Philip the Bard's Harappan Blog: Winning Yam Recipes

The Kushan Yam Festival: with winning recipes

I understand that on ancient Earth, County Fairs and Harvest Festivals were common. After the Green Revolution they were the primary entertainment on all of Earth outside of Cascadia. The Greenies did not allow anything that did not honor their Green Messiah, Marcus Johnson. Most Earthers lived agrarian lives during the Pax Veridis but the Earth Revolution opened up the old religious wounds and things were different. Back when these religious wars were starting no one would have ever imagined the latest turn in Earth history. The Redemption of Earth has been a wonderful thing to watch.

Here on Kusha we celebrate the Kushan Yam with two harvest festivals. The yams look similar to Earth Yams but are sweeter and more nutritious. Some scientists speculate they may have been genetically engineered by someone hundreds of thousands of years ago since the combination of proteins and amino acids seems to be too good to have been arrived at by standard evolutionary models.

There are two harvests each year. We are just completing the first harvest there will be another one in three months.

My band the Gutterminds played Sunday afternoon for the end of the festival. It was such a beautiful day, just a light breeze and a pretty strong aurora.

I had more than my share of Yam Beer but shied away from the Yam Vodka.

A couple of weeks ago I told you the tale of the great Snowball game of Two-hundred. Well, we don’t have much snow anywhere near Harappa City on Kusha but we still play Snowball. The only rule change to accommodate the lack of snow was a smaller goal. This since we couldn’t build defensive walls in front. It it still a ring but now only about five meters across.

There were some lively matches but I didn’t get to see the finals since I was playing music at the time. I hear a team from Mandan won the tournament.

When it comes to the Kushan Yam competition there are two categories. Savory and Desert.

Connie Wang won the Savory Ribbon, her dish consisted of lightly steamed paper thin slices of Kushan yam seated on a bed of sautéed greens and blues. It was dusted with tadril spice and garnished with edible bolon flowers. Simple, but elegant, and the flavor combinations were perfect.

In the sweet catagory, Indy Wells Kushan yam pie was delicious. The recipe is as follows;

Make crust first. Recipe below. 

Crust

1 hand goat cheese

3 hands grane

Liquid as needed

Blend grane and cheese well. Add liquid as needed to have ingredients stick together. Chill for 1 hour. Roll out to desired thickness and place in pie pan. 

Filling 

2 hands grane

2 hen eggs or  1 ubo egg

1 full dip goats milk

1 hand goat cheese

1/2 dip sweet

1 cooked Kushan yam, mashed

1/2 hand dried tellon berries

1/4 dip yam vodka

Soak tellon berries in vodka, set aside. Mix well the sweet and yam. Add eggs and cheese, mix well. Slowly add milk and grane alternating. Strain berries and save the vodka for a refreshing drink later! Carefully blend in berries.

Pour into crust and bake until done - center should be solid - at       degrees.

Tomorrow: The sad story of Debendra Gavaskar

Philip Normer

Kushan Year 87

Earth Year 2479