  We develop a cosmological model where primordial inflation is driven by a
'solid', defined as a system of three derivatively coupled scalar fields
obeying certain symmetries and spontaneously breaking a certain subgroup of
these. The symmetry breaking pattern differs drastically from that of standard
inflationary models: time translations are unbroken. This prevents our model
from fitting into the standard effective field theory description of adiabatic
perturbations, with crucial consequences for the dynamics of cosmological
perturbations. Most notably, non-gaussianities in the curvature perturbations
are unusually large, with f_NL ~ 1/(\epsilon.c_s^2), and have a novel shape:
peaked in the squeezed limit, with anisotropic dependence on how the limit is
approached. Other unusual features include the absence of adiabatic fluctuation
modes during inflation---which does not impair their presence and near
scale-invariance after inflation---and a slightly blue tilt for the tensor
modes.
