Please welcome author Krista D Ball to the Nook today. I've known Krista for several years; she was one of the first authors I worked with when I started blogging and reviewing. We chat on twitter occasionally and I've read most of her published works. While she usually writes speculative fiction, she recently put her history degree, and her intense dislike of historical inaccuracies, to work in her new, non-fiction, book "What Kings Ate and Wizards Drank: A Fantasy Lover's Guide to Food".
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In 2011, I
was asked to write an unique kind of writer's guide: one that
helps writers, appeals to readers, and is historically-based. It was a tall
order, as how can a writer's guide appeal to people who never have any interest
in writing? What came from those initial thoughts was my current non-fiction book,
"What Kings Ate and Wizards Drank: A Fantasy Lover's Guide to Food."
"What Kings Ate" is written for writers, but
chats away at readers who love historical romance, historical fiction, steampunk,
and epic fantasy. In the pages, we learn how our favourite heroines
would feed herself while on the run, and what food gifts a hero could give his
poor lady friend.
Of course, no historical book about food would be complete
without recipes, and I included over thirty recipes for people to enjoy from
different periods of history. Some are pretty standard: the original pound
cake. Whereas, others are, well, more like the below.
There is a typical
reaction to this dish, so let’s get it out of the way: Ewwwwwwwwwwww. This
is followed by: cods have tongues? (I second both of these reactions ~ Bea)
Now that is out of the
way, let’s discuss this interesting dish. To answer the common
question, yes, cod fish do in fact have tongues. They resemble skinned
and deboned chicken thighs in size and colour, though they are thinner (about
the size of three coins stacked). (Why is it that every unusual or exotic food resembles chicken? ~ Bea)
Fried cod tongues is a
common Newfoundland dish, cooked both at home and in restaurants. You
can sometimes even find them served up at the local “chip truck”, a
battered old delivery van converted into a mobile restaurant where burgers,
French fries, and other fatty goodness is served.
Cod tongues are
(obviously) the tongue of a cod fish, pan fried. You can also do
the same with cod cheeks (yes, cods have cheeks). I prefer tongues as
I find cheeks are a little too rubbery for my tastes. Cod tongues are
chewy, but have a delicate flavour.
For obvious reasons, this
is a dish that only those living in coastal regions are going to have
regular access to in a pre-refrigeration society. In fact, even in the
modern world, this isn’t a common dish beyond the cod fish waters of
the North Atlantic. I’ve rarely seen cod tongues elsewhere, including at specialty
seafood shops, since leaving Newfoundland. However, if you can get a few
shipped in, cook up a “feed” (lots of food) and enjoy a new food.
1 ½ cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
½ tsp pepper
½ pound salt pork
Cod tongues
Wash enough fresh cod
tongues for your meal (the usual serving is eight tongues per person).
Dry them on a cloth or paper towel.
In a bowl, combine flour,
salt, and pepper and mix together. Set aside.
Cut up salt pork and fry
it up until golden brown. Remove the pork cubes for another use (or
you can even use them as a topping if you need an extra-hardy meal).
Coat the tongues in the
flour mixture one by one. Fry them in the hot pork fat until golden
brown on both sides. Place them on a warm plate with a cloth or paper
towel to soak up any excess fat. Serve immediately, or place in a warm
oven (or, a cooling bread oven) if needed.
A well-organized cook
would ensure that the pan drippings from a previous meal needing salt
pork (not the actual fat pieces) would be saved so that it would be
available as a frying fat later in the week.
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Publisher: Tyche Books
Release date: November 1, 2012
Format: ebook (out now), print (soon)
Buying Links: Amazon Smashwords Tyche Books Kobo
Book Blurb (from author):
Equal
parts writer’s guide, comedy, and historical cookbook, fantasy author
Krista D. Ball takes readers on a journey into the depths of epic
fantasy’s obsession with rabbit stew and teaches them how to catch the
blasted creatures, how to move armies across enemy territories without
anyone starving to death, and what a medieval pantry should look like
when your heroine is seducing the hero.
Learn
how long to cook a salted cow tongue, how best to serve salt fish, what
a “brewis” is (hint: it isn’t beer), how an airship captain would make
breakfast, how to preserve just about anything, and why those dairy
maids all have ample hips.
What
Kings Ate will give writers of historical and fantastical genres the
tools to create new conflicts in their stories, as well as add
authenticity to their worlds, all the while giving food history lovers a
taste of the past with original recipes and historical notes.
