So for a nomadic people accustomed to being able to make do with the ABSOLUTE minimum, I would assume Mandalorian kitchen implements are going to be basic. The words we have in Mando'a that refer to them also refer back to armor- helmet and pot, plate and frying surface, etc.
I have some experience with camp cooking. The same pot you use for boiling will probably go towards baking. You really just need a Deep Vessel and a Flat Surface to make just about anything you want. You're just limited by what fuel source you've got for the kind of heat you'll have- hot and fast fires are things you can flash-fry on, but not bake, for example. Boiling, at least, will never fail you, so soup is always on the menu. More on that later.
I have a thought that at home, slow-cookers and griddle surfaces are king. What would be lacking, that we Earth natives might find strange, would probably be the bakeware. Not baking- surely Mandalorian homes have ovens, which can conveniently double as dehydrators. No, I mean all the fancy things for pastry work. We're accustomed to cake tins, pie tins, casseroles, cookie cutters, muffin tins, etc. Mandalorians would likely just use the same implements for different purposes. One or two good sized baking dishes or sheets will make a multitude of things. Nothing is stopping you from baking a rectangular pie in your 9×13. Nothing is stopping you from baking "muffins" in that same tim all in a big rectangle and cutting it into servings, or baking it in pucks like extra fluffy cookies.
But things that would really dominate in Mandalorian cooking? Boiling. Dumplings, noodles, soups, stews. There is a REASON for this, and it is that water regulates temperature really really well. It boils at one temperature under our atmosphere's pressure and has wicked high specific heat, so an unreliable fuel source is less of a problem. So the stock pot in a Mandalorian household and camp alike would see a lot of use.
Mandalorian kitchens would also have ample pantry space- there would be cold storage at home, yes, but also shelf-stable staples, like flours and beans, dried milk, cooking fat, gihaal and other meat meals and extracts used like bouillon. A highly anachronistic space, indicative of the Mandalorian resistance to relying on goods and services that could be taken away.
To summarize:
To cook like a Mandalorian, you really only need a big skillet or griddle, some kind of large boiling vessel with a lid, and heat. That's all you need to get started. You can even make bread that way- flatbreads are almost always baked on a griddle or pan, not an oven. But for the most part, I hope you like soup.
Rav: “Remember that one time you and Vau got so drunk you took a dingy out into that typhoon with two rods, a cooler, a bottle, one sandwich and Mird? Jango, me and Wad’e looked for you guys for almost three days, just to find the two of you asleep huddled together under an emergency blanket with Mird on your laps and you were still holding Vau’s rod while he had his feet up on the cooler, bottle and sandwich still intact and neither of you even realized what had happened or how long it had been but apparently you’d lost one of your rods the first hour in?”
Kal: “SHUT THE FUCK UP I WAS HOLDING MY OWN ROD NOT HIS!!!”
Rav: “Calm down fruit by the foot, It’s ok to be gay. Obviously no one gives a shit because half the people here are gay. And that shit was hilarious by the way, we were all just mad you didn’t invite us.”
Parja: *cough, wheeze* “WHAT?!”
Omega, delta and null squads: “HUUH?!¿!¡?¡?!”
Present Alpha ARC’s and others: “Uhhh…?!?”
Rav: “Those years were good times. :)”
Kal: “SHUT THE FUCK YOUR MOUTH RIGHT NOW!!!”
Rav: “Your so fekking adorable when you’re mad lol, lil ankle biter. I could pinch your cheeks right now. :))”
The worst of Choy’s buried memories were triggered by some holonet news and the boys had to search for her because she hides when she’s upset. Asking for help is not her strong suit. Fortunately they were aided by a very concerned mustelid-like creature who Choy has befriended.
I’ve just done another reread/skim of the repcomm books for details of Kyrimorut for @ossidae-passeridae, who encouraged me to do a write up for reference. Some of these facts are explicitly stated, scattered throughout the series, and some are my own surmises. (My main conclusion is that KT considered architecture just about as carefully as the TCW creators did the GAR ranking system. lolsob)
So. In this essay I will
Kyrimorut, Kal Skirata’s refuge for his clone sons, was called a bastion, and frequently described in siege terms. It was also referred to as a homestead and a farmhouse.
“It was yaim—part barracks, part hotel, part married quarters, part farmhouse, the archetypal Mandalorian clan home.”
