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The stew was simply made, fewer ingredients than those fancy dishes that Josephine insisted the kitchen make for the Inquisition forces and their guests. Yes, the wide variety of Antivan and Rivani spices were nice and gave flavour to meals that would have been bland without them, but Callon missed the comfort of a decent stew.
Ram meat, fresh from the hunters.
The first time that Callon contemplated making the stew was the first night he had been forced into joining the Inquisition. He was desperate for anything that reminded him of home that he almost broke down on his knees and begged.
Wild mint, thyme and rosemary, either grown from the travelling garden or nicked from a garden of a village chantry.
The second time was after the group had returned from the Fallow Mire. He never wanted to go back there again if he could help it. The undead gave him the creeps, and whilst he was glad that he had been able to help out the soldiers and scouts that the Hand of Korth had taken, the Fallow Mire was an awful place and probably should have been cleansed with fire long ago.
(Not that anything would have been able to burn considering it was a swamp and constantly raining.)
A few onions and leeks, traded with an alienage as the clan passed by a town.
The third time was when he decided to say screw it and went hunting by himself, coming back with a ram thrown over his shoulder ready to be scolded by Cassandra like a small child who had run off from their parents and had been lost amongst a shem city.
Carrots, potatoes and wild mushrooms, all roughly chopped.
The group had been surprisingly alright with him running off, having noticed that he was running a bit thin and he clearly needed time to himself. They weren’t expecting him to want to cook, however, and were wary about his skills. And the food he would make.
They needn’t be, but tales about the Dalish had never been kind so he wasn’t too surprised.
A big cast-iron pot and several large mugs of ale and water. Red wine if the clan had managed to bargain with a drunk noble.
Skinning the ram would be the second-longest part of the process, but when that was done and everything had been put into the pot over the fire it would be ready to eat by the time the group made it back to camp after closing a few more rifts.
If there was elfroot about, it made a good garnish. And if someone was feeling ill, adding it to the broth and drinking it straight always made them feel better.
Callon was nervous as he shared the stew out amongst the camp, watching and waiting for everyone to eat before he took a single mouthful. It was only when he heard someone comment this is good! that he took a bite.
His eyes started to water.
The company may not be what he was used to, and he certainly hated being called the Herald of Andraste but this stew…
It tasted like home.