Alex Pheby's WATERBLACK is a masterpiece, and the trilogy it caps off- following Mordew and Malarkoi - is one of the greatest works of fantasy in the English language, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the likes of Mervyn Peake, JRR Tolkien, Michael Moorcock and Brian Catling. Ceaselessly inventive, complex and surprising, suffused with Pheby's unique viewpoint and socratic style, and packing an emotional wallop - these are books that will expand minds, and be read for years to come. Simply put, nobody is doing it like Alex Pheby.
We're delighted to celebrate the release of WATERBLACK by presenting this exclusive extract from Mordew Gastronomique, exploring the cuisines of the Cities of the Weft. Read on, and perhaps you'll be tempted to cook up some of these dishes to accompany your reading for a truly immersive 4D experience...
Extracts from Mordew Gastronomique
Chef Boland’s Première Collation
It is very difficult to make a profit from the business of sourcing, preparing, cooking and serving food: the raw materials are costly and the labour involved is extensive. It is even more difficult to shave a portion of any profit off for one’s sole benefit, something Chef Boland of the Commodious Hour feels he must do to make it worth him coming down to work at the crack of every dawn. One way he profits is by dressing a plate with items that closely resemble much more expensive items, but which are scarcely distinguishable from them except by an expert, and then sending these out as the things they resemble. Since Boland does not credit his customers with expertise of any sort, let alone in matters of gastronomy, he will substitute any and all of the “première” items in his “Première Collation” with these ersatz imitations. He then reserves the savings made from the produce budget for his own use.
If we are not the experts that Boland fears will one day uncover his fraud, we can use this chef’s dishonest methods to fool our own tastebuds and thereby convince ourselves that we have eaten the very best without having to go into bankruptcy in order to do it.
Method:
Collate on a nice plate the three things below, placing them at the points of an imaginary equilateral triangle. The extent of the stuffs plated should not exceed the circle made when the diner places the tip of their forefinger against the tip of their thumb; it is easier to deceive the palate with a small amount of a thing than a large one. The central space in the middle of the triangle should be filled with whatever edible leaves grow freely nearby, drizzled with an emulsion of oil (cheap), mustard (to disguise the cheap oil), and vinegar (to confuse the senses if the oil still tastes cheap). Thin slices of toasted bread (the cheapest is fine), cut into triangles, can be served to the side.
- Tour de Truffes is made from shavings of black and white truffles, arranged in a miniature tower scaffolded with a central wooden cocktail stick. Each layer is separated by tiny nuggets of rare sheep’s cheese, similarly sized pieces of acorn-fed pork fat, and here and there cubes of unpickled cornichon. A faux Tour de Truffes can be made from shavings of the cheapest and blandest mushrooms, marinated overnight in truffle oil and then wiped off before serving. Any cheap cheese that crumbles and has been left to moulder works in the place of the expensive sheep cheese, bacon rind works for the pork, the inner parts of a cucumber are the same as the cornichon. Cocktail sticks are easy to come by for both recipes.
- Pâté de Foie Gras is indistinguishable, when served cold, from the same paste made with chicken livers. Anyone who says otherwise is a wealthy and/or gullible idiot. There is no need to go to the trouble of force-feeding geese, or paying someone else to do it, simply quenelle between two spoons the required amount of cheap chicken liver pâté and leave it at that. If the pate is too coarse to quenelle neatly, put it through a fine sieve and try again.
- White Caviar: this roe of an exceptionally rare albinoid fish is something that has been eaten by very few people. Consequently, there are very few people who know what white caviar should taste like. So, take any good-sized roe, bleach it white using a safe method, rinse it, salt it in brine, drain it and taste. If the flavour of sea food has been lost during the bleaching, pour the liquid residue that gathers at the bottom of a container of shrimps onto it, stir, drain, and then try again. Quenelle and serve.
If you find this recipe is not filling enough, eat more cheap bread with it. If you find yourself unconvinced by the experience, solace can be found in opening up your wallet, or purse, and observing the money that remains in there. It would otherwise surely be gone, and if you had spent what Mr Padge at the Commodious Hour charges for Boland’s Première Collation, the chances are that you would have received the same food and have an empty wallet.
Blob’s After Work Blowout
Diners like to eat at the proper times and because it is a kitchen brigade’s job to facilitate this, and because doing so leaves little time for anything else, the chefs, plongeurs, waiters and sommeliers employed at a restaurant all eat once service has finished, long after it is normal to do so. While the head chef is often busy taking inventory of the stock so that he can draw up a list of things he must buy from the market in the morning, and the lower orders of the brigade are cleaning down, the middle-grade chefs, such as Blob, are expected to provide food for the rest of the brigade, which they do on a rota system.
