Items · Other · Non-Magical
Camel's Hump
Sometimes, you just want to accept that something tastes good without knowing how it was made.
A Strange Brew:
It begins with a decent vineyard as well as a few camels. The vines must be grown from fresh oasis water, liberally fertilized with camel dung to promote the proper taste and texture of the grapes. Raising such flora in the desert is challenging, but so is keeping camels.
While your field is growing, ensure that the camel you are raising to store the unfinished wine is properly fed and treated. One must ensure that it receives the proper diet and spices necessary to create a suitable environment for fermenting wine within its hump. I suggest a meal largely of cactus. Getting your camel to ingest the suitable spices can be difficult- but surely worth it.
Allow the vines to grow until late into the season, about three days past when the others are beginning their harvests. Quickly gather your yield. Press them with haste. Mix the resulting liquid with yeast, camel's milk, cactus water, a touch of ginger and a small handful of barely.
Now then, your camel must be slaughtered, it's hump most carefully removed. A hole must be made in the hump, the inside liquid drained, and the mixture you've carefully crafted allowed to ferment within. Corking the hump may be difficult, but is well worth your time.
Allow the mixture to sit underground, far from the touch of the sun. Only there will temperatures low enough to allow the wine to ferment be found. You must wait two moons.
After the time has passed, unearth the humps. Have the appropriate containers ready for the mixture. Preferably, these would be glass bottles with a touch of absinthe inside. Pour the wine, and quickly cork it so there is a minimum of air inside. Now your wine is ready to be sold or enjoyed.
Exquisite Tastes?:
Camel's Hump wine features complex flavors not found in other wines. The process of making such a wine means that it is an exceedingly rare and sought-after vintage. It is not uncommon to find old rotten humps in antique stores with a (technically unfinished given the lack of Absinthe added) batch still inside.
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It's interesting, though as far as some foods go, not that gross - see pate, kopi luwak, etc. A unique and colorful wine aging process, though a bit more would be interesting. Who first started making camel hump wine? Where is it popular? Do most people know how it's made? It seems in a steppe/desert environment, it wouldn't be all that rare, since people eat camels all the time. Aside from its aging process, what makes it so sought-after?
Nice one, I like the voice in the first section. I agree with Dozus a little cultural information would improve the vintage, and if the wine a cultural weight behind it (aside from the large material and temporal investment) it could better be used as a story telling tool.
From a fantasy perspective i like it, because its exotic...and alcohol.
But it nags at me as a lover of said alcohol. Camel humps are filled with fat for the most part, not liquid. So instead of taking out the water, it would involve scooping out fat. And fermenting grapes with bits of meat and fat clinging to the hump's walls, is not only downright disgusting (ANY culture would agree ) but it messes with the fermentation process itself.
But I like it from a fantasy perspective! :-)
Speaking as someone who is not a lover of alcohol, I agree with Muro about its appeal due to its exoticness, and have no real knowledge of camels for it to nag at.
That said, while this sub has the interesting and artistic bits, I don't know how actually useable it is. I suppose some adventures could capture a treasure trove of fermenting camel humps or something,
I think that this could most benefit from some sample plot hooks, but it's not bad at all like this.
An example of a culture using what is found naturally in their environment to create something suitable for consumption.
Yes, the process of this sounds somewhat stomach-churning, but it's definitely something that could be concieved of in the real world.
As Dozus said; there are plenty of gross things already around. For example, there's a cheese in Sicily(From memory) called Casu Marzu, in which a particular wheel of cheese is intentionally infested with maggots and allowed to rot, then served with the maggots.
Actually, here's a list:
http://www.cracked.com/article_14979_the-6-most-terrifying-foods-in-world.html
Anyway, back to the camel wine! This is not a magical item. It's not a fancy sword or jewelled amulet. It's a perfectly believable cultural beverage which could be used in any minor may one would like, and I find it enjoyable!
Yes, and I can list a few more from around the world that are even more horrifying----coffee shat out by civets in SE Asia, boar rectums and anal canals, barely grilled over ash in various parts of Africa, and so on----but my point was, you can't ferment wine in fat.
The stomach-churning aspects don't bother me a bit :)
I may just rewrite this to be a process used on absinthe to make it more potent. Motivation I lack, currently.
Er, that cheese is from Sardinia, not Sicily. My mistake!
Ewww. :)