Dwarf Culture Corner
Now every Dwarf in the realm is expected to be able to cook and feed themselves. It is a basic skill that all Dawi are expected to reach a basic level of competency. While some are truly hopeless when it comes to cooking you can still expect them to be talented at one meal. The worst of the worst are still able to make edible food, even if it doesn't taste good.
Now on the other side of the spectrum are Dawi that have a knack for cooking and build upon that. These are the Dawi that are able to make meals that quieten the grumbling of the most cantankerous of Longbeards. I am talking about proper Dawi Chefs and cooks. The fellows that have such skill in preparing meals that they have their own stores and if they don't have their own store you can expect to find them in the kitchen of a tavern or even in the King's (or Queen) Kitchen.
I shouldn't even need to state this, but I would bring shame upon myself for creating something educational and not covering all my bases. So, there are differences between the kinds of cuisine between holds all over the realm. Yes, each hold has the same staples of dwarven cuisine that we all know and love, like stonebread for example but even then, they will be different. Whether it be due to the local environment encouraging or even preventing specific plant growth or the kind of wildlife located around the hold. There will be differences between all the holds.
Now the proper way to learn of this would be to visit all the holds and try their local cooking but some of us are busy making sure the beardlings don't collapse the hold. So, in that vein I will be providing an extremely short summary of the cuisine of the holds, so it might convince a few to actually visit and get a proper understanding.
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Kraka Drakk
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Reputation & History
While it might come to a surprise to those who know the Hold's runesmithing reputation, Kraka Drakk is actually the most traditional hold in the Far North when it comes to cooking. While they do have their quirks, they all fall within the boundaries of tradition. Kraka Drakk cuisines has large preference towards troll cuisine. The Hold's proximity and frequent culling of the nearby Troll Gazan has supplied the hold with a large amount of troll ingredients. Kraka Drakk is always well supplied with a sizable harvest of crops year-round due to multiple factors such as trade as the centre of the far north underway, influx of troll meats from Troll Gazan and the Hold's many farms. Kraka Drakk possesses a prestigious amount of farmland which can be put to the Hold's runesmiths being numerous and affordable enough for the farmers guild to commission them and the presence of The Grobar-gazan. The Grobar-gazan is an underground cave system discovered by the Gift Giver full of lush greenery that thanks to a little aid from runes, is useable farmland throughout the year no matter the weather.
Thoughout the history of Kraka Drakk the only point where there was a significant change in the hold's cuisine was around 196 A.P when multiple Zornish clans settled in Drakk. The clans of Zorn brought with them the many spices that are local to Zorn and used in their cooking. Initially this led to the spices being imported, which was costly but affordable for a hold such a Kraka Drakk but with the use of The Grobar-gazan a small population of Zornish Spices are being grown locally.As Zornish Dawi integrated with the Hold, especially through marriage, the rise of recipes that use Kraka Drakk's native foodstuffs according to Zornish and Drakk tastes, have also begun cropping up.
With the hold always having supplies available to them whether through others by trade or their own production, it has led to the Hold's inhabitants to be rather generous with their serving sizes. To the approval of many Valayans but has the hold wide habit appeared due to more of the dawi trying to follow in the footsteps of the generosity of the gift giver or is it due to something else?
Local Cooking
Kulgur (the art of cooking Troll) and Khulgur (the art of HUNTING Troll) is practiced nowhere near as universally as it is in Kraka Drakk. So you can be very confident that if a food uses Troll, it is known by the dawi of Drakk. With there being no shortage of the stuff and its tastes being enjoyable to the majority of all dawi, it is not unexpected that every chef in the hold knows a dozen recipes using the stuff. Even with the Hold's preference it does not mean there is a lack of other meat options. It is very easy to find options that use boar, wolf, bear and deer. With the introduction of Zornish spices, many meals are always sure to be tasty as well as filling. The hold is also home to all the classical stonebread recipes that could be found all over the Karaz Ankor.
Unique Cooking
The Far North and more specifically the area around Kraka Drakk is home to a hearty tuber locally dubbed Durazkul. The plant was shown to have healing properties when consumed, which was discovered by the Gift Giver and the local Valaya cult. The plant was also discovered to be extremely stout, being able to grow in the poorest of mountain soil and even through the winter. Such a plant seemed like a blessing from the Ancestors themselves if not for one issue, Durazkul tasted little better than eating stone. So, while they could be used as a medically beneficial but unbelievably dull stew, there wasn't much appeal behind eating them on their own. While the cult of Valaya commissioned the local brewer's guild to make a brew from the plant. The chefs of Drakk took up the challenge to see if they could succeed in making a tasty meal of the Durazkul. Succeed they did as multiple recipes were created, such as Durazkul Chips , Durazkulbread and Durazkul Stew to name a few. The brewer's guild managed to make a brew from the stuff as well, tasteless but deceptively strong.
