Codex

Foodways

What the world eats and drinks, from the games and from the wall: found, made by a technique or by a recipe. Some of it gets up and walks off. Then every faction’s table, with its taboos.

66 rows: 47 proposed, 19 that only restate what the games and the codex already say. None of it is canon until it is approved: the codex filed what the games say into systems, and proposed the rest. Each row says which it is.

Drinks

Dishes

Baked

  • Biscuit Restates canon — waits for approval with the rest

    A digestive. Take it up to the attic with the soup.

    Made
    found
    Eaten by
    The household, The tin, The company
    Served by
    The household, The tin, The company, Staff only
    Sold at
    The Drawer, Bait and tackle, The kiosk, The sales floor
    On record in
    Always On’s biscuit, The Drawer, Mo, Gill

  • Bread roll Restates canon — waits for approval with the rest

    Breaks into three crumbs. The crumbs keep going.

    Made
    found
    Gets up as
    Bread roll
    On record in
    Bread roll, The escaped batch

  • Crumbs Restates canon — waits for approval with the rest

    Part of a roll, recently. Still heading for the Out tray.

    Made
    recipe
    Gets up as
    Crumb
    On record in
    Crumb

  • Sourdough Proposed — not canon until approved

    Torn open on a cloth. One loaf is crystals inside; another is folded linen all the way through.

    Made
    found
    On record in
    The bread remembers, The linen loaf

  • Toast Proposed — not canon until approved

    Sometimes it holds a tiny coastline. Sometimes it pops up trailing two small ghosts.

    Made
    recipe
    On record in
    Low tide on toast, Haunted toast and the aye-aye

  • Croissant Proposed — not canon until approved

    Flaky, but structurally sound: one arches over a cobbled street like a city gate.

    Made
    found
    On record in
    Right of pastry, The hourglass bakery

  • Waffles Proposed — not canon until approved

    Stacked into a block of flats, with balconies and a bicycle by the door.

    Made
    found
    On record in
    Waffle housewarming

  • Doughnut Proposed — not canon until approved

    Pink frosting, sprinkles, and tiny skaters going round. The sprinkles are the hard part.

    Made
    found
    On record in
    Glazed and confused

  • Cake Proposed — not canon until approved

    Cut in wedges, each a small green mountain range. Contains nuts.

    Made
    found
    On record in
    A matter of taste

  • A golden biscuit Proposed — not canon until approved

    Broken open on a domed planetarium. Not a digestive.

    Made
    found
    On record in
    The biscuit planetarium

Sweet things

  • Jelly Proposed — not canon until approved

    The Slopwright’s, a layer at a time. Some jellies wobble off toward the Out tray; not all jellies are lunch.

    Made
    recipe
    Gets up as
    Jelly
    On record in
    Stack, Jelly, Light dessert

  • Tiered jelly Proposed — not canon until approved

    A jelly the size of a desk lamp. It sheds more jelly.

    Made
    recipe
    Gets up as
    The Centrepiece
    On record in
    The Centrepiece

  • Gumballs Restates canon — waits for approval with the rest

    Arrive by the handful, and fall down the stockroom’s shelves.

    Made
    found
    Gets up as
    Gumball
    On record in
    Gumball, Fall Down

  • Sweets Proposed — not canon until approved

    In one back garden, an umbrella rains them into a puddle.

    Made
    found
    On record in
    Candy rain beneath a black umbrella

  • Honey Proposed — not canon until approved

    In a honey-bear bottle that stands in for a lighthouse. Ships arrive slightly sticky.

    Made
    found
    On record in
    Sweet beacon

  • Sugar Proposed — not canon until approved

    Cubes on a saucer. One is coming apart into ants made of sugar.

    Made
    found
    On record in
    Sugar cube ant escape, A taste of silence

  • Custard pudding Proposed — not canon until approved

    Caramel-glazed, cathedral-shaped, lit from inside.

    Made
    found
    On record in
    Custard cathedral

Fruit

Vegetables

  • Peppers Proposed — not canon until approved

    A bell pepper cut open on an opera house; a chilli fitted out as a propeller plane.

    Made
    found
    On record in
    The bell pepper opera, Hot departure

  • Onions Proposed — not canon until approved

    Every layer is accounted for, like a receipt. Mind what you say near the halved ones.

    Made
    found
    On record in
    Proof of purchase, The onion’s impossible reflection

  • Savoy cabbage Proposed — not canon until approved

    One leaf makes a lampshade. Warm, ambient and very low in calories.

    Made
    found
    On record in
    Lightly dressed

  • Peas Proposed — not canon until approved

    A pea vine has grown along a telephone cord. The call has been on hold all season.

    Made
    found
    On record in
    Pea tendril holds the line

  • Pumpkins Restates canon — waits for approval with the rest

    In places pumpkins should not be, every October.

    Made
    found
    On record in
    Slopoween, Pumpkin orchard in the subway, Bobbing apples in the flooded aisle

  • Oyster mushrooms Proposed — not canon until approved

    Growing out of a spinning record. The bass is very earthy.

    Made
    found
    On record in
    Spore sounds

Staples

Preserves

  • Pickles Restates canon — waits for approval with the rest

    In jars on the first floor down. The lid lifts, then one shot.

    Made
    found
    On record in
    The Larder, Pickle jar, a GeoCities homepage (pickle-jars)

The catch

Recipes

In Make Do’s shape: what goes in, where, and the know-how it needs.

On the stove

Tables

Each faction’s, as the placement table has it.

The household
Tea when the lamp is on, soup for the attic, the Slopwright’s jelly, and the Drawer.
Eats Tea, Soup, Tomato soup, Biscuit. Serves Tea, Biscuit, Soup. Won’t: Roasted pumpkin seeds (Roasting is off in October: on the wall, that is when the seeds become moths.)
The tin
Gill’s stocks tea and biscuits. No bait. The bait left.
Eats Tea, Biscuit. Serves Tea, Biscuit. Won’t: Sardines (Nobody here is lunch.)
The company
The kiosk does tea, soup and biscuits, and soup if the show goes badly.
Eats Tea, Soup, Biscuit. Serves Tea, Soup, Biscuit. Won’t: Walnuts (The theatre is in one. Crack it gently: there are people in there.)
Staff only
The sales floor sells tea and soup, and the staff canteen serves soup all night from an urn that is always hot. Nobody has seen the night staff eat; nobody has seen the night staff.
Eats nothing on record. Serves Tea, Soup, Biscuit.
The stock
Nothing on record. It is furniture, on display.
Eats nothing on record. Serves nothing.
The office supplies
Nothing on record. A stapler takes staples, which are not lunch.
Eats nothing on record. Serves nothing.
The four coworkers
The break room: a kettle, a fridge of labelled milk, and Brewster.
Eats Espresso, Coffee, Milk, Tea. Serves nothing. Won’t: Oat milk (“Oat milk is not milk. Anyway.”)
The escaped batch
It eats nothing. Some of it is lunch, and has somewhere better to be.
Eats nothing on record. Serves nothing.
The draughts
It is mostly cold. Soup is what the household takes up against it.
Eats nothing on record. Serves nothing.