Apr
Recipe for Rune Work
Today was the first day I tried using poblano peppers. They are dark green peppers shaped much like regular sweet peppers. Eaten raw they can be a bit hot.
I tried cooking them with chicken and red onion, with a little lime ponzu sauce. The meal was fine. Cooked, it turns out that poblanos are not as hot as when raw. They are warm and have a distinct taste. I think of that mild heat as a “subatomic sizzle.” The nice thing about a little heat is that it adds a unique and identifiable element to a recipe.
This “recipe” was one of my usual dinners, put together “on the fly.” I have that strange talent to cook well without measuring cups or pre-made recipes.
A good meal requires several elements. First come the ingredients. Next is the way they are cut. It matters greatly if the pieces are long and thin, chunky, thick or finely diced. What follows is the method of cooking, and the order in which things are cooked. You might throw all ingredients into a pot at once for a pasta sauce. For a meal like tonight’s dinner, some items must be started before others.
Each flavor has a “shape” and a “color.” Putting them together is as much a physical thing as an art. The result, such as tonight, is a unique thing. Each meal is different.
Did you know that taste is not the only thing to consider in making a new recipe? Texture and color also come into the mix. The idea is to blend the different as well as the similar.
What if we swapped out our ingredients for Runes? Do you think making Rune spells would work like recipes?
Cooking is art, as are painting, music and sculpture. The Runes are also art. Might not an onion have the pleasant bite of Hagal and the heat of Ken’s torch, or a pepper have the fire of Thurs blended with Gyfu? Would chicken breast have the mellow texture of Eh, while Rice is Fe? Or maybe it is better to use other Runes than these. After all ,these Runes might just be examples pulled from the air…or they may be a very real spell.
Think about it carefully.
I will have more on this in the next issue of Uncle Thor’s Magazine.
**************
Aegir and Ran are the Gods who rule cooking. Know them and you know how to cook without a recipe. The way is so simple you might miss it.
