I like to see old wives' tales proven true.
Latest in the "your Mum was right" list is the fact that a nice hot cup of tea really is good for you--and not just because of all those antioxidants.
A study at University College London showed that tea reduces stress by cutting cortisol levels. They devised a way to separate the real effects from the "comfort" syndrome that's so powerful in the foods and drinks we love.
The results show that it really does make sense to give someone a cuppa when they've had something unpleasant happen to them. The traditional response to civil disasters of the WRVS showing up to dispense tea is more than a joke about the British stiff upper lip. It works.
I mention this because one of the elements in the Wess'har Wars series is the role that familiar foods play in the lives of the exiled humans. If they haven't brought it with them as part of their supplies, they have to grow it--if they have the seeds. Coffee is in such short supply that it becomes a kind of currency.
Aras recognises how important tea is to Shan and plants bushes for her when she's running low on the supply that the colony gives her. The Royal Marines crave chilli sauce; in Crossing The Line, we get a glimpse of the effort that goes into devising menus for the crew of Actaeon.
We all like food, obviously. But when you're a long way from home, or when you're isolated with not much else to distract you when the daily grind is over, food takes on an almost religious significance. It's the core of your personal morale.
I once came across a massive collection of books in the local library--maybe a dozen volumes in one set--that were wholly devoted to catering on oil rigs. It was a measure of how much it matters to business to keep rig workers happy on those long tours of duty. And this wasn't just about basic fast food meals: it was top notch cuisine. Similarly, the Royal Navy puts a lot of effort into menus on board ships. Some of the best meals I've ever had have been courtesy of the navy's hospitality. Navies, like armies, march on their stomachs.
So that's why it's such a central part of the narrative in all the books from City of Pearl through to Judge. Apart from the fact that tea really will soothe you, and chilli sauce can help you eat pretty well anything, it's the little scrap of home and comfort that keeps you going.
I've spent periods overseas unable to get the food I'm used to, and I've gone to enormous lengths to reproduce it--even making my own cheese in one case. It's pretty easy to import whatever food comforts you from anywhere in the world now, but when you're 150 trillion miles from home and there's no mail order, the craving and significance must be several orders of magnitude greater.
As Eddie Michallat points out in The World Before, the future didn't fulfil the prediction that we'd all be living on pills. Humans don't work that way.
It's even extended into my Star Wars books. I've been developing the Mandalorian culture and language for Lucasfilm, and I came up with a delicacy much missed by ex-pat Mandos--uj'alayi, or uj cake. In my mind it was something like a cross between baklava and panforte, a very dense fruit and nut mixture soaked in scented syrup, but I never specified a recipe. Before I knew it, I found fans were devising real recipes for it and experimenting in the kitchen.
They've been staggeringly imaginative and the recipes have varied a lot, and they've all been inspired creations. I got a huge kick out of that, but it also illustrated a point to me; that to understand the Mandalorians better, people wanted to know what their tastes were, and what summed up their culture for them.
There are other things in Mando cuisine that I think I'll give a miss, like gihaal--a fish-based pemmican whose aroma can make your eyes water at 100 yards-- but maybe even that will tell someone a lot about the culture, and enable a reader to identify with the characters that much better. Effort spent by the writer in this kind of small detail is never wasted; I even tried living on the diet devised for the Biosphere 2 project to get a sense of what it felt like in a closed environment like a space station. Sometimes only feeling what the characters feel--hunger, homesickness, carrying heavy packs, whatever--gives you the insight you need to bring them to life.
So I'm going to have a crack at some of the amazing recipes for uj'ayali that readers have sent me. I bet it'll be even better washed down with a nice strong cup of Assam tea...
-- Karen Traviss
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