The third type of economic system I want to talk about is the The robbers are strong here, but we still have a flourishing economy somehow, even if being good at your job means you loose everything type.

So, this type of economic system essentially means that the strong always take everything from the weaker ones, strong and weak is here measured purely in political strength.

Now, what are the issues with that?

First, those kinds of economic systems tend to have a vibrant merchant community. Wait, what, you ask, because that would mean that many are trying to be successful, and not just simply to survive.

But in those kinds of economic systems, as soon as you stand out even a little bit, you loose everything.

Everyone should thus strive to be average, and in a way, that would suggest that the average success is always dropping, bit by bit.

Which in turn means that the economy should be in utter shambles.

Oh, and a number of rebellions or revolutions should be brewing, but that is par of the course.

Although leaders in System affected universes often have some powers of mind control to keep their subjects in line, which definitely helps with preventing rebellions and revolutions.

But even though prosperity should be decreasing in such a society, it tends to increase. Mostly because the System says so.

Now, onto the next economic system I want to talk about, which is the last, but not the least, the All prizes are defined by the System, which hopefully calculates an appropriate amount for the work of the merchant system.

So, what exactly happens in that kind of economic system.

Essentially, the System prizes the goods for the merchant, with the merchant having no say in it. The hope is, of course, for the merchant that the prize includes the risk he needs to take, the amount of money he needs to live, as well as a bit of profit.

That kind of economic system has clear issues, if the given prize is wrong, the good will not be brought to the ones who want it or even produced. Or no one will buy it, because it is far too expensive.

On the other hand, if the system given prize is right, things can go very well indeed.

Especially if the System takes things like how well the merchant or maker of the product is known, subjective parts about it, like prizing a sword that is better for you higher when you attempt to buy it instead of that guy who really cannot handle it, and so on.

At that point you have an economic system surprisingly close to that fabled thing called ideal capitalism.

Which definitely would be a wonder, and a positive one as well.

But if the System screws up, it screws up hard. The issues of a planned economy where the planner screws up can be very big, although it can take a long time until the cracks become to big to fix.

And a System at least does not need certain luxury goods for itself, so that helps a lot in preventing a number of common issues.

I think that was all I wanted to say about this topic.

Chapter XIV

Let us talk about meat, dear multiversal traveler.

Specifically, meat you want to eat, and that will not poison you.

Oh, and that is dead before you begin eating. And that you do not cook alive.

Really, who is so cruel to cook an animal capable of hurting alive?

Why would anyone do that? It is far too common, sadly.

And you can bet, that when its happening, the animal actually feels that and is tortured by it.

But of to happier thoughts.

A nice steak from an humanely killed animal is at least not specifically torturing the animal merely to eat it.

I am not someone who is against eating meat, hell, plants can feel pain too, or at least some can, so yeah. They just cannot cry out all that well.

You need to go pretty far down the life scala to get something that is both alive and will not feel pain in any meaningful way.

Algae are a good candidate for that. Krill might already be to advanced for that.

Oh, if there is a good alternative to hurt living beings for getting good tasting and filling foods where you do not need to wash your meal down with a few pills to prevent any deficincies, I personally would choose the alternative. But until then I prefer the food that has been acquired as humanely as possible.

So, now you have your fairly humanely acquired steak from a popular animal that is used as a source of meat in the universe you are.

Now there are a few things you need to do. First, never, ever ask what animal the meat is from, unless you dislike it, and then only so that you can avoid it in the future.

Some cultures put weird things on their plate, when one looks from your standpoint, and that might make you hate yourself afterward.

Another thing to do before you get the steak served, is to give the chef a list of animals you do not want to eat for moral reasons.

Moral, in this case, being a fairly wide term, including anything from religious reasons, to personal preference, to laws in your home, and so on.

Small bit of advice. Be specific. Saying I do not want to eat a pet animal can mean widely different things depending on the culture on the same planet, let alone in a different universe.

I once have seen a culture that used cats primarily as life stock, and preferred to use chicken, who were bred to be insanely good egglayers as pets.

That culture was weird, admittedly, but not, by far, the weirdest I have ever seen out there in the multiverse.

There are things out there that you will not believe, even after you have experienced them.

But back to the moment you have your nice steak.

I am using steak here, because that is, at its base form, a fairly simple way to prepare and cook meat, which means that most cultures using meat are likely to have at least some variant of it.

And even though it is a simple way to cook meat, it can be iterated on in many ways, significantly changing how it looks, feels and tastes like.

One issue with steak is the fact that you have fairly few tricks available to deal with outright issues in the base meat, which means it also tends to be from the better cuts of the meat, better here being defined in the things relevant for steak in the culture you are visiting.

So, let us begin by talking about what steak actually is.

Steak is a piece of meat, cut in whole, so it is not multiple pieces of meat put together.

This piece of meat is then cooked at high heat, in general over direct heat, and not in an oven or such, for a short while, until it is done.

