We often wonder if he picked his own name after taking up his craft, or if the name itself was what inspired him to do it in the first place. Either way, his creations and his family brought something delightful to our meadows!— Rhian, the Baker
Rhodri Sorrel is one of Brightfield's many farmers and a beloved figure of the community, known for his delicious edible flowers.
The Bite of an Apple
The Sorrel family is a delightful mix of mouse and bunny creaturefolk, which made them quite at home in the fields, but always posed one particular problem: they had a lot of trouble climbing trees, and apples were always their favorite fruit. It's like they had a genetic predisposition towards being obsessed with the delicious, crunchy fruit. Sweet, tart, even bitter, it never mattered what the flavor profile was, or what variant they were looking at. An apple was an apple to them, and they were all delicious — but so hard to get.
Sweetness of a Namesake
Things really started to turn around when Rhodri came upon an incredible discovery, in his curiosity. He was always an odd child, growing up, forever prone to putting anything and everything remotely edible-seeming in his mouth just to see if his hunch was right. On one fateful day, he stumbled across the flower of his namesake: the humble sorrel. The field guides didn't suggest that there was a lick of poison to be found in this little white flower, so he did the most sensible thing. He popped a bloom right into his mouth and began to chew.
A jolt passed through his mousey frame. Was that... no, it couldn't be. He pinched off one more bloom and crunched down on it to be sure, but it was certain. These little flowers tasted just like apples. His discovery of the apple sorrel kicked off a venture which would explode in popularity before he could even wrap his head around it, but first he had to gather more samples and bring them home to his family, so that they would believe him.
Ground-Level Orchards
The moment he got his family on board, his work began. Even though he was a youngster when he got started, he spearheaded the project of cultivating these flowers at his family farm, which had been rather unremarkable in the local market up to that point. When the initial crop took root and yielded stable harvests, trips to the market got a little bit shinier. Folks were so intrigued by these edible fruity flowers! Before too long, folks began asking the question: Can you grow ones that taste like other kinds of apples? That question kicked off yet another magical adventure in agriculture for the Sorrel family.
It took tremendous trial and error, some unfortunate poisonings (they got better!) and many failed experiments, but Rhodri finally managed it. Slowly, over time, Rhodri developed entire fields of apple sorrel variants, in many of the favorite flavors of the land around them. Folks claim that if you bring Rhodri an apple of any kind, he can match it to one in his field in no time at all, and if he doesn't have a match, he'll find a way to make it happen.
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