Ižtreyan Cuisine

Ižtreyan meals are communal, taken at large, circular tables, ornately inlaid with brightly colored tiles or stone or metal fragments, that serve as the centerpieces of ižtreyan homes and feature prominently in the back-rooms of ižtreyan workplaces. An ižtreyan meal will involve a handful of main dishes and several smaller side dishes that are shared by everyone, heaped onto individual plates or bowls.

Certain dishes show up as sides at every meal, ubiquitous small plates called talots: these are considered obligatory to the degree that meal size and formality is characterized by the number of talotsa present, with a two-talotsa meal being considered the bare minimum for any meal, while a ten-talotsa meal is a veritable feast. (An ižtrey would never serve a meal with only one talots: in fact, the idiom “a one-talots meal” is used among ižtreya to connote a thing that is completely and unacceptably lacking or unfinished.)

A characteristic talots, known well even outside ižtreyan cities, is rask, which is a variety of tiny, walnut-sized bread, baked quickly in large quantities and served in large bowls with a dusting of salt, usually made of a combination of wheat and buckwheat flour and—less often—chopped nuts. Others include tsalšak, or wafers of dried cucumber softened and served in a tangy yoghurt-based sauce, reželdo, or chopped salted sardines or herring, and gelbrekhi, or fried vegetables in a buckwheat-honey batter.

Among the small bites are the large dishes. A meal with one or two people will likely have one large dish, but when eating as a family, a community, or a workplace, people will often serve several to even dozens of central dishes. Ižtreyan meals often include meats in flavorful sauces and various baked goods. Centerpiece dishes like this include:

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