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NRSASD
2016-10-07, 03:16 PM
I've been trying (and failing) to think of virtually any recipes an entirely aquatic species could prepare without copious amounts of magic. Cooking doesn't really work, cause it's hard to keep a fire going underwater. Soups and stews become one with the surrounding water almost immediately. Seasoning is washed off almost immediately after it's applied to the surface. Drying or smoking foods is right out. Even things like sushi run into real issues like dissolving into individual rice grains and slices of raw fish. Is there any meal or style of food preparation that could work underwater?

Telesto
2016-10-07, 04:34 PM
Gelatinous goods would be fine. Preparations inside casings, like sausages, would be fine. Boiled and steamed goods would work near hot vents.

The issue is one of pieces, as you have noticed. Remove or solidify the pieces and you're fine. Therefore encasing pieces would be fine. And most things would be consumed whole.

Also you're considering things too much as surface preparation. Inking things and dying things could be done by taking packs or sacks of ink and preparing things with those. Seasoning things could easily be done with the same method.

Also consider density usage. A bowl that is upside down can hold oils and low density seasonings. Things could be soaked in that to reduce density. Aeration would also be a handy technique, such as through chemical reactions like vinegar and soda sacks, causing a resulting chemical reaction that would cause things like meat to float. Airbladders would be handy.

So, inverted cooking techniques would work, as would enclosed systems, such as holes in rock being filled, and the goods being pressed out into casings.

Berenger
2016-10-09, 11:53 AM
Apparently, you can cook with acid: http://food.drricky.net/2012/10/cooking-with-acid.html

So if you have any palatable acid in the ocean, you could "cook" small slices of meat in it.

Instead of plates, small net-like bags might be useful to keep individual pieces of food from drifting away.

Beleriphon
2016-10-10, 12:19 PM
Raw fresh foods are probably on the menu rather that cooked foods. As noted you can cure food using acidic substances, this is what ceviche is after all.

Pauly
2016-10-12, 09:54 PM
Speaking as a chef. cooking requires creating a chemical change in the food.

First you can use acids, in dishes such a ceviche or tiraditos. In the same vein you can use enzymes, such as those in pineapple, to create a chemical cooking process for curing.

Cooking with heat would require an en papillote method. Wrapping the food (kelp is perfect for this) and then cooking over a heat source. Maybe you could also work with Hungi methods if you have a ground source of heat like a volcanic vent handy.

Grilling, baking and roasting would be completely out.

Poaching and steaming could be possible with an inverted pot catching rising heated water. it might be possible to trap aromatic herbs and spices in the cooking vessel to impart extra flavor.

As an extra thought there could be combinations that served together would create a chemical change on being mixed together in the mouth. For example the compounds in onions that create the unpleasant eye watering come from two different chemicals that are held separately within the onion but when bought together when crushed create a new chemical compound. It isn't cooking per se, but it passes as such.

Making stews, soups, souces etc. just wouldn't work because of serving difficulties.

Pauly
2016-10-12, 11:33 PM
Some other thoughts that have come to me.

Spices/Aromatic herbs would be used whole and then discarded, similar to Thai cooking. Grinding or cutting these ingredients would cause an unacceptable loss of the volatile compounds.

You could do hot rock cooking - putting the ingredients in a clay pot, putting in said hot rock and then sealing the pot. The pot would need to be double chambered, like a thermos flask, to prevent heat loss to the environment, or even triple chambered. This could also be a viable method for serving hot food as the other methods of cooking would lead to rapid heat loss when serving.

The more I think about it if your aquafolk have access to their own metallic weapons/tech then they would require a reliable source of heat for refining and forging, which logically leads to their civilizations being built around volcanic vents or their equivalent, hence making heat based cooking viable in-world.

Beleriphon
2016-10-13, 09:36 AM
Quick on cooking via heat versus acids/curing. Curing food doesn't get rid of food borne pathogens, while cooking to a minimum temperature does. This is why ceviche needs to be prepared carefully lest one spread stuff like cholera or parasites.

Bohandas
2016-10-13, 10:49 AM
What if they cooked over a hydrothermal vent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrothermal_vent)?

MrZJunior
2016-10-13, 11:08 AM
You could probably come up with some salad like things using undersea plants.

Bohandas
2016-10-13, 11:21 AM
Even things like sushi run into real issues like dissolving into individual rice grains and slices of raw fish.
You could still do rolled sushi. You'd just have to go back and wrap the exposed ends of each piece with an additional piece of seaweed after it was sliced.

MrZJunior
2016-10-13, 11:52 AM
You could still do rolled sushi. You'd just have to go back and wrap the exposed ends of each piece with an additional piece of seaweed after it was sliced.

