Night of Innocence, Boodog and Khorkhog

Night of Innocence, Boodog and Khorkhog

I showed up at the 420 celebration, whatever that is, thinking 420 was the annual "Night of Innocence". My mistake.It did resemble the Night of Innocence in some superficial ways.

The Night of Innocence was one of my favourite holidays even as a child.

Desertborn would gather at the seeqs. Adults smoked a smokeable version of The Spice in tall hookahs and water pipes, danced like dervishes all night long to celebrate our ancestors until we drop from exhaustion, then greeting the dawn, we beg our ancestors for forgiveness and pledge ourselves to quests to earn their respect or forgiveness.

Due to the prevalence of The Night of Innocence, there will not be much heard from the Council of Elders. For those over 300, they usually have a lot of descendants, sometimes entire seeqs.

Extracting solemn oaths and assigning quests on The Night of Innocence is the cultural backbone of a lot of seeqs.

It is a time for the forgiveness of sins, and seeking the path of redemption. The renewal of innocence thru the Hero's Journey. An annual opportunity to reinventing the self.

Many young people pledge to make the survival pilgrimage at this time.

Some of those who already completed the survival pilgrimage, choose to join the Imperium Navy, or go offworld to work, or attend university like I did.

Some take on great quests for the good of the family, the seeq, or the Desertborn Community, or Araxes as a whole.

Some pay back debts owed, or at least pledge to.

Some, to the surprise of many, admit when they might have been actually wrong about some issue or other. Reconciliations are a good first step on the path of personal redemption.

While I am technically less than 80 years old, spent most of my life in stasis, I was born over 600 years ago, making me Ester’s eldest living ancestor. I have 25 generations of descendants, and a dozen ex-husbands.

Tamaris  continues to count, "That is 600, you can stop bowing now, Onyx."

We don’t revive people from deep stasis for the Night of Innocence like some Imperials do, we are simpler folk.

My stasis was all voluntary and work related. I work on long term projects and I like to see things thru to their finish. I pop in every 50 years or so for a few years to check up on progress I gave up on husbands a few stasis hops back. I think I have a couple of estranged husbands who are still living, but they have moved on. They don’t call, they don’t write, neither do I.

A solid stable of estranged husbands and children I have left for others to raise while I was away on a project or in stasis, I have a few thousand known descendants. I don't have records about the descendants of those who went offworld and did not return or did not register after their return.

I have much to atone for myself, but that is between me and MY ancestors, today is about Ester appeasing her ancestors.

Despite her fearsome reputation, Ester is a good girl at heart, she asked me, "Don't I need to sacrifice a goat to appease you, Onyx Grandmother?"

You can take the girl out of the seeq, it is much harder to take the seeq out of the girl. Even for the Sinisterhood.

It would take too long for Ethyl Ester to even list her sins, and I think I would have to hire experts to even understand some of them.

I don't think a sacrificed goat would be enough for that billet of sins, but it would count as a good faith deposit.

The ritual sacrifice, dervish dancing (which is great fun), bowing to me 600 times, that is all just showing good faith. Redemption comes from deeds and great quests.

To be completely fair to Ester, her mission capture the tomb raiders and retrieve the stolen artefacts, I am pretty sure counts as a suitable quest that would satisfy the ancestors.

I was going to leave it at that, then I remembered that my family recipe for Marmot Boodog could be adapted for mountain goat.

For the Boodog, the freshly killed mountain goat is separated from intestines and cleaned. Then, the prepared mountain goat carcass is filled with preheated hot stones and tightly sealed. The goat meat is cooked by the heat of stones from inside. Additional heating is provided by open fire. This process must be handled with care and expertise. The temperature of stones and the amount of heat from outside must be well balanced and regulated. Otherwise, a lot of pressurized vapour will accumulate inside the meat and the whole package may blow up. When the cooking is done, the stones are taken out first and given to all boodog eaters. While still hot and greasy, stones should be rolled between palms or held with fingers to eliminate fatigue and boost stamina. A hearty stew is usually formed inside the goat, it is separated from the meat and put in a pot.

Boodog

Ingredients:

1 medium goat

Salt

Onions, garlic if you have some.

Cooking gear:

From small to medium sized smooth stones

Firewood

Cooking time:

Approximately 4.5 hours

Boodog is similar to Khorkhog and uses a similar cooking method, except that the meat isn't cut into pieces. The stones are instead filled into the stomach of the animal, which gets cooked within its own skin.

