FREMEN COOKING
The ordinary Fremen family of the sietches lived on simple, healthy fare. (The donkeys that carried the family's belongings also provided milk, which was made into butter, cheese, and kvetch. a clabbered milk drink.) Fruits were mostly dates, figs, and apricots grown in the palmaries, and the occasional portygul or melon imported from Caladan, especially the pink-fleshed, sweet, and fragrant paradan melon. Fruits were eaten fresh, made into conserves, pickled, or dried.
Leafy vegetables were very scarce on Arrakis. Instead, a large number of root crops, like tabaroot, available most of the year, were grown in the gardens tended by the children of the tribes.
Meat was often roasted — desert hare and chukka (a fowl) were the most common — or a savory stew might be made of meat and roots. The stew was served with the hearty Fremen flat bread that served as plate as well as food: when torn open, its surface was the plate for the stew. After the stew was eaten, the gravy-soaked plate was itself eaten.
Fremen usually ate two meals a day, a lighter one eaten on rising at sunset — usually consisting of bread, cheese, kvetch, and some fruit or juice. No more food was eaten during the night, except for a drink of juice or coffee after arising from a nap. A heavier supper was served at dawn. There was roast meat or stew, vegetables, fruit, bread, and dessert and coffee. Dessert was usually a sweet, a cake or pastry. One favorite was a sweet honey cake, tabara. This cake, of a heavy, puddinglike consistency, was a mixture of cooked and mashed tabaroot, honey, and spices pressed into a dish, sprinkled with sugar, dried seeds, and crystallized fruit. After cooling, the cake was cut into tiny triangles and served with fruits, and hot spiced coffee.
The nobility on Arrakis lived, of course, on fare more delicate, suiting their station in life. They imported many more foods and drank the exotic and expensive wines of Caladan. Typical dishes served at a feast might include the foods listed on a menu (below) found by chance inside a volume in the rare book room at Caladan Castle. The note on the menu is indisputably in the handwriting of Lady Jessica, indicating not only the dishes she wanted served, but where the feast would be given. The note is written to Islo Garen of the famous Garenne Culinary Institute, who served for several years as head chef of the Atreides. The presence of these two figures dates the feast between 10190 and 10191, during the short rule of Duke Leto on Arrakis.
MENU
Chukka under Glass
Roast Desert Hare in Sauce Ceteda
Aplomage Sirian
Langue de Lapins de Garenne
with Mushroom Yeast Sauce
Red Caladanian Wine
Paradan Sherbet
Coffee
The following recipes are in a second handwriting, undoubtedly that of Garen, and were written on the back of the menu:
LANGUE DE LAPIN
Allow three per person.
Marinate tongues (use fresh — canned are too soft) in three parts oil and one part lemon juice. Add salt, pepper, and savory. Marinate overnight.
Just before cooking, drain tongues and pat dry. Meanwhile melt ½ kg of the best butter in a large skillet and add the tongues. Sauté over a high flame until just lightly cooked, but not dry. Remove to a warm platter and make a sauce from the juice in the pan, adding the marinade and boiling until it thickens. In another skillet melt another ½ kg of butter and add to it 2 kg of thinly sliced mushrooms. Add to the thickened marinade sauce the mushrooms, 120 ml of red wine, and 10 ml of yeast. Warm and serve with the tongues as a dip.
PARADAN MELON SHERBET
For 2 liters:
1 large paradan melon
3 lemons
115 gm sugar
2 whites of large eggs, beaten until soft peaks form
120 ml liqueur (apricot, peach, pear are all good)
Peel the melon and cut it into chunks. Grate the rind of one lemon and add to the melon. Juice all three lemons and add the juice to the melon. Add sugar, and toss gently until the sugar is dissolved. Puree the melon mixture and fold in the beaten egg whites. Add the liqueur and put the mixture into a freezing container with a dasher; turn dasher continuously. Freeze until the mixture is mushy, then turn into a melon-shaped mold and freeze until firm. To serve, turn out onto a tray decorated with lemon leaves. This recipe serves 12 to 16.