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Kraka Ornsmotek
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Reputation & History
Kraka Ornsmotek is a Hold that has been fighting off all the beasts and monsters the Far North has had since its inception. The Hold is also known for its Monster Wardens, rangers who specialise at hunting down beasts that would dare roam around their Hold. So, it would come to no surprise that such a Hold has a very steady supply of meat. Ornsmotek is called eagle's peak for a reason due to the fierce wind currents that batter the mountain, but such winds have another benefit. The cunning Dawi of Ornsmotek have been able to learn how to harness these winds to preserve their food. This has allowed for Ornsmotek to make jerkies and dry-aged meats at such a surplus that they can comfortably sell it as a trade good.
The chefs of the hold have become extremely skilled at cooking and preparing all manner of monsters that the foam their lands. This has led to the dawi in the hold having a very high meat-based diets even among other Dawi. The hold does import the majority of what little non-meat food stuffs it requires from other Holds, as the winds and thermals that lets Eagle's Peak dry their food so easily make the surrounding land unsuitable for farming.
Local Cooking
To the surprise of absolutely no one the local cooking of Kraka Ornsmotek is extremely heavy in meat. Whether it be in a stew, roasted or even dried, the dawi of Kraka Ornsmotek seem to greatly enjoy cooking with the stuff.
Unique Cooking
With the wide variety of monster that prowl the mountains around Kraka Ornsmotek, you can be sure that there are some truly strange beasts. You can only be sure that the dawi of Kraka Ornsmotek have also killed the thing before or are about to for the first time. After that you can be sure that an Ornsmotek dawi will be cooking up some of that monster meat.
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Kraka Ravnsvake
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Reputation & History
Kraka Ravnsvake is a hold that has been through a lot of changes and at a pace that would make many dawi grumble. It seems to many that if you look away from Kraka Ravnsvake for only a few centuries and then look back you find Elgi and Brana all over the place. Kraka Ravnsvake being a coastal hold means it the main point of connection with the Elgi for the Far North. The Kraka hosts an Elgi Embassy and docks for the Elgi boats. These Docks are an Elgi invention because those boats can't come onto land and have to stay in the water. So, it's a building built into the water and connecting to the land to allow ease of access for boats. There is also the Karazbinvarr Aerie of the Branakoki located near the Kraka. The Brana with the approval of the King of Ravnsvake made a new home for their people. Recently with the onset of the great war against the Fimir Kraka Ravnsvake is now home to a Dawi navy.
It is fair to say that the Dawi of Ravnsvake are no stranger to change and this can be seen in the cooking culture. The cooks of Ravnsvake seem to have experienced so much change recently that they can't seem to stop mixing things up. What would have been the norm for some chef might change a century later. Even the other dwarfs of the Far North find this odd, but nobody can critique their skill when it comes to cooking riverine fish and the heartiness and fortifying taste of their Stonebread, if one ignores the strange swirling, elgi-like designs often found on their loaves. Who knows how many more changes to the local cuisine will happen in time.
Kraka Ravnsvake is a hold that imports a fair number of foodstuffs from other holds, with it being mainly dried meats and preserved goods. Ravnsvake regularly trades salt in exchange for dried and cured meats from Ornsmotek. With the advent of ships and sailing, much of it is destined to supply the ships of the growing Dawi fleet, with expectations for that demand to only grow with the fleet.
Local Cooking
In Ravnsvake you can find plenty of taverns and bakeries serving meals that you could find all over the Karaz Ankor such as Troll stew and Boar roast for example. Dawi prefer eating red meat, but it doesn't stop them from enjoying some white meat from time to time. With the main example of this being fish and some birds they manage to catch, and while the Elgi have, on multiple occasions, assured the Dawi that oceanic fish is delicious when prepared properly few save the most foolhardy of beardlings even entertain the idea. The inhabitants of Ravnsvake have no interest in them compared to riverine fish, like mountain trout, that the Karaz Ankor have centuries of tradition behind catching and cooking. At the moment the dawi of Kraka Ravnsvake continue to cook with what they know; Fish (riverine), Crayfish and freshwater eels while the Elgi can keep their Fish (Oceanic), Lobsters and Saltwater eels.
Ravnsvake has multiple rivers near the hold where they have bountiful riverine fishing operations. While the harvest is plentiful, the hold never gathers enough to even begin exporting any and all production remaining in the local market. This has led to the cooks of the hold to make large amounts of fish dishes that would be much rarer around the far north. While the preference for fish is still nowhere near as popular as traditional red meat, who can tell how that would change if the dawi expanded their fishing operations to include the open sea and its bounty.