Building off that things like dolmades could work.

SethoMarkus
2016-10-13, 02:31 PM
You could still do rolled sushi. You'd just have to go back and wrap the exposed ends of each piece with an additional piece of seaweed after it was sliced.

Double building off of this, onigiri completely wrapped in nori would serve the same purpose. Of course there is still the difficulty in preparing the rice in the first place, but some methods mentioned above would probably handle that.

As far as seasonings "washing" right off, what about stuffing seasonings inside the primary food? I'm thinking like stuffing herbs and spices inside a fish, wrapping the whole fish in kelp or somesuch, boiling it, then eating it either whole or biting into it like a hot pocket? I would assume that most undersea races would be more carnivorous and inclined to eating whole, raw foods.

Inevitability
2016-10-13, 02:41 PM
How about frozen stuff? Ice can be harvested from glaciers or packed ice and subsequently used to freeze other foods.

Hamste
2016-10-13, 03:14 PM
Apparently, you can cook with acid: http://food.drricky.net/2012/10/cooking-with-acid.html

So if you have any palatable acid in the ocean, you could "cook" small slices of meat in it.

Instead of plates, small net-like bags might be useful to keep individual pieces of food from drifting away.

What acids are there that don't naturally dilute in water? Water usually lowers the h+ ions of acid as it reacts with it resulting in the pH rising.

Beleriphon
2016-10-13, 04:30 PM
What acids are there that don't naturally dilute in water? Water usually lowers the h+ ions of acid as it reacts with it resulting in the pH rising.

None that I know of, but naturally occurring acidifying underwater vents could at least provide something. You can cure fish using citrus juices which are pretty weak acids.

WarKitty
2016-10-13, 04:54 PM
Actually, how would spices be stored anyways? I mean, in dry form they store as a powder, but I would imagine underwater you could instead grind into a paste that could then be rubbed onto food. This would stay at least long enough to be wrapped in something.

Pauly
2016-10-13, 07:09 PM
Actually, how would spices be stored anyways? I mean, in dry form they store as a powder, but I would imagine underwater you could instead grind into a paste that could then be rubbed onto food. This would stay at least long enough to be wrapped in something.

You just work with whole spices, like Thai cooking, if you want a finer finish you would discard the spice from the completed dish. Preparing ground spices would be close enough to impossible to be impractical.

Pauly
2016-10-13, 07:17 PM
What acids are there that don't naturally dilute in water? Water usually lowers the h+ ions of acid as it reacts with it resulting in the pH rising.

Well in regular cooking you don't just throw the acid on the fish on the table, you prepare it in a bowl to contain the acid. you'd simply do the same but with a fully enclosed pot. If this is civilization that has evolved to the point of having cooking then we can just assume that they have developed a way to collect and retain acids. some pretty advanced food preparation techniques like brewing beer, cheese and yoghurt making, olive oil, sausages along with sophisticate trade networks for spices predate written history.

A lemon juice or similar acid could easily be their equivalent to salt or sugar to pre-industrial humans

Pauly
2016-10-13, 07:24 PM
As far as seasonings "washing" right off, what about stuffing seasonings inside the primary food? I'm thinking like stuffing herbs and spices inside a fish, wrapping the whole fish in kelp or somesuch, boiling it, then eating it either whole or biting into it like a hot pocket? I would assume that most undersea races would be more carnivorous and inclined to eating whole, raw foods.

That's a very good suggestion. makes me feel like an idiot for forgetting it.

Pauly
2016-10-13, 07:35 PM
Quick on cooking via heat versus acids/curing. Curing food doesn't get rid of food borne pathogens, while cooking to a minimum temperature does. This is why ceviche needs to be prepared carefully lest one spread stuff like cholera or parasites.

Curing is, by definition, preserving food for later use. All curing methods pickling in acid, smoking, salt, syrup, oil etc. will reduce the level of pathogens to a level that will allow the food to remain unspoiled for much longer than usual. Acids do kill pathogens quite effectively, it's why white vinegar is a common kitchen cleaning product.

Modern ceviche, and tiraditos are different, they are not curing. Originally they were curing with the fish left in the lemon/aji mix for long enough for the fish to be cured. After WW2 there was large scale Japanese migration to Peru and the Japanese chefs changed the preparation to an a la minute marinade.

Eating and preparing Ceviche is just like eating and preparing sushi, and contains exactly the same risks.

Bohandas
2016-10-13, 11:59 PM
They might not be able to make cured meats but they could do the next best thing by submerging it in a brine pool (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brine_pool)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brining
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickling
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brine_pool