Chapter Text
No country in Tamriel produced cheeses like the Summerset Isles.
Rulindil would know, having spent the majority of his life there before his reassignment. Of all the cities, Alinor boasted the broadest markets, hailing vessels from every port of the world to its piers. Rulindil spent an excellent portion of his spare time browsing those markets, but invariably, his path always led him to the furthest corners of them. There, rats and stalls lived in equal numbers, with rats outnumbering people two to one. The atmosphere was rank with dredged up sea waste and salt. The cobbles of the roads had long since sunk below view, so it was easy to slip on undried mud in the rainy months of First Seed. But only there could Rulindil find the cheeses that the Isles were known for. They were not comparable to those of the market center, no— cheeses kept unspoiled by the means of ice or frost salts or other chilling methods were fatal to their taste. Indeed, the air of the northernmost markets was often pungent and heavy with the signatures of innumerable exposed cheeses, as if the moistness and flavor had escaped into the air. Therefore, imported cheese was out of the question.
Three times a month (but four in Frostfall), Rulindil would fasten his silk-wool blend cloak about himself regardless of the weather, and walk down to the edge of the market. Rulindil did not believe in the gods, but Rulindil did believe that there was little he could not do with a good cheese. For example, an eidar mere minutes out the smoker could be rushed home and melted above a quiche internally layered with a light custard, shredded goat meat, browned onions, and finely chopped parsley and basil. Cubed Glenumbra often accompanied sliced, dense, unleavened rye and cured prosciutto on a charcuterie board. Cut fruit was an appetizer like no other when dipped in creamy, triple-whipped mascarpone.
But to Rulindil, there was no cheese like mozzarella. Indeed, he could not find a better cheese to be served on its own in his sure one hundred and thirty three years of living and eating. Mozzarella fresh out of a salted water bath was still springy and mellow. It was naturally mild in taste and elastic in texture, smooth on the skin and soft and milky on the inside. One could test the freshness of a hand-rolled ball of it by pressing a finger against it— if it gave with only the tiniest bit of resistance, and returned to its shape even less, it was at most a few hours old. The kind Rulindil bought was always unwinding from the shape it was pressed into, and by the time he was home, it would be nearly unfolded into a twisted rope of saturated mozzarella.
As with most fine things, there was only one place he could source it from. The storefront was obscured by a little stall, the overhead shade threadbare and faded and damp with sea water from the proximity of the pier. It had been nearly a year since he had left Alinor, but Rulindil could remember clear as day the lone Khajiit diligently kneading a mass of mozzarella behind a countertop. No words were exchanged between them, save for the lone weekend that Rulindil had asked for the Khajiit’s name and was answered with “Maz’arahd.” Three times a month, but four in Frostfall, Maz’arahd would slide a pound of balled up mozzarella over the countertop, still dripping and glistening from a tub of water, wrapped neatly in two layers of waxed paper and tied with twine. In turn, he would slide a sack of fifty gold coins across the countertop, and leave shortly after. Occasionally, he would catch sight of a cart being pushed uphill to the busier markets, loaded with the same mozzarella tucked safely under his arm. There, they would be unloaded and unwrapped, laid identical to the rest of the cheeses Rulindil would skim over on his way to Maz’arahd. Those were the cheeses the Isles were known for, but not the cheeses that Rulindil was known for.
It should come as no surprise that Rulindil loves to cook, then, and that he takes every opportunity to do so, beit for himself, or sudden guests, or events, or friends and family. To a select few, Rulindil considered himself a connoisseur of cheese. To even fewer, he thought of himself as the finest in Alinor. And to himself, he thought there to be no finer expert in cheese in the world than him.
Too bad his sister was lactose intolerant.