Warning, depending on the meat in question, as well as the culture, done can mean that it might have seen a slightly warmer place at some point before it ended up on your plate, while still being essentially raw.

Do not worry about that, those cultures that serve that generally ensure that it is save as well.

Of course, there are always exceptions, but those exceptions tend to be more likely among the criminals, the ones whose reputation is already in the gutter and use cost cutting techniques.

Keep that in mind, but do not let it affect you too much. Experience shows in which establishments you should ask for as well done as possible without it being charcoal. Hopefully you will not need to gather that experience, but who knows.

So, now you have your meat. So, at this point it is almost certain to be fairly bland. So, there are two early iterations you can do. You can involve some kind of fat, to ensure a more even cooking, but, depending on the way you cook it, that is not necessary, or, the way I will go in this guide, you can begin with seasonings.

Now, the classical starter seasoning for a steak is different depending on the culture and place you are in, simply because of availability and familiarity.

Availability tends to ensure familiarity, but sometimes the things available change, or things become more affordable, thus more available, and so on.

So, it is quite common that the main seasoning you will see is the nearest pleasant tasting herb.

But it is pretty common that, as soon as it is commonly available, salt becomes a basis for a lot of things, including the seasoning of meats, in this case, steak.

The reasons for that are manifold, but boil down to its insanely long shelf life, with which I mean the amount of time you can store it without it going bad, the fact that even extremely small amounts can have an incredible effect, partly because salt amplifies flavor a bit as well as the simple fact that its harvest can be very predictable when you have a source. Its long shelf live also makes it easy to transport, and its use as a preservative, something you can add to certain foods in a specific way to make those foods long lasting, tends to ensure its spread over wast distances.

So, after you have the first seasoning, you tend to introduce fat from the outside. Simply using the fattier parts of the animal you took the steak from, because that improves taste, makes the cooking more even, and, in some ways, faster, which is especially important if the steak in question is not cooked completely through, to control the point when to stop better.

And after you have that, there are two main ways to continue improving. The first, and most obvious, in my opinion, is to change the seasoning up, add different things, and remove others. I also count into this way when you change up which fat you use. From the animal fat you got from the same animal you got the steak from, to, for example, butter or something similar. Herb infused oils are also a good choice, although it is not necessarily uncommon for that infusion to happen while cooking.

Which brings us to the second way you can iterate on the base steak.

How do you cook it. How to apply the seasoning or the fat, and so on are some of the more basic, and easier to do changes. Salt, for example, is often added not only before the meat is cooked, but also after the meat has been cooked.

Sometimes it is exclusively added after the meat has been cooked.

You can, for example, let it sit inside the seasoning for a while, so that the meat soaks up that flavor. Although salt is helpful in that case, because it draws moisture out of the meat, and thus allows more things to be drawn in.

On the other hand, this also increases the risk of bas stuff going into the meat, which the preservative nature of the salt hopefully inhibits for as long as necessary, but that is, by no means, a sure thing.

Another way is, for example, if you add fat, especially if you add fat that is not from the same animal as the meat, to regularly bring hot fat over the meat.

After you have played with the way your seasoning is applied to the meat, you can play how it is cooked, precisely. Are you cooking it on a skewer, over an open flame?

Or are you using a a pan? Which is something where that send hot oil over it again and again technique is, in generally, relatively simple to pull of.

A grill is another nice way to cook steak, which can introduce complexity. It has the same advantages as cooking with a skewer over open flame, but you can use larger pieces of meat more easily, with less risk of it dropping into the flame.

And then we get into composite cooking techniques. Until now, we have merely considered using the exact same technique for the entire time. But that is, by no means, necessary.

Something to consider is, that, depending on the meat, you want the outside of it fairly charred, while the inside still juicy, but fairly done.

That charred texture you can only get when you turn up the heat very high, but that tends to dry out the meat very quickly. The solution?

Cook for a long time in lower heat, long time still being relatively short, like, an hour would be an unusually long time, and cook on very high heat, even higher, perhaps, than you would normally use, for a very short period.

There is no clear order in which you should do it, both ways around have their advantages. First high heat and then low heat means that the border of fairly dry meat is smaller, because the meat was colder on the inside, and it takes time, a long time, for heat to traverse through a steak.

On the other hand, the advantage of doing it latter is that it keeps that outer charred crust you want drier, because through that cooking process, it is likely to get a bit wet from the juices of the meat. Still tasty, still amazing, well if you want stuff like that, but some like it one way, others like it the other way around.

In the end, it comes down to personal preference and the preference of your cook, what he thinks is easier to work with.

Keep in mind that there are cooking techniques that, more or less, require a specific order to work properly.

How much more can you iterate on steak after this?

We have already covered a wide variety of things.

Well, the possibilities are, essentially, endless, although I have spoken in fairly broad terms. Further ways to iterate on this recipe of hopefully success include changing the pure seasoning into a marinade, which helps with flavor retention and so on.