This stronghold was located in the heavily forested northern hemisphere of the planet Mandalore, a few hours flight north of Keldabe City, within 100 kilometers of a small town called Enceri, and just south of a lake. It boasted a main house and numerous outbuildings, including at least one medical laboratory, animal pens, and a hangar large enough for multiple craft.
Rav Bralor, another of the Cuy’val Dar, rebuilt it at Kal’s request during the war, and it was finished enough by a year in, to house some members of their group temporarily, but was still undergoing renovations up to the last moment before they moved in. She used droids to aid in the construction. The building was composed of brick, wood, stone, and rammed earth, and the (probably local, veshok) planks were joined with interlocking joints. The interior walls were plastered and painted, likely with naturally derived mineral paints; one room was mentioned to be “honey-colored.” The windows were narrow, described as arrow-slits, and the doors were unpowered hinged wooden slabs. The whole thing was large, and the rooms were characterized as airy and roomy at various points.
The layout seems to have been vaguely circular, or a circle of chained hubs, with a central karyai. The lobby was another hub, and there were both surface and underground passages connecting the hubs, radiating out like “the spokes of an eccentric wheel.” For this reason I think there were two floors in the main house with one above, the other underground. There was also a sheltered circular atrium off the main hub, with a roof that slid back, where they roasted meat.
The house had gutters and down-pipes to deal with snowmelt and rain, and given the nearby lake, they would have to have a good vapor barrier for the underground portion. Since the place was rural rather than urban, it was largely quiet, and the homestead's acoustics were such that sound carried well. This indicates to me that likely only the exterior walls were fortified of heavy stone and rammed earth; interior walls were more likely built of wood and plaster and easier to modify if they had some need. Power was unreliable in such a remote setting, so they used wood fires for heating and cooking; everything smelled of wood-smoke. The entire structure was designed to be unnoticeable from the air, and the clearing was not visible until the last moment upon aerial approach.
The karyai was the main living room. In one scene, Kad played on the floor with toy animals (nerf, bantha, shatual, nuna, jackrab, vhe’viin) Atin had carved from veshok wood, Wade Tay’haai played a purple-painted bes’bev (sharp flute), and Rav Bralor brought throat-searing tihaar for everyone. She lived on her own clan’s farm a few kilometers away, and had brought Yayax squad, who mostly stayed there, to visit Kyrimorut. They were learning carpentry from manuals, as one does.
People had their own rooms for sleeping, with couples sharing, along the corridors. Arla and Uthan’s rooms both had exterior windows. Quarters were pleasant, plain but comfortable, with generous mattresses on the beds and a table for personal use.
Then there was a room Etain thought of as the interrogation room, so that’s uhhh lovely.
It’s unclear whether the large table where they gathered for communal meals was in the karyai, the kitchen (which was separated from other areas by a door), or some other room. Wherever it was located, it was possible for someone seated at the table to lean back without getting up and fetch a bottle of tihaar from where it was stored. The table was made of a single large slab of veshok wood, and was big and sturdy enough to use for surgical operation, dismantling engines, or seating a whole clan of armored Mandalorians. They sat in chairs around this table, and Kad sat in a highchair. They used porceplast plates, and mugs for ne’tra gal, a sweet black beer. The head of the household summoned everyone to the table for meals.
The kitchen contained a fireplace and hearth, a chair (where Kal slept), ovens and stovetops, a conservator, enough workspace for at least four people at once, and an adjoining storage area. The kitchen could be a busy, noisy, bustling place, but it was separate from other living areas; people sometimes went there to avoid others.
The 20-30 occupants ate constantly and prodigiously, and never seemed to be lacking. The food was described as filling but not elegant, and was heavy on the protein. They consumed a lot of game; Lord Mirdalan the strill was an animal native to Mandalore and a hunter. Roast shatual, nerf, and roba were mentioned, and they would leave a joint of meat on the table to be eaten all day down to the bone (I shuddered in food hygiene). Fish from the lake were fried in a pan, and they made broth from gihaal, dried smoked fish with a pungent aroma stored in metal containers, one of the staples of Mandalorian ration packs because it kept for years without refrigeration. Also what Kal called Kaminoans, but that’s another story!
We were worried they only ate meat for a while until we came across some vegetables. Kad had pureed kaneta at one point, and for breakfast boiled grain porridge and shirred eggs were on offer. Jilka diced amber root for some dish. Mealbread rolls were also plentiful, and there was a vat of stew at one point. Listed imports via Ny Vollen included flour, grassgrain, pickles, powdered milk, sacks of denta beans, soap, dried fruit, and a bantha bone which was hard to get on Mandalore. The roba they raised themselves.
