Because we’ve been talking about the Hob in the #ToastedTHG reread and this has been sitting on my hard drive (unfinished and untouched :/) for some months now…
(Madge POV, in case that’s not clear)
*************
However impulsive – not to mention, an utter failure at bargain practice – the stop at Swannee’s provided me with a boost of both confidence and comfort in these new surroundings. I take my time browsing the other stalls and find myself drawn in by a bench of ragged baby clothes in baskets – always a sad sight, if a common one. It’s the sort of purchase you can’t avoid when young ones come along – though I suspect most Seamwives are enterprising enough to sew their own from whatever scraps can be spared – but when your youngest is a baby no longer, you’re left with handfuls of tiny precious garments with little market value, too small to make over into clothing for an older child and of next to no use as fuel for the fire.
The vendor, a hollow-cheeked woman with heavily silvered hair who might be a grandmother or simply old before her time, steps forward as I approach with a quick, meaningful glance at my belly. I wonder how she came to run such a heartbreaking business. Whether she had many children – and if so, how many survived beyond the age of baby clothes – or none at all, and simply to touch baby things is a balm.
I pick up a little brown sweater that might fit a doll, my mind full of a wrinkled red newborn with a thatch of sticky black hair and lavender buds sticking to its damp petal-soft skin, and ask the price with burning eyes.
The woman grunts what might be tenorbreadorsalt, and I hand her enough for all three, then place the garment at the bottom of my market bag with as much care as if it were made of porcelain or spun sugar. “I’ll be back,” I promise. “When I have – w-when the babies come, I’ll buy more; muchmore.”
As I walk away, I belatedly wonder if the whole district will think I’m pregnant by nightfall – after all, buying baby clothes at the Hob rather than the mercantile would be one way to delay Merchant parents from discovering the inevitable – but at this point such rumors, while mortifying, would be largely harmless and quickly disproven.
Just the same, I carefully avoid the eyes of passing shoppers for the next few moments and nearly collide with the woman who runs the canteen of sorts – Greasy Sae, I believe she’s called – whose eyes grow bright and downright greedy as she curls one bony hand around my wrist and draws me into her stall.
“I’m tired of skinning mice,” she says baldly. “Your lover sells the good meat to the high rollers – no fault there, of course, but even my regulars are starting to turn up their noses at the stew. It’s little more than broth these days,” she grumbles, chewing at the inside of her cheek. “Good for warming the bones, but you’d do just as well to soak in it as eat it.”
I stare at her for a long moment as I process all of this, then ask what seems to be the last question she expected: “What do you do with the skins?”
She chokes on something halfway between a snort and a guffaw. “Mouse skins, miss?” she sputters. “They’re too small to warm your baby toe.”
“Nevertheless,” I persist pleasantly, and she shakes her head in what almost might be admiration.
“If you’re wanting mouse skins for something finer than a kitty-cat’s play-toy, there’s exactly one person you talk to, and I daresay you know who that is already,” she says dryly. “T’won’t hurt that her son is enamored of you, but can’t say it’ll make her any more amenable to the trade.”
She’s right – I should have known. Gale’s mother used to tan deerskins for Jack Everdeen, according to Prim, and there can’t be that many people in Twelve who know that art.
“And what does Hazelle Hawthorne do with all those mouse skins she refuses to sell?” I wonder, firmly ignoring the ridiculous reference to Gale having any sort of affection for me.
“She has very small young ‘uns,” the woman replies sagely. “I shouldn’t wonder.”
I chuckle and begin to turn away, but the woman’s hand is still firmly encircling my wrist, checking my progress. “Rabbits,” she grunts. “Squirrels. Weasels. I’ll even take a bat if you catch one. Anything with more meat on it than my thumb, and the furs are all yours.”
“Most businesses are closed by this time on reaping day, but the black market’s still fairly busy. We easily trade six of the fish for good bread, the other two for salt.”
Does good bread mean bakery bread? I’m assuming yes since she explained the difference between their typical grain ration kind and fine bakery bread a few pages earlier. If it is bakery bread does that mean someone from the bakery is regularly making deliveries to the Hob or that one of the Mellark boys sells there? I’ve totally missed that until this reread.
Arrrrgh I reblogged with all this stuff written and it disappeared. Let’s try this again.
It’s interesting that all of us have just kinda glossed over this tidbit without wondering how. Especially since we were just discussing it the other day and it’s mentioned in @porchwood Toasting Theory. I highly doubt it would be deliveries or them selling there. My guess would be either someone has some kind of trade setup with the bakery or someone is able to make a decent bread by creating other types of flour/possibly mixing with tesserae. This has been widely fanoned in Panem AUs for Peeta.
I could see someone ekeing out a living as a baker with a stall in the Hob, @lovely-tothe-bone. It sounds like a lot of children took tessera rations and not everyone is a baker. (And doesn’t Katniss mention making drop biscuits with the tessera grain at some point?) With all that grain making its way into the district on a monthly basis, it’s easy to see how there’d be demand for a skilled baker (who might have a bigger/better oven at home) to turn it into something tastier, probably by mixing it with better flour. Come to think of it, measures of tessera grain probably became a de facto currency in the barter economy in the Hob.
