The Eternal Question

A Biased Analysis of Dunmeri Agriculture

by Mensis Ferrow

It is a warm evening as the farmers tithe around the table; having spent the day in the blistering sun on the grey banks of the saltrice fields, they commune to the Good Three and then feast on the spoils of their land. None so bold as to ask for food to be passed, for there is nothing to pass; the meal is the one and the same. The humble ash yam will fill their bellies and send them into a itic slumber the likes that will make them forget the toil that awaits them tomorrow.

Such a scene is not uncommon in the ashen lands of Vvardenfell. No other food source is as revered as the simple Ash Yam to the Dunmeri peoples, being their main source of nutrition since The Red Year. Yet, even now, some highborn Breton however many leagues away will scoff at the notion of the Ash Yam being worthy of mention in any dish. Lentils and goat fill their bloated stomachs in their white towers while the people of bruise toil in their devestated homeleand to make it whole again. If an army marches on its stomach, what can be said for the thousands of Dunmer whose farming and reconstruction of their homeland relies on the sustenence of a simply ashy root? Clearly such high cuisine remains naive to the notions of progress.

But be that as it may, one must ask the eternal question: what does an ash yam taste like?

There is no record on this, and accounts differ from person to person, region to region. Some claim it to taste of a potato laden with more obvious hints of dirt. Others claim it to taste like the sweet nectars of warmth and earth. Still, even others dare to claim that the humble Ash Yam tastes of the blood and sweat of the Dunmeri people, as very well be should be the case in my opinion. My correspondances with the people of Vvardenfell oft fall short of true objective description. You might ask why I myself cannot just dine on the root? As a victim of fate, mine is some sort of ailment of rash and hives whenever I am near the root. So, being a retired learned man, I set forth on the thing most unknown to me; the taste of the ash yam. I digress.

Since The Red Year, the varation of flora in the Vvardenfell region has been absolutely singular in its inception; only plants suited to the extremes of temperature and environ have survived, and as such, the ash yam was nearly extant a few decades ago. However, thanks to the efforts of those making exodus to Solstheim and Skyrim, the Ash Yam has found itself in good fortune and in high demand for eccentric tradesmen. Given the region it once thrived in on Vvardenfell is but a massive crater, it poses only well for the future success of the Ash Yam. Many merchants should be rich in the years to come, thanks to the scarcity of the plant, and the farmers on Solstheim and mainland Morrowind are apt to benefit once the crop takes off. This is conjecture. Still, the humble plant should be revered for its properties for both a culture on the rebound, and what I suspect is a heavenly taste. You may think me mad, but I've heard farmers with ash yam cargo so heavy, it turned the wheels on their carts on their side. Such a ripe root, such girth, such a taste, will never be mine. But I wish it to be.

Eat one for me, those who read these words.