Tastes Like Heresy

by Bugsydor

Chapter 3: Archive Binge

Okay, back. Where was I again? Oh yeah, I'd been looking out over my soon-to-be new home and failing to take inspiration from that. That, and staring with morbid curiosity at a swamp.

Anyhow!

At this point, I'd exhausted two out of three routes of possible culinary inspiration. Talking to my fellow unicorns was a bust. Going up the tower and enjoying the view was nice, but it didn't take me anyplace I'd never been before. That left perusing the archives for inspiration the next morning.

The archives are an intimidating place. They're built into an enormous cave carved out of the mountaintop a small ways below the palace. The ceiling is so high, you could almost fit that tower I was just talking about standing straight up. The archival cavern started out as just a quarry to mine stone for the palace, but Clover the Clever had other ideas. Ideas about learning and preserving knowledge.

Emphasis on the preservation. I mean seriously, do you have any idea how seriously the archivists take preserving records? They will strip-search everypony who passes through the great portals into the archives on the off chance they were dumb enough to smuggle in any food messier than a narrow-mouthed water bottle. If they're feeling suspicious that day, they'll comb through your mane (and, if you're fluffy enough, your coat) to make sure you aren't hiding anything in there, either. Then they repeat the process on the way out to make sure you aren't trying to take anything home with you. Can't have those precious tomes leave the clean, cold, dry darkness of the archives and have them exposed to sunlight, moisture, magic, or, Topaz forbid, food, after all!

Food isn't the only thing banned, though. Here's a brief list of things that'd get you thrown out of the archives if they catch you with them, just to give you an idea:

*Food
*Juice
*Hot tea
*Iced tea
*Booze that looks close enough to water
*Improperly bottled water
*Dirt
*Torches
*Things to light torches with
*Magelight gems
*Gems that could conceivably be enchanted to give off light
*Dirt
*Noisemakers
*Pets
*Books from outside
*Familiars
*Disease
*Did I mention dirt?

You get the idea. They recently started allowing bags of holding, but you're usually better off not bringing one if you can avoid it. They will search every last nook and cranny of it on entry and exit, and they will find whatever contraband has been stashed there. A number of ponies, especially students, like to take advantage of the archivists' fastidiousness if they've lost anything in their bags. Or if they just need a really thorough combing and don't have the money for a salon visit.

They don't allow you to use much of any magic, either. Topaz help you if they catch you doing anything more interesting than levitating a notebook or pencil. If they catch you once, they'll let you off with a warning and several minutes worth of a stern talking-to. Once you're on the list of past offenders, though, your next use of unauthorized magic gets The Cone of Shame stuck on your horn for the duration of your stay. The Cone of Shame is a fluorescent orange magic-suppressing sheath that they slip over your horn. It's nearly impossible to remove without magic.

Did I mention the archives are cold and dark? Since it's filled with flammable material they want to keep in one piece, they don't allow any fire for heat or light. For light, they use just enough low-power magelight gems for you to see your own hoof in front of your face, complemented by dim magelight gem lanterns in the reading rooms so that ponies can actually read the books. Something about too much light damaging the books and such. Also, there being no fires, sunlight, or heat gems means it's even colder inside than out if you ignore windchill. You can tell the first-timers by their lack of parkas. If I saw one such poor soul, I'd offer them some tea. Except, y'know, there's no way to get any into the archives.

So I managed to enter the cold, dark, dry cave without undue incident, and even got a nice combing out of the deal. I waltzed up to a librarian, and he greeted me before I could properly hail him.

“Ah, hello Miss...” began the proactive librarian.

“Spice. I'm the royal chef, Miss Spice.”

"Well, Miss Spice, what can I help you with? Looking for an old cookbook with a favorite recipe from his highness's childhood? We do have a few of those In the archives."

Now, I'd already looked through every cookbook in the kingdom and under it. This isn't so much because I am an avid reader as it is because there just aren't all that many of them to begin with. That said, I still needed some inspiration, and I had an idea where to find it. A vague idea, at least.

"No, thank you. The King gets his favorite childhood dish every other Thursday evening, so I doubt I need a refresher. I'm afraid I'm looking for something a little more exotic. I want to see whatever you can find regarding outlandish cuisine that isn't a cookbook."