@lovely-tothe-bone, thank you for the tag!! I haven’t been glossing over it, honest! I in fact have many thoughts on this topic, especially as concerns the beginning of THG! Bread is mentioned several times in an interesting (and ultimately puzzling) progression:
Gale holds up a loaf of bread with an arrow stuck in it… It’s real bakery bread, not the flat, dense loaves we make from our grain rations. […] Fine bread like this is for special occasions. (p.7)
On the way home we swing by the Hob… […] We easily trade six of the fish for good bread… (p.11)
Gale and I divide our spoils, leaving two fish, a couple of loaves of good bread, greens, a quart of strawberries, salt, paraffin, and a bit of money for each. (p.14)
Now, are you ready for your head to split?!?
The fish and greens are already cooking in a stew, but that will be for supper. We decide to save the strawberries and bakery bread for this evening’s meal, to make it special, we say. Instead we drink milk from Prim’s goat, Lady, and eat the rough bread made from the tessera grain, although no one has much appetite anyway. (p. 16)
Does this mean that:
a) There was some “fine” bakery bread leftover from her breakfast with Gale and that’s what they were saving for supper?
b) The “good bread” from the Hob is true (Mellark) bakery bread (day-olds, bakery outlet, etc)? I’m thinking even stale bakery bread might be considered superior to tessera bread…
c) (suggested by @ghtlovesthg when I brought this up with her) Katniss considers any bread not made by her family/at home to be “bakery” bread, so she’s referring here to the “good” bread they bought at the Hob as “bakery bread”?
Help meeeeeeeeee!
Furthermore, if “good flour” is so tricky to get hold of, does this mean their drop biscuits (the baked good representing Twelve in the breadbasket during tribute training) are usually made of tessera flour (hence “ugly”)?? And why are they the characteristic bread for Twelve (when I can’t recall them being referenced except in this scene)? They’re typical miner lunch pail fare?
One day, Peeta empties our breadbasket and points out how they have been careful to include types from the districts along with the refined bread of the Capitol. The fish-shaped loaf tinted green with seaweed from District 4. The crescent moon roll dotted with seeds from District 11. Somehow, although it’s made of the same stuff, it looks a lot more appetizing than the ugly drop biscuits that are the standard fare at home. (p.. 97-98)
And@katamount, I agree on tessera becoming a hot commodity! In the next chapter of Strawberry Time I need to properly introduce the Hob to the Mooniverse, so it got me thinking about what “black market” stalls might be vs “public market” ones. (I’m still perplexed by the latter - is it the “sidewalk sale” for the merchant shops? Is it regulated by the Capitol, so you apply for a booth/table permit at the Justice Building and there are only certain things you can sell there? Is it primarily for Merchant customers and the Hob is more for the Seam - and Merchants looking for stuff like white liquor/moonshine?) To my way of thinking, tessera (grain and oil) would be in particular demand by people too old to qualify for it themselves (from 19-year-old newlyweds to the “elderly,” whatever that looks like in Twelve :/), parents of children too young to qualify for tesserae, and the childless.
“Most businesses are closed by this time on reaping day, but the black market’s still fairly busy. We easily trade six of the fish for good bread, the other two for salt.”
Does good bread mean bakery bread? I’m assuming yes since she explained the difference between their typical grain ration kind and fine bakery bread a few pages earlier. If it is bakery bread does that mean someone from the bakery is regularly making deliveries to the Hob or that one of the Mellark boys sells there? I’ve totally missed that until this reread.
Arrrrgh I reblogged with all this stuff written and it disappeared. Let’s try this again.
It’s interesting that all of us have just kinda glossed over this tidbit without wondering how. Especially since we were just discussing it the other day and it’s mentioned in @porchwood Toasting Theory. I highly doubt it would be deliveries or them selling there. My guess would be either someone has some kind of trade setup with the bakery or someone is able to make a decent bread by creating other types of flour/possibly mixing with tesserae. This has been widely fanoned in Panem AUs for Peeta.
I could see someone ekeing out a living as a baker with a stall in the Hob, @lovely-tothe-bone. It sounds like a lot of children took tessera rations and not everyone is a baker. (And doesn’t Katniss mention making drop biscuits with the tessera grain at some point?) With all that grain making its way into the district on a monthly basis, it’s easy to see how there’d be demand for a skilled baker (who might have a bigger/better oven at home) to turn it into something tastier, probably by mixing it with better flour. Come to think of it, measures of tessera grain probably became a de facto currency in the barter economy in the Hob.
@lovely-tothe-bone, thank you for the tag!! I haven’t been glossing over it, honest! I in fact have many thoughts on this topic, especially as concerns the beginning of THG! Bread is mentioned several times in an interesting (and ultimately puzzling) progression:
Gale holds up a loaf of bread with an arrow stuck in it… It’s real bakery bread, not the flat, dense loaves we make from our grain rations. […] Fine bread like this is for special occasions. (p.7)
On the way home we swing by the Hob… […] We easily trade six of the fish for good bread… (p.11)
Gale and I divide our spoils, leaving two fish, a couple of loaves of good bread, greens, a quart of strawberries, salt, paraffin, and a bit of money for each. (p.14)
Now, are you ready for your head to split?!?
