Tarentek smiled as he leaned forward, resting his arms on the table in front of him. "Well then, perhaps I should start with our food? There are some simpler, traditional dishes that go back to our city's founding, but in my opinion, the most interesting ones are those created more recently. The more trade we had with other cities, the more ingredients we could access from more places. My favorite dish involves ground meat, usually from our livestock, but you can usually substitute whatever kind of animal is on hand. Most will still taste fine. From there you mix in a selection of vegetables. Peas and carrots work well, or anything with a similar kind of taste. Lastly, it is all covered in your choice of cheese, also from our livestock, and placed inside of a sort of bowl made from a kind of layered bread. I wish I had some of these ingredients with me so I could show you myself how it is made. Some of it, especially the bread, I cannot really describe too well with words if you're not already familiar with it. Although, I might be able to take a look at the ingredients you have available and write down some recipes I know how to make from them." He suggested.

When thinking about all of the foods he had tried back in Amman, he realized that many were made from ingredients that Onyx's people might not have access to, though that did lead him into his next point of interest about the city. "Really, many parts our city were like that. Connected through trade, I mean, and not just of goods. Ideas were a commodity as valuable as gold to my people. They could be valued in much the same way as crops, metals, or anything you might sell in a marketplace. Of course, some ideas were bad ideas and ended up being worthless, but good ideas were well-rewarded. People from other places were sometimes surprised to see that we try to apply customs from other places to our own lives to see if they improved them. Evidently, some other settlements place great value on traditions and are reluctant to change them, but for us, I suppose you might say that finding new ideas [i]is[/i] our tradition. As I explained yesterday, knowledge and learning are central to our beliefs. Some cities and villages took offense to us using their customs, and I did hear some arguments from them that made sense to me about why they did not like it, but to refuse ideas that improved our lives would have been against our beliefs."