Guest Post from Ken Altabef: Designing a Fantasy World Around Inuit Myth

Far further back than I care to admit, the large newspaper I worked for sent me to Amsterdam to attend a trade show. In among the many adventures I had on that trip, I discovered the incredible variety of cuisines that make Amsterdam such a pleasure to visit. The glories of a spread of rijsttafel dishes, gouda cheeses, crisp Dutch beers, and so many others. One of my favourite discoveries was bitterballen the crunchy bar snack with a savory creamy filling that were served alongside beers.

It got me thinking about culture and how food transcends boundaries. Rijstaffel (rice table) is the Dutch version of Indonesian cookery. It dates back to the glory days of the Dutch East India Company, where creaking wooden barques made the perilous journey around the Cape of Storms to venture to the far east colony of Batavia (present day Indonesia). The ships would return laden with exotic spices like nutmeg, mace, and cloves dried and sometimes ground to powder to survive the long journey back to Holland. At a time when the Dutch Republic was entering its golden age, cooks could not get enough of these new flavours and sought out exotic flavours and colours to impress their guest with a dazzling array of dishes.

The sailors also brought recipes back with them, curries, nasi goreng, gado gado sambals,fried bananas and others. Back in Amsterdam people tried to make these recipes, but lacking the fresh ingredients, they substituted dried spices.

While the colonial excesses of the rijsttafel banquets have long since fallen out of favour in Indonesia, they remain a staple of Dutch restaurant fare, as former colonials returned following independence.

What’s in a name? Bitterballen are part of the larger tradition of bittergarnituur, or savoury snacks to serve with beer. Ballen being the Dutch plural for ball. So, essentially, savoury balls to have with beer.

Bitterballen are one such incarnation of the mixture of cultures permeating Dutch food. The basic recipe was probably taken from a French croquette filled with ragout, a traditional way of using leftover meat. The filling is shredded cooked meat mixed with a thick roux, to which with the addition of nutmeg brings an exotic flavour.

In my latest science fiction novel, Plato Crater, Holly a young thief is sentenced to community service in one of the only antique rijsttafel restaurants still licensed to burn hydrocarbons. One of the first dishes she learns to cook is bitterballen. This is how I imagined the recipe to be:

INGREDIENTS

For the filling:
• 1 stick of butter
• 1 cup of flour
• 2 cups of shredded cooked beef or veal (usually taken from last night’s leftovers)
• 3 cups beef broth
• 1 small onion, chopped
• ¼ cup fresh parsley, chopped
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• ¼ tsp powdered nutmeg
• ¼ cup finely grated parmesan cheese

For the breading:
• All-purpose flour
• 2 eggs whisked
• Breadcrumbs
• Vegetable oil for frying

INSTRUCTIONS

1. In a large pan, sauté the onions in olive oil until translucent.
2. Add the butter and once melted, add the flour slowly to make a roux.
3. Gradually add the broth, while stirring continuously to ensure that the roux absorbs the liquid.
4. Continue stirring until the mixture thickens.
5. Add meat and parsley. Cook for around two minutes until the mixture resembles a thick gravy. Stir in the salt, pepper, parmesan and nutmeg.
6. Transfer the filling mixture to a shallow container and refrigerate for 2 hours or until is has a solid consistency.
7. Take a spoonful of mixture and roll it into a ball the size of a golf ball.
8. Dredge the bitterballen in the all-purpose flour, then the egg wash and finally roll it the breadcrumbs. This should make around 20 bitterballen.
9. Place the bitterballen on a shallow tray in the to the freezer for 30 minutes before frying.
10. Prepare oil for deepfrying, either using a small saucepan or a deep fryer.
11. Fry the bitterballen, a few at a time, until golden brown, remove and set on a plate covered in paper towels to absorb excess oil.
12. Now open a crisp Amstel or pale lager, and serve the bitterballen hot, with a side of Dijon or grainy mustard.

About the Author

CARLETON CHINNER is an Australian born writer who grew up on a remote farm in South Africa, where the trip to the town library was the highlight of his week. He devoured anything science fiction, fantasy and horror. And, when that wasn’t enough, turned to urban legend and traditional tribal histories which combined to provide a heady brew of stories.
He has settled in Australia as an adult but not before turning up unarmed at a gunfight, discovering dead bodies and fighting off sharks while spearfishing. When not writing, he works as a project manager on large corporate programs. Follow him on Twitter @sunfishau

The CITIES OF THE MOON series is Chinner’s debut series, now available as POD and in ebook form from good online stores everywhere. Book 2 Plato Crater is available from 31 October.

Enjoy this writing advice and want more content like it? Check out the classes Cat gives via the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, which offers both on-demand and live online writing classes for fantasy and science fiction writers from Cat and other authors, including Ann Leckie, Seanan McGuire, Fran Wilde and other talents! All classes include three free slots.

If you’re an author or other fantasy and science fiction creative, and want to do a guest blog post, please check out the guest blog post guidelines.

Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks (1942) is one of my favorite paintings. There’s something uniquely inspirational in the drama and mystery of strangers gathered at a late-night diner. I also like it because it’s stylistically uncluttered, focused, and full of Mad Men era nostalgia. Recently, I had to pick up some friends from the airport at 5:30 am. Because I like to be painfully early, whether to catch a flight, or to pick people up, I left at 3:00 am. Naturally, I had some time to kill, so I dropped into a nearby Waffle House to see what it might have been like to be one of Hopper’s nighthawks. And also for breakfast.