SPICED COFFEE
Use 175 ml water for each cup of coffee.
Place boiling water in the top section of a drip coffee pot. In the center coffee basket place 15 gm Fremen-grind coffee (very fine). Allow the water to drip slowly through the coffee into the bottom container. Remove the top and basket, and add sugar or honey to taste.
Add 5 ml of spice for each cup (but not if you use melange — then use the cut melange in the marked container: this means you, Daba!).
Finally, we add one recipe from the common folk:
FREMEN FLAT BREAD
15 ml yeast, dissolved in
120 ml tepid water
Add 450 gm flour
5 ml salt
15 ml oil
240 ml warm water, added in drops as needed
Knead together the above ingredients until a smooth dough forms; this should take about fifteen minutes. Place in a greased bowl and allow to rise until doubled in bulk. Punch down and allow to rise a second time. Punch down a second time and turn out onto a rolling-surface. Divide into 12 parts. Form a cake with each part and pound or roll each flat into a circle about 15 cm across. Bake on hot quarry tiles that have been preheated to 260 to 270 degrees Centigrade. The bread should be done in one to two minutes. It will puff up while cooking and flatten as it cools.
J.R.M.
FREMEN: CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT TO THE YEAR 10190
The earliest history of the native inhabitants of Arrakis indicates that they were the sole remnant of a people known as the Zensunni Wanderers, originally followers of a "prophet" named Maometh, circa 1381 B.G. The Fremen broke away from the main sect to establish their own religion based on an ultraconservative notion of living life according to "the ways of the fathers." Given the Fremen's roots in such a religion and the particularly life-threatening environment that Arrakis afforded them, the Fremen developed a set of cultural institutions unique in their perfect balance between the philosophical world view demanded by Fremen faith and the harsh reality imposed by Arrakis's nature. These institutions remained stable for thousands of years and were significantly changed by only two events. The first was the arrival of Pardot Kynes as the first planetologist of Arrakis. The second was the transfer of the governance of Arrakis from the House Harkonnen to House Atreides in 10190 and the subsequent emergence of Paul Atreides as Paul Muad'Dib. Kynes expanded the cultures of the Fremen to include the hope for a second flowering of Arrakis; Paul Muad'Dib forever changed that culture, thus, for all intents, the ancient culture of the Fremen ceased with his rise to power.
What was that culture? And why was Paul Atreides able first to seize control of it and then destroy it? The answers to both of these question lie, once again, in the Fremen's religious beliefs and how they interpreted the world around them. From what is understood of the Zensunni Wanderers, it can be surmised that their religion was severe in the extreme. It demanded close obedience to an authority figure who must have literally had the power of life and death over his subjects. Such authority does not appear to have been lightly earned. A leader, called Naib, had to conform closely to his followers' notion of what a leader should be. Thus, while he had the power of an absolute ruler, a Naib could easily be challenged by any of his subjects if his behavior seemed at all inappropriate. Moreover, from the records left by Pardot Kynes, such challenges seem to have been frequent. Thus the Fremen held a paradoxical notion of social order: the leader of any group was supreme, but only if everyone who belonged to that group wanted him to be.