Yet, it is hard to cook in a kitchen that is being cleaned, nor does a chef like Blob, who has worked himself into exhaustion throughout the day, have much energy for the task. Fortunately, ovens remain hot long after they have been turned off, and while that isn’t hot enough for some tasks, a deep metal tray filled with precooked food will reach and maintain a safe temperature until the rest of the work is done.
But what precooked food is there in a restaurant that is not required for the next day’s service? Two types: food that is on the turn and which would be otherwise thrown out, and also another type, which will take a little explanation.
In a restaurant serving well off diners, not everyone who comes in is hungry. At a soup kitchen, everyone wants to eat their soup, but the Commodious Hour is not a soup kitchen: some people come in not at all wanting their food, since they have plenty of it at home. These people only wish to demonstrate their wealth to the other diners, which is often done with expensive clothes, which are often designed to look best on thin people, a physical state that is only achievable by eating very lightly, if at all.
However, the same people who wish to demonstrate their wealth through couture and emaciation also do not wish to look like they don’t have the money to order a dish off every section of the menu – from the hors d'oeuvres to the desserts – so they order those things without having any intention of eating them. Served but uneaten food is not required for the next day’s service, and Blob has the waiting staff reserve this to a special container.
While the others are cleaning down, or taking stock, he puts the contents of the special container, almost regardless of what it contains, into the same tray as the food that is on the turn and puts the tray into the oven.
When this tray is eventually removed Blob picks up a stack of plates, brings them over, and then he shouts “Blowout!” This is the signal for the others to come over and take a plate, onto which Blob scoops several portions with his large, steel chef’s spoon. The staff then take their plates into the empty restaurant, along with all the half-finished bottles and glasses of wine from the evening which have been decanted into the Big Jug, so named for its size.
This meal is Blob’s After Work Blowout, and while it is different every time, selecting at least five of the items from the list below, warming them in the oven until they aren’t quite hot enough, but aren’t dangerous to eat, and then eating them with several glasses of a mixture of red, white, rosé and sparkling wines will give an approximation of it.
If you find the meal unappetising, it can be made better by working hard all day and having nothing to eat until after midnight, after which it will seem very appetising indeed, though liable to sit heavily on the stomach when, soon after and by necessity, sleep is attempted.
Ingredients (randomly select at least five):
- A chicken breast, unsauced; a chicken breast, sauced; half a steak of sirloin, jaggedly cut; a filo pastry parcel of cream cheese, leeks, and mushrooms, soaked on the bottom half with a port wine sauce, and slightly burned on the top; a disc of goat’s cheese coated with sesame seeds, chilli flakes, and mint, on a circular crouton the bottom half of which has previously been resting in a mango coulis; the two ends of a duck roulade stuffed with spinach, garlic and pine nuts; boiled and unpeeled new potatoes; steamed cauliflower; steamed broccoli; steamed carrots; roasted baby parsnips; sprouts of cabbage, slightly scorched on top; gravy, cream sauce, pepper sauce, tomato sauce, mint sauce, and various relishes – mixed; lumps of rice dried to the point of crunchiness on the edges, yet stodgy in the middle; pieces of bread of various sizes and types, slightly stale; forcemeat stuffing lumps; small, unidentifiable bones, included in error; sausages; bacon; many mushroom vol-au-vents, made in error, now on the turn; apple sauce; offal bon-bons, filled with redcurrant jelly; pieces of unknown fish in a very pungent chervil sauce; cous-cous with dates and apricots; unidentifiable, but oddly delicious, matter.
Method:
Warm, scoop onto a plate, then serve with wine, preferably after midnight and on an empty stomach.
The Commodious Tincture
Quick-root takes away the desire for food, as does opium, but the weeds that grow in the North and Southfields accentuate hunger, so they make a useful medicine for people who take either or both of the former substances, as all chefs do. Unfortunately, because the weeds grow out of the Living Mud, they tend to give bad dreams.
