MEAT

A rather upsetting bogsneak has commandeered one of the cooking stations. The prep table is a mess of brutalized cutting boards, overturned spice jars, and greasy mixing bowls.

"Grill grill grill grill," he chants in a singsong voice. Waving a flipper around he happily pats at the vast variety of meats laid over the coals. "Who me? My name? Oh you can just call me Mr. Meat."

The Meat Man, spawn of Meatday 2022, designated clan griller for Meatheat, Mistral Meals 2023 attendee, and now, he's ready for Novemberfest.

The Meatman stands in somber contemplation, surveying the provided ingredients. Bird, bug, bug? and basket. Hm. He's brought some bespoke coal brickets and his favourite flipper, but this is a bit of a rough start. Can you grill these things?

Eventually he gets out his cleaver and has a go at the poultry option, stripping the meat from the bones and cubing it up as best he can. The vegetables get the same treatment, and he tosses it all in a big bowl before giving the lobster a hard stare. Finally he slams the side of the cleaver onto the widest part, cracking it like a garlic clove. Aha! more meat for the cubing. The flies he discards, assuming them to be pests drawn by the aromas.

He squeezes some spicy leaf sheep over the bowl until their juices start a cerviche style chemical cooking action, pulls the wings off some flying butter, melts it and dumps in a generous handful of his favourite spice blend to make a baste, and starts assembling skewers. Bird! Beet. Bug! Broccoli? He's not sure what all these plant parts are but it will add some crunch between the meat. Can't go wrong with a kebab!


Mr. Meat has chosen to exercise the dial a friend option today. Stheno brings his championship baking expertise to the challenge; sweets are his specialty. After a hushed consultation with the myopic coatl, he guides him back out to the spectator section and then hustles over to his grill.

Crepes! They're sweet! They also come in savoury, which means meat right? And its basically just really thin fried bread. He can do this! The oat rations get ground up in his largest spice mortar, bashed to powder with the pestle. Some milk and egg later, he's got a... kind of batter. The snack sized birds and bees are tossed in a skillet over the flames and finished with a quick glaze, and the cotton candy will stand in for cream. Or cheese. Depending on your crepe. Then the real challenge begins. Flipping those weird pancakes.


Our Boy of Meat squints suspiciously at today's offerings. That is sure some loud food. Bright! Noisy! Wow! For a moment he contemplates a children's birthday cake extravaganza, but you just can't... grill a cake. Or frosting. He knows what does go good with a grill though.

One rummage into his trusty ice filled cooler later, and he's got the grill set to "smoke", an orderly row of steaks laid out, and its back to the pestle and mortar to grind up feathers and pulp leaves. The fish get sorted and filleted according to colour, and the glasswing are set aside for now.

Once he's ready, the show begins. Feather dust has been mixed into the wood shavings on the smoking tray, surf and turf bundles snugged up on the grill over top. A thick, brilliant blue bbq sauce is slapped about with a generous brush, and with a flourish, glasswing tinkle down to ignite, sending the whole thing up in a sparkling rainbow flair of billowing smoke.

Its Dinner: the Light Show!

This is an easy one! The pelican and fish are diced, then combined with the beetles and some mixed grains and herbs, before being packed into steamed water shields, wrapped into tight rolls. The whole lot are brushed with oil and then placed on the grill over a low bed of glowing coals. The lid is slammed shut and the Meat Man sits back to let them bake. Just before they finish, he tosses together a zingy citrus sauce to serve with them. Dolmade, cabbage roll, enchilada, whatever. Its the universal wrapped up food!


Ah, its time for a classic. The crickets are into the pestle like so many other things this week, to meet their fate under the mortar, ground into a protein rich flour. Brussels sprouts are chopped, mixed with the pumpkin(fish)seeds, sauted onions, herbs and sharp salty cheese to make a stuffing. The grouse are dressed and stuffed, and then, its onto the rotisserie. A whole flock of little hens tied up and turning slowly over the coals as MEAT bastes them lovingly with juniper infused butter. Delicious!

Ya, sure, ok, this is fine! Uh huh. Yep. Just... don't look at the turkey straight on, and let's just uh, get a bell jar for those moths, contain some of that radiant exposure. Meat boy rubs his palms over his apron nervously. Nettles are ok, nettles are good, that's natural, you just have to be firm with them, decisive. Too gentle just lets the stingers get you. And if they say the fungus is fine, its fine. Its fine!

He's seen a thing once, he doesn't like to stray much from his grill, his true calling, but he saw a cooking box once, some mad fae from arcane had hooked up some bits of Arcanist Artifact aka blast debris up and used it to power a heating array of some kind. Said you couldn't stand too close or you'd get ghosts in your blood. Or bones. Something like that. Well now he's got a ghost and a jar full of fallout, so... why not? And if you put the lid down a grill is a box?

So he's diced up the nettles and mushrooms, he's sauted them with wild onion and set them into a lidded cast iron vessel with wild rice and broth. Onto the rack of the grill it goes, and down goes the lid. Now for the power source. He carefully decants the moths and vaporous fowl into the vessel of a spritzer and starts pumping. When the pressure hits maximum, he fits the nozzel into the side of the grill, seals the whole thing up with some clay normally used for baking taters in the coals, and prays. Here goes nothing!

WHACK! The flipper hits the counter hard, flying scorpion smashed beneath. Meatman looks down at it, as startled as anyone else by his reflexive action. Hope that wasn't important?

Back to the ingredients on offer, sure has been a lot of poultry this week. Not a lot of red meat on offer. He sighs. Heaving the massive emu carcass up onto a board, he starts work on parting it out. Wings! Drumsticks! Thigh hmm that's rather beefy. Swordfish are known for their steaks too...

That decided he turns to the basket of precious blooms. Seems a shame to just mash em up for sauce. He pops one in his mouth and thinks. Finally he set a large pot of oil on the grill to heat and prepares a thin batter. Once the oil is up to temperature, he slaps the steaks on to quickly sear while he fries the delicate fire lily tempura.

A large platter is lined with leaves, a display of thin sliced emu and swordfish steak down each side and a row of crisp blossoms crowning the centre. He breaks out a sectioned tray of his favourite dipping sauces and smiles. Finally some good grilling!

Did somebody say GRILL?? Mr. Meat, the Meatman, our lad MEAT is fresh off the Mistral Meals cooking challenge and he's ready for another go.