After a few minutes on the interstate, I took an offramp and made a right turn onto an empty road. The darkness was occasionally punctuated by hotel marquees, stop lights, and an unmistakeable bright, yellow-blocked Waffle House sign. I pulled into the empty parking lot and backed my Jetta under the amber glow of the lone street lamp. At least someone might see me if I got mugged.

Through the windows, I saw a man behind the bar, most likely the cook, and a young lady seated at the end of the counter reading a book. Great, I wasn’t the only nighthawk. And someone should definitely see if I get mugged. I grabbed my trusty notebook from my book-bag and headed in.

There was an American flag sticker on the front door which I half expected to jingle with bells when I opened it. No bells. The globe lights above the bar bathed the dark walnut veneer of the countertop in a warm, diffuse glow. The air conditioning and refrigeration units droned in the background. A Touchtunes jukebox sat on the wall to my right along a row of red stools. It managed hit all the wrong notes of nostalgia and capitalism in one dirty, grey, plastic stroke. And who needed music when you have the soundtrack of clinking plates, and whisking eggs to accompany you?

“How ya doin babes? Just you tonight?” said the woman from the end of the counter. She was a young girl with hair as brown as the pecan pie she was having for breakfast, and judging from her black apron, also my waitress.

“Yup. Just me. Mind if I grab a booth?” I asked.

“Anywhere ya like. As you can tell we’re standing room only right now.” she said with a wink.

“I’ll keep my elbows to myself then.”

I chose a seat at the far end of the restaurant, by the window, right in front a sign that read “PLEASE RESERVE BOOTHS FOR TWO OR MORE GUESTS”. Oops. The waitress grabbed a pad from beside the register and sashayed up to my booth.

“What’ll ya have babes?” she asked. Babes. Not babe. Never babe.

“Let me start with a coffee” I said, looking around for a menu.

“I got you.”

A few seconds later, she brought me a single-page, laminated, red, white, and blue menu, because breakfast, after all, was the most American meal. It seemed like I could just point to a picture and get exactly what was in the picture. It took me a while to orient myself to the heiroglyphics. Did I want two triangles of toast, a yellow lump of eggs, and a floating disc of sausage? Or did I want white blob, a full square of toast, and yellow blob? I was still sleepy so I figured I’d play it safe. Steak and scrambled eggs please, with hashbrowns, smothered and coverd, which in Waffle House parlance meant with diced onions and cheese.

“You got it sweetpea.” Sweetpea. Things were getting serious now.

As she took my menu back, a white hatchback with Pennsylvania plates, and tinted windows pulled up to the window about twenty feet away from the diner and stopped.

“Was that car here when you pulled up?” she asked.

“No.”

“God, I hope nothing weird happens tonight. It’d be great if nothing weird happened again.”

Again? I passed two Waffle Houses on the way to the airport and stopped at this one because I deemed it to be the safest looking one. Swing and a miss. As I waited for my breakfast and potential weirdness to be served, I opened my notebook and took in my surroundings. So this was what it felt like to be in the Hopper painting.

What was it about diners that alway made them feel so familiar? Was it the condiment carrier with the perpetually sticky bottles? The empty dispenser of palm-sized napkins with the syrup ring? The waitress brought me my coffee in a speckled, thick-walled, ceramic mug. It was hot, black, and tasted just enough like coffee. It met the absolute minimum definition of coffee, didn’t try to be anything more, and it was perfect.

The breakfast arrived shortly after on an oval plate. The steak was thin and shaped like no piece of meat I had ever seen before. The eggs were yellow and lumpy, just as the menu promised. The hashbrowns arrived with a very discernable, only slightly melted square of American cheese, fresh from the wrapper, slapped right on top. And I got a bonus four triangles of toast on the side. Aces!

My notebook laid opened on the table.

“You have the prettiest handwriting I’ve ever seen” she remarked.

“Thanks.”

My notes were in cursive. Rage against the dying of the cursive, I say. It was probably for the best that she didn’t clearly see what I was writing down. She might’ve thought I was a health inspector or a food critic. Maybe she thought that anyway.

A steady stream of nighthawks trickled in as I ate my uniquely delicious breakfast. A young black man with earbuds and a contruction vest ponied up to the bar while watching videos on his phone. A middle-aged white man with a goatee and a polo sat down two booths away from me, also ignoring the two person rule. After that, a lesbian couple, an older latino gentleman, and a sleepy looking freshman joined the fray. And thus the portrait was complete, the nighthawks, all together at a Waffle House at 3:00 am. And somewhere between the smothered hashbrowns and slices of toasts were little morsels of inspiration.

Author bio for Khoa Pham: I’m an aspiring writer from North Carolina. Being brand new to this craft, I’m trying to read and write as much as I can. I’m fortunate to have a colorful background that I can pull from to help me write my stories. I’m an actor, veteran, designer, woodworker, immigrant, and new father. Hopefully soon, I’ll be able to add published writer to that list. Writing has been a great outlet for me to get all of the ideas out of my brain space.
Follow him on Twitter as @khoadpham

Enjoy this writing advice and want more content like it? Check out the classes Cat gives via the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, which offers both on-demand and live online writing classes for fantasy and science fiction writers from Cat and other authors, including Ann Leckie, Seanan McGuire, Fran Wilde and other talents! All classes include three free slots.

If you’re an author or other fantasy and science fiction creative, and want to do a guest blog post, please check out the guest blog post guidelines.