Erbonian cuisine

The cuisine of Great Nortend is a cuisine influenced by the diverse regions and peoples of Great Nortend. Many Erbonian dishes consist of cooked meat or vegetables or both along with a sauce, which is usually served separately. Spices other than pepper, nutmeg, cloves, saffron, cinnamon and carpepper are not commonly used, but fresh herbs are used plentifully.

The cuisine is highly regional; however, can be broadly characterised into three main styles—Southern, Medden and Hambrian. Seasonal and local produce are also highly important, especially as refrigeration is not common. The fasting days such as those in Lent, Advent and on all Fridays throughout the year also have influenced Erbonian cuisine, such that there are numerous recipes for meat-free or fish-based dishes suitable to be served thereupon.

Styles

Since the 16th or 17th centuries, the Most Honourable Compagnie of Cooks, a guild of Lendert-with-Cadell, have controlled much of the “high cookery” of Great Nortend, and its master cooks were and still are the only cooks permitted to be employed in the royal kitchens. The food of the royal court is highly influential to this day, and has always featured regional specialities from the various provinces and counties of the country.

Though consistently aimed for by the middling class burgesses, the royally-sanctioned style of high cookery was not reasonably attainable thereby until the publication of “A Guide to the Mystery of Cookery” by George Marflet, the Master of Cookery to the Duke of Alvington, Henry de Leavil, in 1856, which systematically instructed household cooks and housewives on the techniques and methods of high cookery adapted to the traditional regional 'commoner' cuisines. With increasing literacy and education, this has percolated to the working classes who, although content to cook in the peasant fashion throughout the week, often make a greater effort on Sundays and holidays in the higher styles.

Meal structure

Three meals a day has been the standard in Great Nortend since the 19th century, although the name of the meals, their contents and their time differ. A light breakfast is usually eaten in the morning, with a moderate luncheon in the middle of the day and a heavy dinner in the early evening. On Sundays and other feast days, a light breakfast is taken later in morning after church, followed by a heavy dinner in the early afternoon and a moderate supper in the evening.