Prelude
I must first bid you welcome, dear reader. Whether it was idle curiosity or a burning thirst for culinary prose that guided you to these pages I do not know, but as you are here all the same. I am eager to include these words of context and background to what is surely one of the most famous mid-Second Era culinary texts of the southeastern Niben watershed. For certainly the Feast of Saint Coellicia numbers among the top twenty-five most famous culinary texts of this particular era in this particular region. Perhaps even the top fourteen.
For readers hailing from beyond the Empire's heartland, or who do not keep the light of the Divines as their faith, I shall endeavor to orient you. The volumes to follow detail an extravagant feast held during the reign of Emperor Brazollus Dor, successor of Reman II, known to many scholars of the age as a libertine who abdicated much of his empire's administration to his potentate. Freed from his burden of duty, Emperor Brazollus would do much to advance the arts of feastmaking, idleness, and debauchery to a level unrivaled until the reign of the Longhouse Emperors.
It is Emperor Brazollus's feast held in honor of Saint Coellicia, a minor martyr of the Alessian Slave Rebellions, that this book documents. Saint Coellicia is typically honored in the closing days of Last Seed with a fast, given her death by torturous starvation. To rekindle the adoration of his subjects, Emperor Brazollus instead sought to turn the fasting day into a feasting day. He chose to lead by example, and a legion of chefs, courtiers and bon-vivants descended upon his autumnal estate in Leyawiin for the feast.
What followed was a twelve-hour marathon of forty dishes, arranged in eight courses of five dishes each. I shall endeavor to present the details of each dish in each course, annotated as necessary for the edification of the reader.