The fish and greens are already cooking in a stew, but that will be for supper. We decide to save the strawberries and bakery bread for this evening’s meal, to make it special, we say. Instead we drink milk from Prim’s goat, Lady, and eat the rough bread made from the tessera grain, although no one has much appetite anyway. (p. 16)
Does this mean that:
a) There was some “fine” bakery bread leftover from her breakfast with Gale and that’s what they were saving for supper?
b) The “good bread” from the Hob is true (Mellark) bakery bread (day-olds, bakery outlet, etc)? I’m thinking even stale bakery bread might be considered superior to tessera bread…
c) (suggested by @ghtlovesthg when I brought this up with her) Katniss considers any bread not made by her family/at home to be “bakery” bread, so she’s referring here to the “good” bread they bought at the Hob as “bakery bread”?
Help meeeeeeeeee!
Furthermore, if “good flour” is so tricky to get hold of, does this mean their drop biscuits (the baked good representing Twelve in the breadbasket during tribute training) are usually made of tessera flour (hence “ugly”)?? And why are they the characteristic bread for Twelve (when I can’t recall them being referenced except in this scene)? They’re typical miner lunch pail fare?
One day, Peeta empties our breadbasket and points out how they have been careful to include types from the districts along with the refined bread of the Capitol. The fish-shaped loaf tinted green with seaweed from District 4. The crescent moon roll dotted with seeds from District 11. Somehow, although it’s made of the same stuff, it looks a lot more appetizing than the ugly drop biscuits that are the standard fare at home. (p.. 97-98)
And@katamount, I agree on tessera becoming a hot commodity! In the next chapter of Strawberry Time I need to properly introduce the Hob to the Mooniverse, so it got me thinking about what “black market” stalls might be vs “public market” ones. (I’m still perplexed by the latter - is it the “sidewalk sale” for the merchant shops? Is it regulated by the Capitol, so you apply for a booth/table permit at the Justice Building and there are only certain things you can sell there? Is it primarily for Merchant customers and the Hob is more for the Seam - and Merchants looking for stuff like white liquor/moonshine?) To my way of thinking, tessera (grain and oil) would be in particular demand by people too old to qualify for it themselves (from 19-year-old newlyweds to the “elderly,” whatever that looks like in Twelve :/), parents of children too young to qualify for tesserae, and the childless.
I really feel like it’s B.
What if someone once upon a time *tried* to refine current/introduce different flour/grains BUT people were starting to get too well fed or the person somehow got too much attention and the peacekeepers had to put a stop to it. That would make more sense for why it seems that Mellarks is the only bakery and also someone seems to have access to good bread.
I can’t think of any relevant point at all in the story for the drop biscuit rolls to be mentioned other than here. Maybe all these breads look better/taste better because the Capitol used proper ingredients rather than tessera or the tessera is refined. How would Katniss really know whether they are made of the same ingredients? I mean, drop biscuits require butter and milk, how much of that can 12 really have access to in order to make these on a regular basis? Both can be substituted with several things. The milk would be replaced with water and my best guess for the butter would be vegetable oil or something similar. Thus creating a far inferior version for the residents of 12. I’m not well versed in the science of baking to know which specific ingredient would have the most impact on the look. Personal opinion is Katniss is just wrong, she can’t possibly know the exact ingredients the cooks at the training center are using to make the breads.
I got the feeling that the public market is mainly merchant sidewalk sale. The original business permit probably includes an extension to this.
@iliveilaughiloveiread I do believe you were right. It seems as if Mr. Mellark was doing some kind of trading/selling at the Hob. The real question is *how* was he able to do this without a problem from Mrs. Mellark?
@lovely-tothe-bone, thanks for adding this quote! That one stood out to me too, but moreso because of Prim selling in the Hob at age twelve (where eleven-year-old Katniss had initially feared to tread without their father!). Somehow I’d always assumed that Prim’s goat milk/cheese trade was a door-to-door thing (you know, utilizing that toy wagon of hers referenced in Ch 2!), so it’s kind of startling to imagine. And “sells her goat cheeses” rather than “trades her goat cheeses” definitely makes it sound like a regular little business, not just an occasional walk-through with a tray.
(Because yes, I’m totally picturing a cigarette girl and this was the most modestly dressed one i could find - and therefore, the least disturbing to post in the midst of Prim meta!)
As far as Mrs. Mellark - as you guys surely know, I have sooooooooo many thoughts - but I think she was a sound businesswoman and would be willing to try all the avenues available to make a profit off their baked goods. Peeta reveals that the family wasn’t allowed to eat bakery product “unless it’s gone very stale,” so if merchant clientele turned up their noses at day-olds, why not sell them in the Hob at half-price rather than eating them yourself and losing all the profit? (I headcanon that Mrs. Mellark is Rooba’s younger sister - a butcher’s daughter - and has that “make use of every bit” frugality - “everything but the squeal,” if you will!)