At this point, his eyes glazed over and twitched rapidly side-to-side for a couple of seconds, as if he were reviewing a swiftly scrolling list. Then he reported, "I know just what to get you! Please report to reading room 2B. I'll meet you there in several minutes."

And with that, he bolted into the archive chambers with unseemly haste. I never could get used to the librarians.

I reported to reading room 2B as directed, waited a few minutes, and, lo and behold, the same librarian from before pulled up to the door with a small wagon filled with various titles that more-or-less fit my description.

"In this cart, I bear every book you've asked for, from Australian Bounties to Why Watermelons Are Wonderful, and a gem lantern to read them by. Also, there's a Marium-Withers Unabridged Dictionary and a set of the Encyclopedia Unicornia for when you run into unfamiliar terms." I'll give the librarian this much: he sure was thorough.

"Is there anything else you need?" he queried with a hopeful smile.

"No, thank you, that will be all."

I'd scarcely stopped speaking when he dashed back to help the next patron in line. Can't fault his efficiency, either.

Now I had a problem. I had tens of tomes, and only a few hours before I needed to cook the royal lunch. I knew of only one way to deal with such situations—

"Eeny, meeny, miney... moe!"

Shut up. It's not like you would have done much better.

I had no idea at the time, but that little "moe" had sealed my fate. He is the one I'm blaming for getting me banished. Had he let my hoof drift a bit to the side, I'd probably be at The Amber Mare right now, celebrating an end to the culinary doldrums I'd been wallowing in for so long. But what has happened, has happened. Moe betrayed me, and now I'm being exiled on charges of xenophilic heresy. Next time someone wants to ask moe for advice, I'll tell them moe can sit on his own horn and spin.

That seemingly innocuous book that moe pointed me to? It was titled Ancient Earth Pony Customs and Culture. At the time, I thought it meant customs of ponies from our ancient homeland, or that the ponies were just well grounded. I mean, why on Earth would a librarian get me a book on mud ponies? Because I'd asked for it, apparently...

'Well,' I thought to myself, 'best get cracking.'

And so I cracked open the tome to the table of contents, flipped to the section on cooking, foods, and culinary practices, (which was big enough to be its own book, in my opinion), and began to read.

—^*^*^—

Now I'm only as big of an egghead as the next unicorn, but there are some things that I legitimately geek out over. Mainly, I have a thing for precise alchemical equipment and using it in my cooking. I blame my upbringing at the hooves of a brewer and a baker.

You see, brewing and baking require a lot more precision than anypony gives them credit for. Golden Brown (aka Dad) Would tell me that if I wanted my honeyed oat bread to turn out with just enough spring and fluff, I'd need to balance the wet and dry ingredients, add the proper amount of yeast, and a get thousand other details juuust right. And if you want to measure any sort of compactable powder (e.g. flour), precision means weighing your ingredients.

Actually, talking about it all like this is going to take forever. Maybe it'd be easier if I just listed out my unusual implements and what they're for as I pack them. I don't care if you think I'm weird for packing cookware for exile. Sometimes a pony needs some things.

*Triple beam balance

*For measuring powdered ingredients, etc.

*Mortar & pestle

*Nothing quite beats these for crushing and grinding things.

*Brewer's thermometer

*A gift from Mom from when I left the nest. Brewers like her need really accurate thermometers, and they aren't cheap to commission. They're pretty solid for any other kind of cooking, too.

*Graduated beakers

*So much more precise for liquid ingredients than plain old measuring cups.

*Glass stirring rods

*Easy to clean, and great for stirring hot things. Not just for stirring, either. I don't know how everypony else goes about pouring liquids without them...

The real gem that I'll have out in exile, though, I don't have on me just yet. They understandably don't trust prisoners with knives, so they'll be presenting it to me as part of the banishment ceremony. This isn't just any knife, though. This is a multipurpose survival knife. Apparently, these things are standard issue to unicorns getting exiled to the wilderness. That'd explain how it earned the name "Blade of the Banished." And ponies call me overdramatic...

Back on topic, the blade itself is fairly impressive. Allow me to illustrate:

It's just a bit longer than my horn from end to end. Both the inside and outside of the crescent are sharp enough to cut with, from the pointed tip almost to the hammer-like knob on the other end.