The roba pen had multiple animals witht at least one boar and one sow with a litter, and despite having veshok posts and walls, the gate was left open. I’m extrapolating that these animals were semi-domesticated and allowed to forage for food but came home to their pen for safety at night. There were rail fences, crop fields, and plans for raising nerf on the property as well. Outbuildings were mentioned frequently, but this was one of the few actually described.
Notable native species mentioned were the large, ancient veshok trees, which were evergreen, hardwood, and straight enough that the table slab was cut out of one large piece. They were ice-glazed and dripping in the spring thaw, so presumably had some defenses against freezing and exploding, or breaking under the weight of the ice, and they populated all the way up to the the polar cap. There was underbrush and bushes, and groundthorn weed, which was very stubborn and difficult to remove entirely. The roba would have helped with uprooting this as they foraged. Vhe’viine were small rodents with white winter coats that lived in burrows in the fields.
The medical laboratory behind the main house (it was necessary to walk around the bastion after exiting to approach it) was a mobile genetics lab/agricultural trailer of the sort usually used for breeding livestock and at racetracks. It was occupied first by Ko Sai and later by Ovolot Qail Uthan. Mereel acquired it, and Mij Gilamar stocked it with stolen/black market medical equipment. When Uthan took over, they built her more lab space. There were rural veterinarians in the community as well; Etain mentioned getting a cryocontainer for a sample from a neighboring farm.
The hangar was situated in a shallow slope to the north of the main house, half-buried in the soil and disguised with netting. It was large enough to house several craft at a time, including Ny Vollen’s ship, Mereel’s speeder, and the Aay’han, among others. Swabbing down the compartments of the Aay’han, replenishing stores, and prepping the ship for the next flight managed to occupy most of an afternoon for four men.
The lake was also to the north, and I believe it was a very large lake, functioning as a heat-sink. It had not fully frozen despite the bitter winter, described as minus eight and thirty degrees colder than tropical (although the temperature scale is not mentioned, it’s likely celsius because of the author’s background). There was ice extending from the shore like a pier, but also mist rising above it in the early morning and frost on the shore, even though layers of snow deep enough for feet to crunch through the surface were mentioned elsewhere at various times. This led my friend to speculate that there could be geothermal activity in/under that lake. Kal and Walon Vau were planning to build a memorial on the near lake shore featuring the armor tallies of fallen clone soldiers.
There was granite in the area, which also gave support to the concept of historical volcanic activity. Their yard sported four chunks, each large enough for at least two people to climb up and perch upon, which had erupted from the surface long ago and been worn down to a weathered polish. Winds came in off a nearby plain. A clear (muddy) area large enough to play mesh’geroya was also near the house.
Enceri had at least one cantina, there was a landmark grain silo at the edge of town, and it was big enough to host a bustling market square, despite being described as more of a trading post than a town. There they could buy, among other things, preserved vegetables, engine parts, and local triple-distilled tihaar, which could double as degreaser for said engine parts.
If they needed more than Enceri had to offer, they could go south to Keldabe. Landmarks of note there included the River Kelita and the Oyu’baat tavern. The Imperial garrison was located near Keldabe.
“But then Mandalore itself was one big contradiction, with heavy industry and shipbuilding sitting cheek-by-jowl with farms that hadn't changed in centuries, sophisticated electronics and ancient metalworking skills side-by-side in the same suit of armor.”
Established clan homes seem to be the usual way of things despite Mandalorians supposedly being nomadic. Their “temporary” structures being wattle and daub also indicates the nomad thing to be a bit of a fallacy. Even so, they had planned a possible relocation for Kyrimorut in the worst case, a bolt-hole on Cheravh. Jaing had taken to calling it offsite hot standby.
So that’s Kyrimorut, which means Final Haven, where Kal Skirata and his chosen family hunkered down in the aftermath of Order 66. My friend says it’s basically Aberdeen, down to the detail of players getting plastered mid footie limmie game. I gathered these details from four books (Hard Contact does not mention Kyrimorut) and compiled them for anyone who’d like to make use of the rundown. Oya!
A second successful troop at Alamo Drafthouse yesterday! Our cousins in the 501st came to visit (even if they vanished without saying goodbye save for one guy - who was their Darth Revan!), and our own Runa Calaar (ivory kit above!) had her first troop as an official MMCC member!!
