Revisiting Rations, Part 5: Wild Elf

Revisiting Rations, Part 5: Wild Elf

Looks good, doesn't it?  And yes, this is a hot meal (and a cold dessert), but let's get into it.

You see, I don't see Wild Elves as having taverns per se.  That sort of eating establishment just doesn't mesh with the way I view Wild Elves.  Your mileage may vary, of course.  So, instead of that, I made a "quick-to-cook" meal using whole ingredients that provides a very thematic and pretty darned delicious example of Wild Elf cooking.

And, for those of you playing along at home, a LOT of this comes from Townsends.  And yes, it is very heavily influenced by Native American cooking.

Basically, what we have here is a succotash or stew (it's hard to decide) with pemmican, parched corn, broken beans, acorn squash, onions, sweet potato, and carrot, alongside akutaq and a mixed berry wine.

Succotash (Or Stew?)

Here's most of the ingredients that went into the succotash.  There's pemmican in the bowl along with parched corn and lima beans that I ground in a mortar (to make this cook quicker).

Pemmican

Pemmican is a mixture of dried meat, dried berries, and rendered fat, all mixed up and delicious.  This particular batch was made ages ago and is still delicious and hugely high-calorie.  It is beef with blueberries and cranberries and then mixed with equal weight of rendered tallow.  I seriously love this stuff.  Pemmican can be eaten on its own, but it's better cooked with potatoes and onions in my opinion.

Parched Corn

So I wanted to do a Three Sisters-style meal, but I was worried about corn taking so darned long to cook.  The answer:  parch it!  I used generic popcorn, heated it slowly in a pot full of salt, then removed the kernels (popped or not) from the salt and ground them up.  This can be eaten on its own, or mixed with water into a gruel, but it's not the tastiest thing in the world.

Broken Beans

Same basic principle here.  I wanted to add beans to the meal, but wanted them to cook quickly.  Nobody's going to be impressed with a 2-hour cook time for a trail meal, after all.  I just ground up the baby lima beans until I was satisfied and called it good.

Hardtack

No weevils in this one (and yes, I checked).  Hardtack or ship's bisket is basically flour and water with perhaps a little salt, baked twice until it's as hard and delicious as a brick.  Here, it was broken up (with a hammer, seriously) and added to the succotash to form dumplings.

Veggies

Acorn squash (this is a Three Sisters succotash), onion, carrot, and sweet potato.  Mostly orange, all delicious.

SECRET INGREDIENT!

I couldn't show this in the original pics because I don't want to get my pretty cloth even more messy, but I used a little bit of portable soup to flavor things up.  This was made by boiling beef bones down to a gelatin, which was then air-dried.  Think of it as old-timey bouillon cubes.

Final Result

This was seriously awesome.  The butternut squash was simply delicious and the other veggies complimented it nicely.  The corn, beans, and pemmican became sort of "lost" in the broth, but provided thickness and flavor.  This is probably one of those recipes I'm going to do again.

Akutaq

Bright pink fluffiness!  This is really good as well, and very shelf-stable.  Akutaq is also known as Eskimo ice cream (or a dozen variations thereof).  It is a blend of fat (traditionally animal, but here I used Crisco), sugar or honey, and various meat or fruits.  I have used blackberries, raspberries, and some cranberry juice to make this.  While I prefer it cold, it's definitely edible at room temperature.  Also, it's got a TON of calories.  Keep that in mind.

Mixed Berry Wine

I swear the glass looked cleaner in real life.  This is a simple fermentation of a bottle of mixed berry juice drink.  It's lightly alcoholic and goes well with the succotash and akutaq.

How Long Will it Last?

So, this is going to be a fun little story.  I made the pemmican, hardtack, and portable soup last year and they're still good.  The akutaq will eventually mold if the fruits are exposed, but the fat will help prevent that.  Basically, the only risk is that your veggies will spoil, and they were chosen for being hard to spoil.  Unlike the other rations, this one requires active cooking, but it's safe to say you can keep it with you over the course of your typical LARP event without issue.