The outside edge is used for slicing and chopping, and it's serrated close to the heavy end for sawing through whatever it can't slice. The inside edge is more for reaping grasses and such. Any unicorn, even an exile, has too much dignity to eat off the ground like some dumb horse, after all.

One tip of the blade comes to a sharp point in case I need to pierce something. Or stab something... Okay, I don't want to think about that anymore. The other end of the knife has a heavy knob that has a flat face for crushing and bludgeoning. Most of its mass is concentrated here to make pounding the stuffing out of things easier.

Still keeping my mortar & pestle, though. I stand by what I said.

They gave me the sharpening kit ahead of time. Probably because

a) It's not as dangerous

b)It isn't anywhere nearly as glamorous to publicly present to the soon-to-be exile as the Blade of the Banished itself.

Anyhow, the kit consists of a whetstone to grind the blade on, some animal fat to lubricate it, and a patch of leather to strop the blade to a keen edge.

Admittedly, the knife is one of the better redeeming bits of being banished from Unicornia.

—^*^*^—

Okay, now where was I...

Oh yeah! I was about to relate to you just what was so Earth-shattering about that book. As much as I wish to have the moe that chose this book burn eternally in Tartarus for getting me banished, I must admit that this book led to the greatest adventure I've had in my life. This book introduced me to the magical world of fried food.

What is fried food, you might ask? I'll get to that.

So I was reading Ancient Earth Pony Customs and Culture's chapter on food and cooking. I had my muzzle glued to the page as I scanned every last sentence for my salvation, hoping I'd find something exotic enough to put the Spice back into my Amber. I read through paragraphs on all manner of unfamiliar vegetables and roots, and even checked out a few of their entries in the dictionary. A tuber called a potato intrigued me enough for me to pull up its encyclopedia article.

Still, while new ingredients would solve my problems sure as Pierce is a pig, I couldn't see convincing Princess Topaz to send out regular expeditions to gather them. Hardly a unicorn has set hoof off of our mountain home that wasn't banished from Unicornia since we settled on Terra's horn hundreds of years ago. Needless to say, this book was looking like a dead end. Well, at least until I came to a passage that read something like this:

One of the chief methods earth ponies used to cook potatoes was to slice them into strips and immerse them in oil, usually peanut oil, and fry them. This provided the resulting "fries" with a crunchy exterior and a fluffy center.

That last bit really caught my attention. Not only did it mention a method of cooking foreign to me, it mentioned results I've never really been able to attain with my own methods.

When you boil vegetables or you cook meat in a skillet, stuff cooks fairly evenly. It might be a bit colder in the center, but the doneness gradient is pretty gradual. You can maybe get results like frying by making the flames hotter, but the forge master couldn't listen to my request to borrow his equipment with a straight face.

And then he called me a silly pony who'd likely find a way to burn the castle down with it, which was totally unfair for him to say. Outta Stock had doped those stone trivets with something flammable from the alchemist's labs that All Foals Day, I'm sure of it! I guess I never will get him back for that...

Anyhow, the point was that this book had gifted me with a revelation to pursue, and pursue I did.

I didn't know much about what an oil was, but I remember learning something in school about skin producing the slippery stuff to make hair shinier and cause acne for some reason. Apparently, it was also good for cooking things in. I didn't want to go around to hundreds of teenagers with a cloth and a bucket (though I have done stranger things in the name of culinary excellence), so I figured it would be better if I read up on this mysterious peanut variety of oil.

I cracked open the P section of the encyclopedia and readied the dictionary, and went into a whirlwind of page-turning. The journey went something like this:

Peanut oil is a slippery liquid made from the peanut. Valued for its high flash point (dictionary: Flash point is the temperature at which a substance bursts into flames).

I flipped to a new page.

The Peanut is a plant from the legume family that produces seed pods in the ground nearby. The seeds in these pods are large, meaty, and somewhat greasy. (The seeds pictured there looked familiar, but I couldn't put my hoof on it just yet.)

I flipped through the rest of the book, facehoofed, opened the correct volume of the encyclopedia, and finally flipped to the page I was looking for.

