The Feast
AN: This chapter is for kcluv4everxoxo, who wanted a description of the Capitol's food. Also because someone has to pay tribute to the lamb stew!
Tasha sweeps us off to the dining hall, and my stomach lets out a growl of impatience as the smells of Capitol dishes reach us, even here in the elevator. Cry-baby perks up, nose not recognizing the scent of spiced meats and hot wine but knowing it to be food nonetheless.
…We're not disappointed.
Gilt glass doors open to reveal the most lavish, most sumptuous room imaginable, every wall a window shimmering in the sunlight with a view of all the Capitol spreading out below. But it's not Panem's panorama that catches my attention: it's the food.
Basted poultry, stuffed pork, ribs and sides of beef-steak and lamb chops grace the air with their rangy scent, spiced with apple-beer, cinnamon and cloves. Cheese-crusted potatoes with pungent garlic and sharp salt. A platter of fruits of indescribable color and texture glazed with honey and sugar, bathed in ice and heavy, whipped cream. Open, simmering cauldrons of stew smelling of onions, raw lamb and red wine, or hearty potatoes, salo and rich cream, or cabbage and carrots with eye-watering, uncrushed peppercorns. A narrow wooden table stretches across the room with enough hearthy, hearty, crusted bread to feed a District from cracked, blanched whites to moist, beer-sopped rye and dusky chocolates. In all my eighteen years, I've never seen a sight or scent so welcome.
"So," Tasha asks me, a grin in her very voice. "What do you think? Satisfactory?"
I can only stare, speechless. In my arms, Xavier Malcovitch is openly drooling.
We tuck in, and Tasha watches with an amused, maternal smile, occasionally wiping grease and flecks of cream or drool from Malcovitch's face or hair. Either he was never taught or forgot in his haste or hunger, but never once does he touch the silverware. Even my own hands are hot and sticky with tart apple-scented sauce, delicious enough to savor and lick. The meats are richly cut, preserving their full flavor, charred near-black on the outside but still bursting with hot juices and spice. The breads are so thick my jaws ache from chewing, spread over with a patina of fresh, salted butter, cold, hard, and yet refreshing.
Some fruits I have never seen, but plump, near-frozen berries and blended ice so bitter and yet so sweet all at once make me pucker and grimace, and rich honeyed-cream with pastry-crusted peaches have me moaning with delight. Cry-baby guzzles gallons of strained stews and soups, noisy slurps punctuated by burps of satisfaction. Mulled wines steaming-hot, chilled vodka burning like icy fire, or dark, foaming pitchers of beer appear for our tasting pleasure accompanied by fruity or grassy teas in tiny, ornate clay pots.
Klerkov joins us briefly, devouring ten racks of lamb, ripping flesh from bone with ferocity with his bare teeth and hands, his dark beard matted with juices, grease and shreds of meat or flecks of bone. There is no conversation, only grunts of approval, sighs of satisfaction, and the smacking of teeth against lips or silverware against bone china. Tasha watches us all tenderly, stroking Xavier's hair and back as he laps lamb and onion stew like a kitten with cream. Outside, the sun sparkles in sheens of light, nearly blinding. A city sprawls beneath us in every direction, the domed sky open above. A sense of satiety and sleepiness pervades, content, nurturing, wholesome.
For the first time in his life, Xavier Malcovitch eats not just to survive but simply because he can, the fears of emptiness and starvation vanished completely from his mind. He forgets the cold and cruelty of 6's harsh winters and whipping winds. Forgets a home and mother lost, a train-ride, a city's scorn and a country's demand for his death. He doesn't know what came before, has no anticipation of the horrors that lie yet ahead. For him, for now, tomorrow holds no fear, and yesterday no sorrow. Sipping at sleepy, spiced wine high in the air of a strange, surreal city, surrounded by waiting Avoxes, my Drunkard, my Addict and my Sin I find myself suddenly envious.
