| CB 6, 77 |
Ayla watched Uka stir up chunks of the meat and bone from the neck of the bison that were cooking with wild onion, salty coltsfoot, and other herbs. Uba tasted it, then added peeled thistle stalks, mushrooms, lily buds and roots, watercress, milkweed buds, small immature yams, cranberries carried from the other cave, and wilted flowers from the previous day's growth of day lilies for thickening.
The hard fibrous old roots of cattails had been crushed and the fibers separated and removed. Dried blueberries they had carried with them and parched ground grains were added to the resulting starch that settled in the bottom of the baskets of cold water. Lumps of the flat, dark, unleavened bread were cooking on hot stones near the fire. Pigweed greens, lamb's quarter, young clover, and dandelion leaves seasoned with coltsfoot were cooking in another pot, and a sauce of dried, tart apples mixed with wild rose petals and a lucky find of honey steamed near another fire.
Iza had been especially pleased when she saw Zoug returning from a trip to the steppes with a clutch of ptarmigan. The low-flying, heavy birds, easily brought down with stones from the marksman's sling, were Creb's favorite. Stuffed with herbs and edible greens that nested their own eggs, and wrapped in wild grape leaves, the savory fowl were cooking in a smaller stone-lined pit.
Hares and giant hamsters, skinned and skewered, were roasting over hot coals, and mounts of tiny, fresh wild strawberries glistened bright red in the sun.
It was a feast worthy of the occasion. |
