Sounds like a cool idea, only I have no clue on how to create recipes of my own. Maybe Genisis will be able to come up with something.

Yalahii.

Alright. Let's make a Qanuc meal to start out with. Let's get into the Qanuc's mind set, culture, and habitat. It's a snowy, cold place they live in and they are on the move through the mountain passes quite a bit.

If I were a Qanuc trying to survive in the mountains, I'd probably do some hunting. It would have to be an easy kill and something easy to cook over a fire - a rabbit perhaps? I've heard mixed feelings on the taste of rabbit, bony from some or tastes like chicken from others. Basically, an easy kill and an easy fry over the fire.

I think it would make the most sense to create some sort of Qanuc stew, served with either some of their tea - I forget what they put in it - and some bread and cheese. Now, lets try and figure how we can make this dish feel like something Binabik would make for Simon and Miriamele while they traveled.

wasn't it butter and salt in the tea?
I've got the feeling they do that somewhere in the Himalayas, too. Maybe looking at recipes from similar areas would be a good starting point?

Po Cha ( Tibetan Butter Tea )

Chatung Ingredients:
Water
Plain black tea (in bags or loose)
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup milk or 1 teaspoon milk powder
Materials: One churn, blender, or large drink container with a tight lid.

Tibetan butter tea , po cha, is the most typical Tibetan drink. People who know about Tibetans know what po cha tastes like. In Tibet many people drink it all day long because it heats them up.

In Tibet, the process of making butter tea takes a long time and is pretty complicated. People use a special black tea that comes from an area called Pemagul in Tibet. The tea comes in bricks of different shapes, and we crumble off some tea and boil it for many hours. We save the liquid from the boiling and then whenever we want to make tea, we add some of that liquid, called chaku, to our boiling water.

Lucky for us, it is much easier to make po cha outside of Tibet. Four main things are needed to make our tea. You need: any kind of plain black tea (both bags and loose tea are okay), salt, butter and milk or milk powder. (You can use any kind of milk you want, though I think the full fat milk is the best, and sometimes I use Half and Half, which is half cream and half milk.) Most Tibetan people who live outside of Tibet use Lipton tea, or some kind of plain black tea.

This po cha recipe is for four people, more or less.
First boil five to six cups of water, then turn down the fire. Put two bags of tea or one heaping tablespoon of loose tea in the water and boil again for a couple of minutes. Take out the tea bags or if you use loose tea, strain the tea leaves. Pour your tea, one quarter of a teaspoon of salt, two tablespoons of butter, and a half cup of milk or a teaspoon of milk powder into a chandong, which is a kind of churn. Please see the picture, in which we are using a plastic churn. Since churns are kind of rare outside of Tibet, you can do what some Tibetans do, which is to use any big container with a lid, so you can shake the tea, or you can just use a blender, which works very well. Churn, blend or shake the mixture for two or three minutes. In Tibet, we think the po cha tastes better if you churn it longer. Serve the tea right away, since po cha is best when it's very hot.

I found a tibetan noodle soup recipe, but I think afterwards, once we have all the recipies found, we should put a little creative twist to them. That way, it won't feel like it came from Earth, but from Osten Ard and in the Qanuc regions.

Thenthuk ( Tibetan Noodle Soup )

"Thenthuk" ten-took (n) : A typical Tibetan noodle soup that keeps the nomads warm during those long Tibetan winters. You can make it either with vegetables or meat. In Tibetan "then" means pull and "thuk" means noodles.Lobsang is pulling dough

The Dough

The dough is very important for this noodle soup. It needs to sit for fifteen or twenty minutes so that it can become flexible and easy to pull.

   1.

      If you want to make "Thenthuk" for two people, put two heaping handfuls of all-purpose flour in a pot and add about half a cup of water.

   2. Mix the flour and water very well by hand and keep adding water until you can make a smooth ball of dough. Then knead the dough very well until the dough is flexible. You want it thick enough that it will stretch when pulled.

   3. Separate the dough into pieces about half as big as big as your fist, and roll the dough between your hands. Make the shape like bananas, or wedges. Then put oil on your hand and roll the pieces between your hands again so they won't stick together.

   4. Put the wedges in a plastic bag or in a pot and put a lid to cover the dough so it doesn't dry out.

The Broth

Now the dough is prepared and you can start the broth.

   1.

      Chop half an onion, a small piece of ginger, a clove of garlic, and one small tomato. If you want to use meat, cut 1/4 or half pound of any kind of meat into thin bite-size slices. (free range, please....ed.)
   2.

      Fry everything in two tablespoons of oil for three or four minutes, or until the meat is cooked well. Add a pinch of chicken, beef or vegetable bouillon, a dash of salt, and few shakes of soy sauce.
   3.

      Add about five cups of water to the pot. At this time, you can add one potato or daikon, which is a Japanese radish. If you want to use the daikon, slice it thinly. After that wash it in water with a little bit of salt. That way, the daikon won't taste so strong. If you want to use the potato just slice it thinly and put it in the pot.
   4.

      While you are cooking, chop 1/4 of a bunch of cilantro, two green onions, and 1/4 bunch of spinach.

The Throw-down

   1.

      When the broth starts to boil, you can add the dough. Take a wedge of dough and roll it between your hands so it gets a little longer. Flatten it with your fingers. Then pull the dough off in little flat pieces as long as your thumb and throw them in the pot. See how fast you can pull off the noodles... ("I hear the people in Amdo can do it really fast." - Tenzin)
   2.

      When all the noodles are in the pot, cook it for an additional three or four minutes. After that, you can put in the cilantro and spinach. They don't need to cook, really, so you can serve the soup immediately. Before you serve the "Thenthuk" make sure that the taste is right for you. Enjoy your food and sweat because it really makes you warm!

How about some deermeat for the stew then?

And Genesis, do you know the recipe for Tibetan Bread, or something like it?

Alright. And I thought this over for a while and decided, instead of a soup or stew, I think it best to have some jerky recipies. That way, we can feel like a real Qanuc traveller, one that might not have time to make a fire to cook, so relies on some dried meat instead.

And nobody can pass up Venison Jerky.

Wouter van den Berg wrote:

"Comfit, feuiletee"

You Yankees are funny ;-P The right words, of course, are "confit" and "feuilletee".

Canard (duck) confit is really nice, and actually duck / goose fat is (apparently) not as unhealthy as some think. Better than butter even!

Anyway, as I imagine Tad had some similarities in mind between peoples from 'our world' and some from Osten Ard the food should also be similar. So Nabban could be Italian or rather Roman food, Rimmersgard and Hernystir food should be more Medieval british/Scandinavian and Erkynland definitively british. (Where are the French? :-)

Not this book, of course, but there IS a Discworld cookbook which I rather enjoyed (and seem to have lost while moving house).

I'm most defineately not American. Doesn't mean I can splel any better, but I'm defineately not American ;)

I know how to make it and how to say it and that's about all I need really.

As for where is all the French food in tads books, well, most 'traditional' french food is actually dreived from Italian and other european cuisine.

-X

Are we going to settle on an official recipe to start out with?

Hmmm...Genesis, do you think it would be easy to come up with a good way of making that Noodle Soup to fit Binabik's style? And maybe have some Butter Tea to go with it.

While we're at it, as Binky indicates, the Qanuc are probably more likely to be akin to the Inuit or Sami cultures than to Tibetans. The sami, in particular, make their living from sheep (and reindeer) herding.

Speaking of recipes *glaring at Gen and tapping foot in a menacing manner, one hand tugging on her braid*