It appears then that a balance of order and anarchy coexisted in Fremen culture. Clues as to the nature of that balance exist, the most significant clue being the Fremen's view of Arrakis itself. To the Fremen the plan
et was Shai-Hulud, the deity or spirit of Arrakis. It stood for the Sandworm which was the essence of all sandworms, Shai-Hulud was "the Old Man of the Desert," "Old Father Eternity," and "Grandfather of the Desert." The sandworms of Arrakis were both the bane and the boon of Arrakis. A man walking in the open desert had to fear attracting them because a worm would surely devour him. But sandworms were also the Fremen's chief mode of transportation. Skillfully caught and ridden, a sandworm could transport many Fremen hundreds of kilometers in a rather short time. Even more important, sandworms supplied the Fremen with the major ingredient of their rites. A small sandworm drowned in water produced the "Water of Life," a poison which, drunk by a Reverend Mother, became a powerful narcotic. This narcotic, in turn, was used by a Fremen sietch in its "tau" orgies. As several scholars of ancient religions point out, the nature of the "Water of Life" is consonant with practices of many ancient peoples who in one form or another kill their gods and digest their bodies. Again, the point is that while the Fremen were more than ready to stand in awe of their god, they were equally willing to use him (or it), even to the point of putting the god's living form to death. Thus, for the Fremen there did not appear to be any contradiction in total submission to authority (whether human or godlike), on the one hand, and open questioning of the authority or, even, callous destruction of it, on the other. Each of these seeming extremes was part of a whole to the Fremen, and it would appear that in each the opposite also existed.
One could conclude that, for the Fremen, order was anarchy and anarchy was order. This view would eliminate, in their minds, at least, the apparent contradiction in their behavior toward human leaders and gods alike. This view, moreover, gives an important insight into their ultimate vision of the major forces in their lives: starting with Shai-Hulud and ending with the most elemental natural forces of Arrakis, the Fremen believed that all were utterly indifferent toward whether they lived or died. Such forces simply existed. Shai-Hulud, whether literal sandworm or personified Arrakis, might bring harm or good to the Fremen, but whatever the end result, it was not on Shai-Hulud's mind to do either. To put it another way, if a Fremen said a certain death was "the will of Shai-Hulud," he or she did not mean that Shai-Hulud wanted someone to die. Instead, to a Fremen these words simply mean that "that is the way things are."
The Fremen did not, however, conclude that there was no value or meaning to their lives. Instead, they created both value and meaning by devoting all their ambitions and energies to the survival of the sietch, the center of Fremen society. While members of every sietch called themselves Fremen, that name had less meaning to them than the name of the sietch each belonged to. There is no accurate way of determining how many sietches existed even in the time of Paul Muad'Dib. Except for his own sietch and any that might threaten its survival, no individual Fremen was interested in how many others existed. Moreover, it now seems clear that the Fremen were masters in hiding the existence of their sietches from all off-worlders, and thus no records exist. It is deduced, however, that many hundreds of these units did exist, and that each sietch was capable of containing many thousands of people.
The sietch was both a huge extended family and a government. It demanded and received great loyalty from each of its members. From the journals left by Leto II, researchers have been able to piece together several facts concerning the relationship of the individual to the sietch. All Fremen defined their lives by membership in a sietch. It literally gave one a place in the world. Thus, to commit an act which brought banishment from the sietch was to commit psychological as well as physical suicide.
In all things the good of the sietch was the final determinant of behavior. Those actions which furthered the good were to be encouraged, while those that threatened the good were more than discouraged. Such actions inevitably led to the death of the person responsible whether or not that person realized the implications of those actions. Like Arrakis, the sietch punished ignorance. There was simply no room for the uninformed.
Since all things were measured in terms of how they aided or hindered the survival of the sietch, all decisions made by its members were in terms of "yes" or "no." Survival had no room for "maybe." For example, an outsider was rarely allowed to join a sietch. It was not simply a matter of the burden such an addition would place on its limited resources, but rather the practical question of what that individual could possibly add to the sietch that was not already present. In his notes on his father, Paul Muad'Dib, Leto states that the Naib of the sietch that first found Paul and the Lady Jessica, the Fremen named Stilgar, was challenged by his own men for not putting both of them to death immediately. These men did not dislike the two off-worlders; they simply saw no advantage to keeping them alive and thereby depriving the sietch of the water from their bodies. In this same passage Leto points out that Paul did finally have to duel with one of the Fremen who refused to delay a decision despite Stilgar's wishes.
