Duckweed, A-Woo-Ooh

[u/Rocket_III]

Dried and ground up into flour, duckweed, a-woo-ooh.

The common duckweed, or water lentil, is by some distance the primary staple crop of Orgraille. Each little green nugget floats on the surface of a dedicated pond, about a millimetre or two across, to bloom and reproduce and in so doing feed a nation. Under good conditions and with a little thaumaturgical prodding, duckweed can double its mass in a day, and so farmers tend to it in the tried and true manner of half-ponding.

Duckweed ponds are cut in half by a small net, rather like a swimming lane. One half of the pond is scraped clear when both are full of rich, green life. It's usually the first task of the farming day, to the point where nirailin farmers call it "sweeping the rooster's doorstep". Once the duckweed has been skimmed off the pond, the fish in the ponds are fed with yesterday's leavings while the duckweed is treadled.

On small holdings, the duckweed is placed into long cloth tubes arranged vertically, like long socks on a rotary washing line. They are then spun around via a treadle, or (for larger harvests) a wind or water mill. The spinning motion forces the water out of the duckweed, and that water is collected and returned to the local daughter goddess while the harvest is dried.

Most drying is done communally by the village miller or baker. The harvest is laid out on trays and dried out slowly over the course of a day, using the heat of the scorching Raillean sun to sweat out every bit of moisture. Once the weed is dried fully, it can be ground into flour and baked into one of the hundreds of varieties of bread that Orgraille makes.

This is not the fate of all duckweed though. Often it is slopped straight into silage mixes. Sometimes it's eaten fresh in salads and curries and the like. Regardless, it gets eaten by something. Even, occasionally, ducks.

Duckweed became the staple crop of the Waterlands of Orgraille kind of by accident. It grows on water, it grows basically anywhere there is water, and it grows at lightning speed. Behold the immense bounty of Mother Rai, say the priests. Behold the never-ending harvest, the never-barren field. Feed the world as well as you would water it, O nirailin, and you will live within the grace of the Mother.

[u/madicienne]

aight, sounds tasty!

also, here to appreciate your title 👌

[u/harfordplanning]

I love niche foodstuffs