Unique Cooking
Although very very recently some could say that the Dawi of Kraka Ravnsvake have begun oceanic fishing. To which the Dawi of Kraka Ravnsvake would respond saying that they are not and are instead expanding their riverine fishing operation and if a fish is found both in the river and in the ocean, then it's a river fish and clear game. Salmon being a prime example of this for the dawi of the hold. This does lead to some dawi fishing ship sometime catching oceanic fish, they are either sold to the local Elgi or some adventurous beardling tries to cook something with it. But on the subject of the Elgi, Ravnsvake is one of the only places where dawi can try Elgi cuisine. This does occur usually as the result of a dare or losing a bet, but it does remain an option.
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Kraka Grom
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Reputation & History
The full history and details of what led to the founding of Kraka Grom are not completely relevant and can be found by those who deserve to know. A truly short summary is that the dawi that founded Kraka Grom originally come from a hold named Karag Dum. Karag Dum was founded around the same time as all the other Major Holds of the Far North but contact with the hold was lost after the Incursion. In 213 A.P. an expedition to Karag Dum was held to regain contact with the hold but what the expedition found was that Karag Dum was under siege by an unspeakable foe. While the expedition was successful in defeating the foe and rescued the dawi of Dum, the hold was deemed tarnished and destroyed with the inhabitants to go found another hold. If you were paying attention, you would know that it would go on to be named Kraka Grom.
Needless to say, the event had impacted the people of Kraka Grom which have led the inhabitants to be suspicious of all. Many dawi will be meet with suspicious looks when visiting Kraka Grom, the folks not very trusting even to their fellow dawi. The initial years after the founding the hold imported a large quantity of all manner of food and beverages that they had run out of during the siege and some of the folk had never had. This buying spree has calmed down over the centuries and have become to import at an expected rate. What has not changed is ever since the founding is the holds preference of buying food and goods from Clan Winterhearth traders. Some families to this day will only buy goods from Clan Winterhearth members and trust no other option. The Hold has dozens of decentralised siege stores scattered in secret caches across its depths and territory. Each one so large and well stocked that it would make a living ancestor boggle with the quantity compared to population. A leftover from the generations of near-starvation level subsistence their eldest endured.
All of this is reflected in the cooking traditions of Kraka Grom. Meals in Grom are a private affair and there are in fact very little public chefs in the Hold. To the folk of Grom, it requires a large amount of trust to eat the food prepared by another. So, most chefs are extremely private, trusted family members or thoroughly vetted private chefs for a single Clan, and makes it difficult to enjoy the local cuisine but not impossible. To successfully be a public cook is to be a member of highest standing and trust in the hold.
Local Cooking
Due to the limited number of public cooks that are available in the hold it is difficult to truly carve a mural of what the local cooking looks like. On the base level the cooking shares a lot of what one could expect from a hold in such an environment. A large majority of the meats used in cooking come from hunting the surrounding wilds for the local wildlife. So, expect a lot of wolf and troll meat in the meals.
A certain quirk of the cooking in Grom is the preference towards meals that keep well. There is a focus on stews and slow cooking that goes beyond the normal dawi sense of practicality. The meals found in Grom are very humble and you will rarely find dawi cooking with spices. The Dawi of Grom seem distrustful of cooking that use spices and do not trust things that could be added to meals that are not easily identifiable ingredients.
Unique Cooking
Kraka Grom is home to a large number of underground mushroom farms, the spores of which were brought with them from Dum, which can be found deep in the Hold in well-guarded areas. Alongside several traditional recipes passed from their time under occupation, the availability of the fungus means they are almost always found in Grom's dishes. The chefs of Grom seem to have found every method there is and then some for preparing mushrooms. Stews, roasted , boiled, pickled and even mushroom Stonebread, to name a few ways that Grom utilizes the plant. I heard rumour that a Brewing clan was even trying to make a drink from the mushrooms.
Despite its traditional prevalence, traditional importance and seeming universal ubiquity, the individual opinions on these Mushrooms vary from Dawi to Dawi; running the gamut from despisement, shame, and indifference, to forlorn fondness and appreciation. The oldest of the Hold's population, those who lived from the beginning of the betrayal especially, trend towards the negative end; viewing it as a reminder of the indignity and betrayal that suffuses everything from those times. For those born during the occupation and after the move to Grom, it trend towards the more positive associations. These younger Dawi see these dishes as a tradition they have eaten since they were babes, and they lack the firsthand negative association of their elders. If pressed to explain further, then they usually say it is also a way to connect to their past; a recognition of the struggles and sacrifices their ancestors made to survive until Vengeance was met against the Unbaraki by Gazul and Snorri Gift Giver.
━<><><>< Khazalid Trivia ><><><>━
The Grobar-gazan - The Evergreen field
AN: Welcome to Dawi Cooking lore that nobody asked for! I hope you all enjoy and please call out any spelling and grammers mistakes. Thank you to both
@soulcake for answering all my question when writing this and
@BungieONI for proofreading this for me.
