What are your ideas for the cuisines that the different races partake of. I will post my ideas here, but if you have better ideas or want to add races I didn't cover, I'd love to see them.

Dwarfs
The primary defining thing about Dwarfs is that they live undergrounds. That means, assuming they are self-sufficient enough to produce their own food, they are going to have to rely on things that can grow without sunlight-- which pretty much limits them to fungi and maybe animals that can live on fungi. So we can say that mushrooms of various sorts are going to make up a good portion of their diet. They also aren't going to be producing many spices, but they could mine for salt and they could use that to preserve their food. I don't know if it sounds too gross for some, but I could imagine that they might also raise certain kinds of giant insects as food. In fact, maybe they produce certain insects that can be used as spices.

However, we do know that Dwarfs also love ale/beer and to produce that one needs to produce some wheat and barley. So that means that the Dwarfs who live closer to the surface must be cultivating some crops around the entrances to their mountain homes as well. So near the entrance to Dwarfen cities, one could see fields of wheat. Perhaps they could even raise mountain goats which they could get both some milk from as well as slaughter them for meat. Mountain goat meat is a bit tough, but the Dwarfs are a hardy people and perhaps they like their meat very tough and heavily salted.

And, of course, Dwarfs love their beer/ale and due to their poison resilience, they make it far too strong for virtually any other race to consume safely. In fact, their love for bitter flavors might extend to their food in general. I could even imagine the Dwarfs low-key competing to see which of them could eat the bitterest food and drink the strongest beer in order to prove themselves the toughest and best.

Elves
Elves tend to live in, near or under the forests, and various lore suggests that perhaps they can make plants grow and bloom far easier than anyone else can. I can imagine they have diets rich in vegetables, fruits and berries-- many of which other races can hardly get. They all have a certain "friend of all animals" vibe and so I can imagine that they tend to be vegan and get their protein mainly from nuts, beans and the appropriate green vegetables. (It would also give them another thing to feel morally superior about.) Then again, they do all tend to specialize in using certain kinds of bows-- perhaps they do hunt game on occasion, they just don't do it often enough to deplete their ecosystem's wildlife.

If they do have unique access to certain fruits and berries, it is easy to imagine that they would turn that into drinks as well. Mixed fruit drinks and wines. Maybe their alcohol would be weak in comparison to other races, but it would be easy to imagine that it would be the sweetest, most addictive drink in all the lands. D&D worlds would not have soft drinks after all and I think we all know how addictive they are and what a big market it is. Elven wine could similarly be a massive market in and of itself, being a highly sought after trade good. And naturally Elves are probably the race that produces coffee as well.

Gnome
Gnomes tend to live in burrows, which means that they are probably going to eat things that grow underground-- but importantly-- unlike Dwarfs, they live close enough to the surface for a lot of their foods to get sunlight. They probably love tubers and roots like carrots and potatoes and also likely grow a wide variety of herbs right above their burrows. In fact, given that their homes take up no surface area, the Gnome community on the surface could just look like field of edible plants. Given that Gnomes are meant to be a bit technologically superior to other races, perhaps they have cooking methods that aren't available to other races. For example, perhaps they can grow certain plants that can be turned into vegetable oil-- then they cut up their potatoes and can deep fry them.

Also, given the Gnomes technology, another fun thing they could turn their potatoes into? Vodka. Gnomes like to be so exact and precise about everything, leave it up to them to produce the most pure alcoholic beverage around. Hardly much of a unique taste or odor, but if your intention is to get drunk-- it'll do that quite efficiently. And we cannot overlook that, if they have those herb gardens, Gnomes probably make the absolutely best tea blends of all the races. Who else would be throwing a bunch of leaves into a batch of hot water to see if it would be nice to drink? Of course, Gnomes are sort of a link between the Dwarfs and the Elves who generally don't care for one another much, so I can certainly imagine that they could be taking a bit of each of their cuisines and mixing them together. Maybe they even make a profit off of those Dwarfs and Elves who secretly love a bit of each other's cuisine by trading and making a slightly more neutral version of it and delivering it to the other.

