Weekend Write-In Story Collection

A Cooking Lesson

In 500 words, tell a story in which subtlety is lost on someone. Written for the Weekend Write-In prompt "Subtle", 31 December 2015 to 3 January 2016.

David sits in Grandpa's lap again, gaining wisdom.

Grandpa's Lap

"Grandpa...?" David looked up from his book.

"Yes, Sweetheart... You find another word?"

"Yeah... Looks like north coast First Nations stuff. Tough to pronounce... Sub-te-le... what's it mean?"

"Sounds Nootka, Tlingit, maybe Quw'utsun. What's the context?"

"The old trapper's talking of cooking fresh game and ways to lessen wild tastes and get more sub-te-le flavours."

"Maybe he knew some native cooking secrets... Though with the very basic cooking techniques they had, it's hard to imagine..." Grandpa folded his newspaper and patted his lap. "Come, let me tell you about their cooking. Maybe that'll help you understand."

David rolled over from his belly on the carpet, sat up and closed his book then got up and snuggled into his grandfather's lap.

"You know they didn't have any metal... They hadn't discovered copper, tin, silver, iron or the other minerals that made cooking easier."

"So, they were still in the stone age, then?"

"Yes, Sweetheart... Guess they were. Their tools were mostly stone and bone. They had discovered how to fire-sharpen yew wood into very hard, sharp points and edges. They made great use of the red cedar trees, not just the wood, but also the various layers of the bark. But because they had no metal, their cooking techniques were very different from ours."

"Like we do with the campfires, roasting marshmallows and hotdogs over the flames and coals?"

"Except they didn't have marshmallows or hotdogs." He ruffled David's blond curls. "One of the methods they devised was weaving racks of wet cedar splints around fish and pieces of meat and standing them by the fire to roast, wetting the rack again and turning it as the cedar began to smoke."

"So maybe the cedar gave the flavours the old trapper was talking about."

"That could be. They also boiled and steamed food in bent cedar boxes. Often this was pieces of fish. An interesting technique... The boxes were superbly designed and crafted... Ingenious, actually. They used only two pieces of wood to build them, a long, thin piece and a square or rectangle one."

David scratched his head and looked into his grandpa's eyes. "Two pieces? Don't you need five, one for each side and one for the bottom?"

"In our way, yes, but not in theirs. They cut three vee-shaped grooves across the long piece, and another along its length near an edge. They formed the other piece to match the dimensions and bevelled its edges. The long piece was then soaked in water and heated over the fire to limber it before bending it around the base. Pegs or stitches were put through holes in the fourth corner to hold the thing together. Very elegant."

"So how did they cook with that?"

"They'd heat small stones in the fire, add food and some water to the box then drop the hot rocks in and cover with a lid."

"So would that give the flavour?" He opened his book and pointed.

"Subtle, not sub-te-le. Let me explain that word."