Legumes are a family of plants that produce nutty seeds in pods and replenish levels of certain nutrients in their soil over time. Because of their beneficial effects on soil nutrient content, they are often used as part of a crop rotation by farmers so that less manure is required. Some members of this family include alfalfa, beans, clover, carob, lentils, peas, and peanuts.

Thinking: 'I thought peanuts looked kinda familiar. I have no idea what most of those things are, but peanuts do look a bit like alfalfa seed pods. I guess this explains why those farmers were so resistant to my pleas to change some of the alfalfa fields over to saffron production, despite the fact they'd make a mint.'

I ruminated on that for a bit before suddenly remembering that I was a mare on a mission. Pondering crop allotments could wait for later. That peanut oil stuff looked interesting, so I went back to the P volume for more.

Peanut Oil can be extracted from peanuts in the following manner: Gather up a sizable quantity of peanuts, shell them, and then crush and grind them into bits. Then immerse the crushed peanuts in water in a bowl, preferably a deep one with a narrow mouth, and leave it covered overnight. In the morning, there should be a layer of oil at the top of the bowl that you can skim and bottle for future use.

While I didn't have access to peanuts, I did have access to alfalfa seeds in abundance. From these, I hoped to extract sufficient oil to recreate the ancient art of frying. With this new way to cook foods, all sorts of new avenues of cooking and flavor would open up, digging me out of the rut I was stuck in.

Fillies and gentlecolts, we have here my great revelation. I had an idea in my head, and a way to bring it to pass. I was not subdued in my exultation.

"YES!"

I would like to make a note here on the hypocrisy of the librarians. The resounding "shh!" that followed my joyful shout was at least twice as deafening and three times more disruptive.

Comments

[Mr Pones]

images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120203015721/warhammer40kfanon/images/f/f4/Angry_Marine_Smackdown.png

Bitch, did I hear someone talking about heresy?

(interesting fic by the way)

[Bugsydor]

1901091

Thank you sir, for the sweet Angry Marine pic.

And for the comment on my fic's interestingness.

[Bemmo]

Out of curiosity, what's the flash point of Alfalfa seed oil like compared to that if peanut oil? Higher? Lower? Significantly lower to the point that she's going to burn down the kitchen? Oh God, she knows nothing about putting out chip-pan fires... She's going to EXPLODE the kitchen.

[Bugsydor]

1908388

...

Let's just say Amber Spice is in for a bit of disappointment in the not-so-distant future. Also, you might just be half-psychic.

Not telling you which half is the psychic one, though.

[FanOfMostEverything]

Huh. A fascinating alternate universe. I guess the pegasi were never able to get full control of the clouds.

While the flashback is entertaining, I'm really looking forward to Amber amongst the other tribes. Few things are more enjoyably hilarious than culture shock.

[Bugsydor]

1911091

Sadly, that's not happening until the sequel. There will be plenty of culture shock living amongst the pegasus nomads then, though, and I'm really excited to write that. I think I've got their culture hashed out well enough to do some interesting and amusing things there.

This story has a few chapters left to go yet, and will end with Amber Spice being dragged off for banishment. The sequel will start with her being found and taken in by a nomadic pegasus herd.

[Bemmo]

1909005
Half psychic? I swear in Luna's name to use this power only for good.

[Bugsydor]

1911224

Now you have to use your powers for good and kill Zecora!

(+1 to coolness if you get the reference.)

[dranor44]

And then God said; Let there be 'To be continued' screens!
and there was much waiting, and gnashing of teeth.
---
Great story dear Sir~
Have a mustache!

and a Turnip as well.
>>O>~

Looking forward to the next chapter!

[Bemmo]

1911268
Coolness test failed
-2 coolness penalty

[Themaskedferret]

Very cool stuff, cant wait t'see moar!

[Bugsydor]

1917358

There's a lot of formatting stuff in some of the GDocs. Namely, I have yet to figure out how to do proper bullet lists in Fimfiction. That, and I can't screw around with all of the indentation here. Because of the various and sundry issues trying to format stuff here involves, sometimes I just don't bother.

Really, it amounts to personal taste combined with obsessive perfectionism.

Also, you'll see more in a few days. By that I mean it'll be less than a week before I post a new chapter. I really like the next chapter, by the way.