Hang the goat at the head, and cut the skin around its neck. With some skill, it is possible to pull the skin and most of the meat down over the inner skeleton. Break the legs at the knee, so that you only need to pull out the upper leg bones. From the innards, separate the intestines, liver and kidneys, which can later be inserted again or used to make Menudo.

Turn the removed skin and meat back, so that the hair is at the outside again. Rub the inside with salt , then fill the resulting "sack" with some salt, some peeled onions, and a number of stones, that have been heated up in a fire for about an hour. The stones must have a smooth and round surface. The smaller ones go into the upper legs, the larger ones into the abdominal cavity. At the end, the neck is closed with a piece of wire.

You need a strong flame like a blowtorch to burn away the fur. Then scratch the remains off together with the uppermost layer of the skin. During that process, the meat gets cooked from the inside and the outside. If the steam forming inside causes too much pressure, then you need to cut a few small holes into the skin to avoid an explosion. Additionally, roast the goat on slow open fire or with a gas burner if you are not feeling traditional. The meat is cooked enough when all of the skin surface leaks with fat.

Usually, Desertborn do not use additional seasonings in order to keep the specific taste of goat meat, but if you are honouring an ancestor and you know what spices they like, include them.

When the cooking is done, the stones are pulled out, rolled in hands, the meat is cut into pieces and served hot.

Sometimes we make a little Menudo with many parts of the goat being used to create a flavourful soup or stew, with goat lungs, heart, liver, head, cow stomach, intestines and tongue. Sometimes, if you are the lucky one , you get the serving with one of the goat’s cow hoof and its tail. Usually the hooves are boiled and served separately, but I don’t stand on ceremony about such things, I toss them in the pot. It is also a widely known to hangover cure among offworld spice miners.

Khorkhog

Goat cooked with hot stones in a container.

The meat of a goat is cooked together with vegetables in a closed container, with the help of heated stones. For a large Khorkhog, a metal milk container is normally used. For smaller amounts, other containers serve just as well, in our case two normal cooking bowls put on top of each other.

Ingredients

Goat meat. Only the meat of the goat is used, cut it into handy pieces together with the bones.

Vegetables such as carrots, white cabbage, onions, potatoes, etc.

Everything washed and cut in large pieces.

Stones Smooth, round stones from a river, roughly fist sized.

Water

Salt

Pepper

Caraway

Heat the stones in the fire, until they are hot throughout. With a decent fire, that should take about an hour.

The stones are very hot, and can cause serious injuries!

Place hot stones, meat, and spiced vegetables into the cooking container in layers. Add sufficient water, which will fill the container with steam (without pressure!) during the full cooking time.

Now close the container and put everything back on the stove. The heat of the stones and the stove together results in a uniform cooking process. When the container can be locked, care needs to be taken that the pressure inside doesn't get too high. If in doubt, rather don't lock it.

It takes some experience to determine the correct cooking time and the necessary head depending on the equipment used. Ideally the container should not be opened during cooking. Experts will observe the emanating sounds and smells to figure out when the Khorkhog is finished.

When it is done, take the container from the stove and open it. Fire and fat have given the stones a glossy black colour. Let them cool down as far as necessary, and hand them around to your guests. Our ancestors believe that the heat and fat have beneficial or even healing effects, when you hold and rub the stone in your hands for a while, so on the Night of Innocence, whether you believe it or not, you do it..

It is all normally eaten with the fingers. If you must use a knife to make cuts down to the bone, so that you can grab the slices with your teeth.

Because of the extremely high temperatures, lack of surface moisture, virtually nonexistent surface plantlife, and thin atmosphere, other than the rodents in the offworlder settlements at the border and starports, hobby farms in caves and under domes, some pets, and the bats, there are no large mammals on Araxes.

The water footprint for mammals is just way to high to be practical, and without constant human supervision, they don’t last.

Those who want it, import it.

In the hill country in the far south and the far north and the midslopes of the border mons, some experiments with altitude adapted mountain goats and yaks, but they do not run in the wild. They exist only with constant human assistance.

One does not buy these goats or yaks, Imperial lucre is an insult their ancestors bled and died to avoid. They must be traded for honourably.

Look upon goat thieves with scorn, know them and mark them for all to see. Remember them, for there is no debasement that is beneath them. Let them know at every turn how they are the worst of scum. Let all know so that they can be shunned.

Ester, find someone to make peace with the goat-herders of the midslopes, trade with them for a healthy mountain goat. Then  prepare a fine Boodog, Khorkhog, and a little Menudo. I am sure the ancestors will be pleased. Share it with kin and kith and tell tales, true or not, that honour the ancestors.

Some Yak’s milk would also be fine to go with it.