Finally, there was the tau of the sietch. The tau of a sietch can be called its oneness, the overwhelming unity that raised the Fremen sense of community to a height rarely found in other societies. This oneness went far beyond the belief that the good of the sietch was above all other considerations. The tau contained a mystical dimension that transcended time and place. Since each sietch kept a community reservoir in which all members kept their water and in which water that belonged to the entire sietch was also pooled, the sietch was literally the guardian of the most precious commodity for life on Arrakis. More important, however, is the fact that these reservoirs included the water recovered from the dead bodies of members of the sietch. Fremen did not put water so obtained into the reservoirs lightly. It was respect for the departed that allowed for such treatment; dishonored men or women would never, after death, be afforded this honor, Thus, in a very real sense, the sietch preserved all members living and dead, for the water from the dead would be ingested by all living Fremen, and at some future time they too would make their contribution. Oneness, therefore, meant unity with every citizen of the sietch from its furthest past to its most distant future.
It should be remembered that from its earliest history the Fremen race revered "the ways of the fathers." In addition, because of the acute shortage of water on Arrakis, the literal "water of the fathers" was drunk by all members of the sietch. Thus, the tau of the sietch was at the very heart of the balance the Fremen maintained between their spiritual beliefs and the physical necessities placed upon them by their environment. To drink the water of the sietch was to participate in the tau.
In addition, the Tau Orgy of Oneness also brought the sietch into a physical intimacy as well as a spiritual one. The visions of the tau orgy showed them the ways of their fathers. Here was the Fremen's ultimate bond with the past, present, and future, and it could only be obtained through participation of the entire sietch.
The ultimate destruction of Fremen culture was inevitable because of its dependence on two elements that were inexorably changing: the harsh nature of the planet Arrakis and the Fremen belief that this was how things were to be, and the Fremen's isolation from all outside influence.
The first of these elements, the nature of Arrakis, began to change when Pardot Kynes was able to convince a group of Fremen that Arrakis could be made to bloom again. The very notion that the Fremen could change the face of the planet added alien concepts to the Fremen view of life. The most famous Fremen battle cry, ya hya chouhada, brought with it the implication that the fighters were fighting to avoid something, not to gain something. For their entire history the Fremen fought against change, but with Pardot Kynes many of the Fremen actively started to seek to change their world. When Paul Muad'Dib was actually able to make these changes real, the balance between philosophy and reality was destroyed.
The second of these elements, isolation, started to seriously change with the arrival of the House Atreides on Arrakis. For Duke Leto I and then Paul Muad'Dib, the Fremen were a potential army to be used in the political intrigues off world. Paul
's creation of the Fedaykin and their subsequent battles on many thousands of planets forever changed the ways in which these Fremen saw the universe and their relationship to it. Thus, just as the flowering of Arrakis ended the environmental strictures the Fremen had lived under, the extensive travels to and battles on other worlds ended the philosophical view they had once held.
The physical and spiritual changes wrought by Paul Muad'Dib ended by killing both Shai-Hulud and the Fremen. Without the unique circumstances that had nurtured both, neither could continue.
S.G.
Further references: ZENSUNNI WANDERERS; Anon., Kitab al-Ibar: Manual of the Friendly Desert, RRC 1-Z288; Defa 'l-Fanini. Taaj 'l-Fremen, 12 v. (Salusa Secundus: Morgan and Sharak); Daiwid Kuuan, Monuments of the Zensunni Migrations (Salusa Secundus: Morgan and Sharak).
FREMEN EDUCATION
The four thousand years of Atreides rule on Arrakis is a case study in how a self-sufficient, proud, healthy culture can be destroyed through a clumsy, thoughtless educational policy.
The Fremen prior to the arrival of the Atreides were a seminomadic people whose tribal culture was well suited to their hostile planet and its oppressive Harkonnen governors. Fremen education consisted not of formal schooling in specific subject areas but of a total life training. A child was trained by all members of the tribe from his earliest days until maturity. The life and safety of the tribe depended upon each person's ability to observe the water discipline of the sietch and to know how to conduct himself on the dangerous open sands of Dune.
The Dune Encyclopedia Page 50
