Barbarian Cuisine

Grains
Oats and rye are the primary grains of the Albian Isles and serve as basic staples of much its inhabitant's diet. Albians typically do not use ovens, rather grains are either served as porridge or milled into flour formed into cakes cooked on metal griddles, heated rocks or ashes themselves.

Rye is also used in the production of beer.

Produces
Few vegetables and fruits are intentional grown by Albians, rather most are simply foraged from the surrounding lands; these include mushrooms, asparagus, chickory, clover, fat hen, various seeds, berries, mosses, and herbs.

More the fertile flats of the southern isles who often see trade do grow some crop, including linseed, carrots, and turnips.

Apples are the only fruit purposefully grown, often in large orchards. Apples are rarely eaten raw, rather most are either cooked or turned into Cider.

Coastal Albians make use of several species of edible algae that grow on shores and rocks.

Animal Matter
The most important animal in Albian cuisine is the cow, especially valued for its milk and secondary products. Excess male calves are typically slaughtered at the start of winter and their meat salted for the months ahead. Mutton is a close second in popularity.

The most valued meats, however, are wild caught and include many species such as boar, deer, and many game birds. One's skill at hunting is a most valued and attractive trait.

Although the islands are surrounded by the sea, the Albians eat very little in the way of seafood, what fish is eaten is primarily caught from rivers rather than the sea.

Cooking Method
The Albian's main cooking is the metal cauldron, typically in bronze. With cauldrons, many soups, stews, and porridges are prepared, often in large quantities. A dedicated firepit rest at the center of most roundhouses that serves for both cooking and heating.

Albians do not make use of ovens. Things cooked outside of a cauldron are typically added onto spits, wooden sticks, or simply added onto hot ashes or the stone of the firepit.

Salt is cheap and plentiful in the Albian isles, allowing meats to be preserved easily.

Dining Etiquette
Albians eat primarily sitting down on the ground on fresh clean hay, or hides around the central firepit of a house. Food is typically split into smaller clay bowls or plates for each of the dinners. Albians primarily eat with their hands and daggers, or if one's meal does not allow for it, with small wooden spoons.

Drinking vessels are typically made of wood or horn.

Sacred laws of hospitality state that guests should always be served first and be given the most desirable piece of meat and drinks.

Individual Recipes

 * Bog Butter: Although first used as a preservation method, butter aged in a bog is considered somewhat of a delicacy by Albians due to its unusual taste.
 * Sowans: A fermented drink made from the discarded husks of oats.
 * Flummery: a soft semi-set dessert made of starch and milk, often served with berries for sweetness.
 * Beer: Made with rye and flavored with wild herbs, sometimes fruits or honey, is the alcohol of choice among the Albians.
 * Nettle Soup: a dish of the spring, made with young stinging nettles and flavored with buttermilk.
 * Blood Pudding: Made by mixing blood and finely ground oat or rye meal.
 * Sop: As a way to recycle leftover and offcuts, vegetables and meat scraps are boiled into a broth in which stale bread and cakes are dipped.

Nors Cuisine
Nors cuisine is highly varied depending on an individual tribe's method of subsistence; whether hunter, pastoralists or agriculturalists.

Grains
Grains are expensive due to the short growing season and cold weather making all but oats and rye difficult to grow and thus a rarer part of the local diet outside of the southern sea-warmed regions. Grains are typically baked into bread, cakes or porridges.

To extend their supplies of grain, dried seaweed, lichen, and edible bark is added by the poorer folks of Nordus.

Produce
Very few fruits and vegetables are intentionally grown within Nordus, rather most come from forage. Forage include berries, algae, mosses, grasses, tuber, stems, and roots. Vegetables that are grown are typically hardy fares such as cabbages and turnips.

Animal Matter
With its long coasts, many rivers, and large lakes, fish remain the protein of choice for most of the Nors peoples. Alongside fish, many crustaceans and shellfish are also consumed. Fishes are typically salted and left to dry on hanging racks to preserve them.

Nors of the inner lands rely more heavily on livestock or game such as deer, moose, reindeer, sheep, goat. Some birds such as puffins, duck, goose, pheasant, and grouse are also caught and eaten.

The Seal people that inhabit the frozen tundra of the far north add seal, walrus, and whale constitute a large part of their diet.

Among pastoralists, the milk of goats, sheep, and reindeer are widely used to supplement one's diet. Cheese, yogurt, and butter are particularly valued.

Cooking Methods
The Nors have little time for complex preparation and as such most dishes are prepared simply by tossing ingredients in a cauldron to be boiled together into soups, stews, and porridges. Cakes of grains are typically made into a small flatbread and cooked on hot stones.

Dining Etiquette
Nors dining is heavily structured among clan and family line, with the shamans and chief getting the best share, followed by warriors, and then by other members of the clan.

Pottery is not common among the Nors, as such most cooking and eating vessels are metal, soapstone, or wood.

Individual Recipes

 * Blot Stew: Eaten at religious sacrifices, a blot stew is a thick rich and hearty stew made from the ritually slaughtered animal and shared equally among all clan members. Those who cannot afford to sacrifice an animal offer herbs and other vegetables.
 * Hákarl: A type of normally poisonous shark, buried and left to ferment until somewhat gelatinous.
 * Akutaq: Made by the Seal people, Akutaq is a mix of animal fat and berries.
 * Kefir: Kefir is a fermented lightly alcoholic milk beverage.
 * Mead: Mead is an alcoholic beverage made from fermented honey.