just drawn.

«Mais la, nuff wit de Miss, it honte…» she gruffly answered, eyeing the bowl and adding a mumbled «It good, it good.»

With a spryness I would not expect for her body––and her age, if the locks of white hair were any indicator––she took the bowl and went back to the counter, where only now I saw waited a pot of fluffed rice. With precise gestures, the orc lady mixed the rice with the egg wash I had made, adding various sauces which I could not recognise; as the

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mixture was properly incorporated, the lady walked past me with a concentrated smile, dumping the egg-and-rice concoction into the wok, starting to stir almost immediately. I fell silent, as I was enthralled by her movements; the wok, of solid steel as far as I could guess without the chance of properly inspecting it, seemed as if it were made of hydrargyrum, so smooth and fluid was her stirring. With one hand constantly on the wok-handle, Edmée started unveiling various cloches, which were hiding a plethora of greens and vegetables in general, already neatly diced, which she then added to what I now understood was an egg fried rice. A couple of minutes elapsed, when the orc lady finally let out a single sigh, removing the wok from the stove.

«It ready! Allons, Laurrie, time to mange!» she gleefully exclaimed, leaving me completely dumbfounded as to what those words meant and so I simply followed her to an already set table.

After helping Edmée to her chair, much to her chagrin it seemed, I finally sat in mine, waiting for the lady to start eating; as she took up the first spoonful, I respectfully bowed, and, much to my embarrassment, I started to eat like a starving man. The woman did not say anything, and simply smiled in a warm, grandmotherly way. The best way to describe this dish was ‘rich’; the eggs, whose provenience as basilisk eggs I only discovered when I later asked Edmée, were lighter than normal poultry eggs as far as texture was concerned, while regaling a whole new complexity to what I like to call the ‘flavourscape’––thanks in no small part, I assume, due to the negligible traces of basilisk venom present inside the yolk; the rice, strictly a leftover from the previous meal for added crunch, was cooked to perfection and no grain stuck to the others, unlike the flavourless hodge-podge my father used to try and force down my throat to, in his words, ‘help bulking up’; the minced meat, an eye of round of a breed known as zebu as I had correctly guessed, was optimal in granting a bit of coarseness to the dish to contrast the smoothness of the greens ensemble. Such was my engrossment with this dish that Edmée forced me to take some with me as she sent me on my way, citing that she had things to do and no time to look after each and every boy running away. Much to my amazement, I was feeling loth to abandon this house which I had been in for less than a couple of hours; Edmée’s culinary prowess and kindness had won me over. Alas, the road was beckoning me, and with it many more dishes to discover; as I finished cleaning the dishes, I bowed to hide my contrition, to which the woman answered by hugging me tightly. With directions for the nearest city, the port of Transimo as luck would have it, I left the orc’s house, setting off into the pleasant afternoon air.

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