Goblins
Goblins are hardly ever in a position to be picky eaters about anything, so it would be easy enough to say "Goblins will eat whatever the other races discard or leave unguarded and like it" and that would be true enough. But surely there are still things that get them more excited than others. Given their short lifespan and hyperactivity, I am going to guess that they go absolutely crazy for sweets-- sugar in any of its varieties is probably quite the addictive drunk to them. Goblins might even be the experts in the D&D world at making "foods" that are just purely made of sugar-- rock candy, caramel, cotton candy-- as long as it doesn't take much more than heat, water and some experimentation until you get it right, it isn't going to be hard to imagine the Goblins coming up with it. Of course, that is those of the Goblin race who get an opportunity to develop such things.

More commonly, Goblins probably love their hotpots. They might have a dozen names for it, but as long as the basic idea is "scrounge up whatever you can find and we'll just boil it all together in water", that's almost certainly the Goblins' daily cuisine. I can't imagine that Goblins have any special drinks that they produce, often they will be just happy to find clean water. But maybe someone else has some fun ideas.

Halfling
The Halflings are known for living out on farms, and while their growth of tobacco and other substances one can smoke shall not be dived into, they no doubt have a decent array of vegetables-- even if they have to put more effort into them than the Elves do-- and they are probably the absolutely best when it comes to grains. Wheat, rice, corn-- they probably have it all. In fact, I would say that Halflings are a good candidate for the people who produce the best flour and, as a extension, those who make the absolutely best baked goods and pasta/noodles. Maybe they use a lot of tomato sauce on their pasta like in Italian cooking, or maybe they specialize in savory noodles like one would find in Asian countries. You know what? Why not both! Different types of pasta/noodles depending on one's mood or time of day. No need to limit oneself to a single palette. And, of course, their delicious pastries for dessert-- it is no wonder so many Halflings are so plump.

As for the specialty Halfling drink, I would propose that perhaps Halflings are the experts at making whiskey. Good, strong, and not so difficult to make-- you just need a bit of patience. Of course, if they are the masters of grain-- perhaps they produce a kind of beer that is much easier to digest than the kind the Dwarfs make.

Hobgoblins
The Hobgoblins seem to primarily make their homes in either mountains or in marshlands or islands. Furthermore, they probably want to make any fields they are going to divert to farming into being effectively defensive structures. So, I think the Hobgoblins are probably going to specialize in rice. Rice is generally grown in a flooded plain, and those flooded plains serve well as moats which prevent enemies from easily coming up on them. Of course, no self-respecting Hobgoblin wants to work any such field themselves and so they usually gather up a bunch of goblin workers or anyone else they can force to work for them into doing that work. Those that live in the mountain probably rely on various kinds of birds, chickens, turkeys, or whatever is available-- while those who live near the sea probably love various kinds of fish and other seafood. Fishing requires a fair bit of skill and so maybe the Hobgoblins wouldn't see that as below their station. I have this idea that Hobgoblins like to heavily salt and/or spice their food for the preservative and anti-bacterial benefits, which probably makes the most extreme of Hobgoblin food almost entirely inedible to other races. It would also be easy to imagine Hobgoblins competing over who could eat the spiciest food without showing any ill effects and so they have gotten used to it. So while Elves also produce spices, the Elves spices are meant to be sweet while the Hobgoblin-produced spices are designed to be as strong as possible. This could also indicate a weakness that Hobgoblins have over their smaller cousins-- while the "lesser" Goblins can just about eat anything without ill effects, the Hobgoblins spice their food because, despite being physically tough, they are far more prone to illness from eating spoiled or bacteria-ridden food.

Those Hobgoblins who live in marshlands or on islands may also grow sugar cane. The sugar can be used to keep the Goblin slaves in line through a carrot-and-stick approach. I also would like to think that perhaps the Hobgoblins produce the rum, particularly spiced rum, in the D&D world. Generally both too sweet and too spicy for more races, the Hobgoblins might love it so much that it is just one more thing to make them never want to leave their society.

