[center][h1][b]Ma'otah's Village[/b][/h1][/center]

Tolamu's people had always been filled with artistic kinds, or so he'd been told. Even before Ma'otah had met the One That Lay Beneath, and secured a steady supply of never-before-seen crafting materials, they had been creating jewelry and paintings and pottery whenever the time and supplies permitted.

The search for beauty was important. Desirable. A worthy goal to dedicated yourself to. And yet, and yet! They were oh so shortsighted about it. Too focused on the permanent, on what could be held and passed down, and not enough on the fleeting beauty of the [i]experiential[/i].

Yes, in this village where the sounds of metalsmiths' whistling and humming in time with their swings filled the streets, where great riches adorned every body in sight, where houses too were a subject of beautification, they were still content to feed themselves with charred roots and bland stews.

But not Tolamu. No, not him. [i]He[/i] was different. [i]He[/i] would not stand for this swill. And though it might make him an outcast (it wouldn't) and draw the ire of those who did not understand his lofty goals (that wouldn't happen either), Tolamu was set on revolutionizing his people's food. No, not just the food, but their entire understanding of what food even [i]is[/i] in the first place!

He started his grand culinary quest very simply; by studying what food they already ate. It was roots, mostly. White and red starchy tubers made up a good chunk of their diet; they were filling, easy to grow and easy to collect. Various leaves and the occasional fruit followed, for much of the same reasons. Tallgrass seeds could also be eaten, either boiled whole or ground into coarse powder first, but were not especially tasty, though useful to thicken broths.

Meat was also common, but much less so: hunting was difficult and dangerous. Taking down an antelope was often not worth the effort and risk of injuries, especially when trapping already got them a few game birds or rabbits everyday. Meat also spoiled quickly in the heat, and had to be eaten fast.

As for the real rarities, they were honey and eggs, especially the unfertilized ones. If hunting for birds was tricky, [i]finding[/i] their tiny nests in the brush and collecting whatever eggs might still be within was even harder. They were a rare treat, more often the accidental results of gatherers getting lucky and stumbling upon them than anything else.

Same with honey: the stinging insects protecting it were dangerous, and honey nests were pretty few in the first place, but at least it kept for a long time once put in a jar. They had even managed to make a small reserve, for use in case of burns or injuries.

In the end, he came away with three main problems with the available ingredients: a lack of variety, bland flavors, and the scarcity of the actually interesting ones. Basically, everything was too boring!

No wonder every meal ended up bland if the ingredients themselves were bad to begin with! He could feel something within him, like an inner fire, flare brighter at the thought. He could fix this, he could be [i]different.[/i]

He began his search for new flavors by picking flowers. Animals ate them, so surely they had to have some culinary merit. Unfortunately, upon tasting, most turned out even blander than boiled white tubers, though some had a very faintly sweet aftertaste. One in particular elicited a light tingling on the tip of his tongue, and he kept it aside for now. But overall, it seemed that flowers were better at looking pretty than tasting interesting.

Tolamu's experiments continued similarly. He tasted everything, every fruit and every plant he could find that he did not know for sure was poisonous. He tasted tree bark and tree sap, carefully peeled fruit skins and boiled green wood, unknown mushrooms and dried medicinal roots. Some were success; one tree's bark, when peeled thin and dried, gave off a spicy scent, and a root used against nausea gave a most delicious aroma to poultry soup. Most, though, were failures. More than once he had to combat terrible stomach aches as he ate something that wasn't edible, fell victim to Grog Tree sap's paralyzing effects, and one time slept for three entire days after eating what could only have been a terribly poisonous mushroom.

These spices, as he'd started to call them, were a large part of what was missing to food, he'd decided. With the proper mix, even the blandest ingredient could shine. But he wasn't satisfied yet. No, he couldn't. He had fixed half of the problem, had given variety and flavor, but some ingredients were still beyond his grasp. How could he rest easy without being able to use all of his potential? His inner fire blazed at the thought: he could not let this rest.

