Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Real Food

The Xala have tested some Kesatan food and managed to find some stuff I can eat. Now granted, they eat a lot of raw fish and sea food dressed with various seaweeds and such, but all that's better than those Xala powerbars every day. In fact it's really not so bad. Apparently the Kesatans are very good at cultivating and breeding. They serve everything with a combination of sea plants and spices they get from the land, even some fruit they grow on the coasts. The seaweed is a bit salty, usually, but they actually grow some mushrooms that are quite sweet. Besides that, I always liked crab a good bit, and they have some crustaceans that taste pretty much exactly like it.

Kesatans are apparently quite famous for their food. They've developed various recipes that are keyed to different species' tastes and physiology, but my yela'kajas tell me that they all have the same kinds of flavors (and their strong stomachs can handle most varieties, so they've tried a few). Yes, the Xala here eat the Kesatan stuff once in a while. Apparently they've grown accustomed to the stuff, though they usually have a Xala variety that goes light on the veggies and heavy on the fish -- yela'kaja can learn to like vegetables and fruit, but regular Xala are all carnivores. From what I hear, the fact that Xala even tolerate spices once in a while is a departure from the culture on Jed.

All this said, the Xala are watching me pretty closely after I eat Kesatan food. They assure me that they've found nothing in the stuff that they're giving me that would poison me, but they want to be cautious. As far as I'm concerned, nothing has had an ill effect so far. Kesatan food's probably good for any human that doesn't have a seafood allergy.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I like the one about food and cuisine.

Have you ever read "Useful Phrases for the Tourist"? Which includes such things as "That is my companion. It is not intended as a tip."?