[Dragaera] Vlad and his father

[Philip Hart]

Re cuisine vs cooking:

On Wed, 17 Sep 2008, Scott Schultz wrote:

> [...] a trait that Vlad cultivated as something to 
> set him apart from and feel superior to Dragaerans. Whether most Dragaerans 
> are really culinary clods (and in a world where a salad with flaxseed oil is 
> considered a meal, that's not hard to believe), Vlad's upbringing in a 
> culinary household, where good food is commonplace in comparison to whatever 
> Dragaeran food he tried, would naturally cause him to grow up to be something 
> of a culinary bigot, if you will.


I had something like that in mind - Vlad's status as Other means that he 
is hyperaware of points of (his) cultural superiority and apt to 
exaggerate them or anyway make them (even more) prominent in his life.

This it occurs to me might also be something of a satire on America,
where the local cuisine is lacking but the immigrant cuisine is
incredibly rich.  I hadn't thought much about the Dragaeran Empire
as say Kafka's Amerika, but I guess I will consider it.

Maybe post-Interregnum Empire is something like America in that
it's been around for two hundred years or so and people have been
focussed on things other than cuisine.  That might help answer
my Issola objection.  Also I guess that Vlad formed his opinions
about food before being exposed to real nobles.