Tolamu spent weeks looking for a solution. He'd first considered learning where the birds nested, only for that idea to be crushed once he realised that the partridge he'd been following simply abandoned her nest once it was compromised. He thought about getting them to nest near the village, but let that idea go just as quickly as it had came: those birds ran away as soon as they heard something coming, so why would they ever willingly go near?

...

What if they didn't [i]willingly[/i] come near? At least, at first. Tolamu thought about it long and hard. It would be easiest if the birds nested near. They won't come by themselves, but if they have no way of leaving, then they would [i]have[/i] to nest in the village. Catching some partridges alive would be tricky, but doable. Getting them to stay... well, he could... build them a house?

He got to work an evening, weaving branches into waist-high walls forming a square enclosure. He'd also taken the time to stack a few bricks, making a small square house for the birds to hide from the Great Fire. He'd even woven a nest from tallgrass, trying to make it as cosy as he could. Once he was satisfied, he grabbed a net, and went to hunt.

On the first day, he didn't even see a single bird. On the second, the same thing happened. On the third, he saw a small female flee into the brush, but never managed to find her. It took 6 entire days for him to catch a single bird, a plump female partridge that kept screaming until he released her in his enclosure. He did not leave her alone then, though. Partridges might not soar like vultures and eagles, but they were still birds, and could still fly. So, he grabbed his new quarry and his sharpest paring knife, and delicately snipped off every flight feather at their halfway point.

Satisfied that she could no longer escape, he went to bed, exhausted, and dreamt of an unlimited supply of delicious, nutritious [i]eggs[/i].

It took a few days for the bird to start laying. Tolamu took good care of her, giving her fresh water and a bowl of tallgrass seeds everyday. He'd also managed to catch two more birds, whose wings he'd also clipped. Company, and time, had seemed to be the key to getting the birds to adjust to their new surroundings. Little brown spotted eggs appeared one day in one of the nests, and Tolamu knew he'd succeeded. He grabbed them all and rushed to the nearest cooking fire.

Everyone knew and enjoyed eggs boiled in their shells, as was the classic way of preparing them. Tolamu, however, wanted to mix things up. Literally.

Through a burst of what he could only describe as burning divine inspiration, he grated a few white tubers on a coarse stone, and mixed the resulting fine mush in a bowl with a few dollops of honey. He added some spoonfuls of ground tallgrass seeds, a pinch of ground cinnamon bark, cracked a few eggs to add to the mixture, and mixed until he ended up with a thick batter. Finally he got out his latest innovation, something he'd commissioned from the metalsmiths: a flat copper plate, with risen edges and a handle, which they'd called a "pan".

Tolamu put a small lump of rendered animal fat in it, then on the fire it went. Once the bottom was coated with melted animal fat, the batter was poured in, and left to cook. The food started smelling good, the half-cooked batter was flipped, and left alone until both side became golden, and then everything was taken off the fire.

Tolamu looked in awe at his culinary masterpiece, the fruit of his singular genius. It used all that he had worked for, the new ingredients, the old ones, the new cooking methods. It was the first step into a new era of cooking, the first spark of true culinary beauty.

It was... a "pancake".

[hider=Summary]
Tolamu is a member of Ma'otah's tribe, who is strangely obsessed over cooking (as he unknowingly carries a Spark for it). He can't stand the simple, bland potato-based meals that everybody else eats day after day, so he goes off to search for new, more exciting ingredients and flavors.

Through thorough experimentation, he manages to a couple different spices, but also mildly poisons himself a few times doing it, and even enters a short coma after eating raw lullaby shrooms, which he deems poisonous.

Not satisfied, he wants to secure a steady supply of rarer, already known ingredients, specifically eggs. He build an enclosure, and after many tries, manages to capture 3 live female partridges. He clips their wings so that they don't fly away and feeds them daily, until they get somewhat used to human presence and begin laying unfertilized eggs again. This is the beginning of the domestication of landfowl.

With his new ingredients in hand, Tolamu mixes together a potato-based batter, and creates the first pancake.
[/hider]