World building is part of planning any novel. This means doing some research. My planned NaNo novel called for some delicious book research.
Delicious?
One of the possible scenes in the novel will involve the main character doing some cooking, a simple Arab recipe. Except I don’t, or didn’t, know any simple Arab recipes.
Of course I could just do a search for such a recipe. What’s the fun of that? Finding a good cookbook to read or browse is much more fun.
I checked out “Arab Fairy Tale Feasts” by Karim Alrawi and Nahid Kazemi. This began my delicious book research.
My Plans
I had thought I would use a chicken recipe. This made it tempting to just look at those sections in the cookbook. I’m glad I didn’t succumb to this.
Instead I spent time enjoying the Arab Fairy tales. They each ended with a moral reminding me of Aesop’s Fables.
Each tale had the flavor of “The Thousand and One Nights” yet the familiarity of fairy tales I’d read long ago. The illustrations made the tales come alive, even though they were simple colored sketches.
New Plan
The chicken recipe idea got canceled. Instead I found a meatball with a honey glaze recipe. It’s fast to prepare and sounds delicious.
My main character will prepare a variation of this one as she will use a tomato sauce glaze, something the recipe notes tell me is another way to prepare the dish. One of the honey glaze ingredients called for would not be found in a regular kitchen not set up for Arab recipes.
That doesn’t mean I won’t try to make the original recipe. I’ve already tried out another recipe from this delicious book research, a lentil soup.
It would be great if the rest of my world building research was delicious book research too. Unfortunately it won’t be.