At some point in the Commodious Hour’s history, though no-one can remember when, some chef or other whose responsibility it was to grow herbs for the kitchen realised that if he built a raised bed for the plants to grow in, they didn’t suffer from the negative effects of the Living Mud, which in edible things is a dyspeptic quality. Another chef wondered whether it mightn’t also work for the weed nightmares, so they reserved a bed for those plants too. After a few seasons, their consumption of the weeds became less difficult on the dreams, until eventually all they felt was a pleasant sense of beffudlement, lassitude and an increased appetite. The beffudlement and lassitude weren’t helpful, but once they made a tincture of the leaves and moderated the recipe this was removed, and eventually a substance was perfected that sharpened the appetite without giving any other effects. This was a very useful thing, drops of it being taken under the tongue at the end of every shift, and because the chefs at the Commodious Hour thus thrived in comparison to chefs at other establishments it gave the restaurant a commercial advantage its competitors didn’t share. For that reason, its recipe, and even its existence, was a closely kept secret. Until now, that is, since here is the recipe in full:
Ingredients:
- One fistful of the buds of the Mordew weeds, if they have been grown in a raised bed.
- A wine bottle almost filled with the strongest liquor available. Wine is not enough, nor is fortified wine. A clear spirit, such as that used for stripping varnish, is too strong, but not by much.
- A patch of muslin.
- An eyedropper.
Method:
Place the ground leaves on parchment paper on a baking tray and bake them in the bottom of the oven for a few minutes. The longer the leaves bake, the more lassitude and befuddlement the tincture provokes. This is true for up to an hour of cooking, after which the effect decreases again. If the leaf burns, discard it and try again when the oven is cooler.
Put the cooked leaves into the bottle with the strong spirit, cork the bottle and put it aside for a month or more. Every day, visit the bottle and shake it vigorously for a while.
Eventually the liquid will darken, ready for it to be poured from one bottle to another with the patch of muslin placed between the openings to catch the leaves, which are gritty and unpleasant.
Using the eyedropper, put ten or so drops of the liquid under the tongue and let it sit there until it evaporates away. It will burn at first, but persevere and soon you will feel the tincture’s effects. It is sensible to have some food on hand for this eventuality, but not an excessive amount, since you will want to eat it all leaving none for the following day.
Gam Halliday’s Bacon Sandwiches
There is no cheaper way of procuring food than stealing it, and while Gam Halliday’s recipe for bacon sandwiches lacks finesse, and opens anyone who follows it to the possibility of legal action, equally it puts no strain on the pocket, nor does it exclude anyone unable to afford the cost of its ingredients. Feeds four.
Ingredients:
- One packet of bacon, stolen
- One loaf of bread, stolen
- Butter, stolen
- Cheese, stolen
- Pickles, bartered for (optional)
Method:
Go to the gates of Beaumont’s, the bacon factory, and while the man who comes to take the bacon away is distracted – you can either wait for this to happen, or distract him yourself by throwing a rock over at the other side of the yard – sneak to the back of his cart, prise the side off a bacon box, reach inside, take a big packet of bacon, seal the box back up somehow, and leg it back to the sewers.
Drop the bacon off at the den with instructions that no-one’s allowed to eat any until you return, then go back up topside to either the bakers or the dairy shop – either’s fine when both are open, but the dairy place shuts early, so probably best to go there first – and hang about outside, looking innocent, until one of the customers comes out with either bread, or butter and cheese, and when they do, size them up. If they look like they might give you some trouble – if they’re beefy types, or ones who might be able to outrun you in the hundred yard dash – let them go past unmolested, but if they’re no bother – old ladies, children on an errand, maiden aunts, et ceteris – set off at a run, intercept them at pace, snatch their bag and hightail it off.
Left, right, left again, and chances are you’ll have lost them. Slow to a walk, whistling a merry tune, and while you’re sauntering along apparently without a care in the world, see if there’s anything in the bag not on the list of ingredients above. If there is, then you’re in luck because you can barter that for pickles with the crooked grocer who fences out of the back of his premises and who always has gherkins in stock.
Back to the den, wipe out the pan with your shirt tails, heat said pan up, then put the thickest looking bacon in the middle, the thinnest at the edges. Turn to the table, slice the bread, butter it, slice the cheese, put it on the buttered bread, slice the pickles, put them on the cheese.
By the time you’ve done the above, the bacon will want a turn. Turn it, wait until it’s done, hook it out by the rind, lay it down on top of the pickles, stick another slice of bread on top and you’re done. Repeat until everyone in the den is fed, then feed yourself. Chef’s privilege: you can wipe the crust ends of bread around in the bacon fat and have them as well as your sandwich. If anyone moans, they can do it all themselves next time, can’t they?