Orcs
The Orcs are often depicted as thriving in frozen, tundra environments, taking shelter in caves generally avoiding the sunlight. And, while I think that Orcs probably do have iron guts that can digest just about anything, I have a few ideas based on this. First, I think perhaps that a good reason why Orcs don't produce permanent settlements and fortresses and instead rely on caves and tents is not because they are so intellectually deficient that they are unable to learn how to do so-- they may not be as technologically progressive as Gnomes, but they can certainly do that much-- but rather because Orcs are nomadic. They probably follow around herds of some sort of prey animal such as reindeer.  When they kill one, they probably skin it and then eat virtually everything but the antlers and teeth-- meat, innards, brain, even biting open the bones to get at the marrow-- no part of the animal goes to waste because every part contains essential nutrients that Orcs need to survive their sunless, frigid existence. Perhaps Orcs also keep some sort of frost-resistant boars that can help them hunt down edible fungi and moss. Perhaps they are even experts at finding truffles. These boars are probably consumed in their near entirety once they become too old to be useful. I also imagine that Orcs also likely consume their own dead (as well as that of any races they slay) as they absolutely cannot allow anything potentially edible to go to waste-- and while that may be a good way to spread disease, the Orcs are probably far more resistant to disease than humans are.

In addition, I have an idea that perhaps the Orcs milk the reindeer too. They probably drink milk for additional fat and protein, after all their bodies indicate they get plenty of both. They may be the biggest producers of non-cattle cheese and yogurt. Their favorite beverage might even be a milk/yogurt drink, perhaps one even fermented enough to have some alcoholic content like those produced in Mongolia.

Anyway-- those are my ideas for the cuisines of various D&D races. I tried as much as possible to keep their ecology and culture in mind. Please tell me why I am wrong or add more ideas of your own.

These are some great ideas. This is how I picture the various cuisines

• Elves: I think that elves probably eat meat, but they eat it rarely and not in excess. Probably mostly hunted game, so mostly venison.
• Gnomes: I'd think that Gnomes would make the weirdest stuff. Not in a too gross way, but doing something like freezing carrot juice with sugar and eating it on a hot day. 
• Halflings: In my mind, I see halflings as eating American Thanksgiving style feasts, just every day. 
• Orcs: For some reason, I think that Orcs would make really good jerky and cured meat. Maybe made out of some strange animal, like a yak or bighorn sheep. 

If you want more, I suggest buying 'Heroes Feast: The official DnD cookbook'. It's on the Wizards website. 

Dwarves:  I think they live underground in large part, but I imagine them gathering most of their foodstuffs by doing a lot of terraced farming on the lower slopes of the mountains.  There would be some mushrooms and some weird delicacies, like cave cricket or albino crayfish, but mostly just sheep, goat, dairy from the sheep and the goats, barley, carrots, turnips, beets.  I've tried to adopt a few things from high-altitude cultures, like Ethiopian Highland and Tibetan cuisine.  When my players were trekking through the Dwarven Mountains, their guides would feed them barley flour mixed with powdered butter and rolled into balls using hot tea.  I decided it was their version of lembas.  The players thought it sounded awful, but it made enough sense that they didn't think it was gross.  I also think there must be a LOT of preservation techniques, salting, pickling, and drying - for the long winters at altitude and waiting for the spring thaw.  I think all the salting has killed their tastebuds to the point that they probably LOOOVE hot spices, and import tons of chili peppers.  Finally, while I think Dwarves LOVE beer, I don't think they invented it.  So I think for special occasions, holidays, religious festivals, whatever, they have an indigenous alcohol like Nepali tongba.

Elves: Elves aren't very common in my home game and I lean heavily towards making them mysterious and alien.  I imagine them being not just vegan, but fruitarian.  Like they'd mainly exist on magic, doing without food the way they do without sleep.  Eating mostly goodberries and such.  If they eat meat, I think it would tend to be creatures they cultivate that have been touched by the feywild.  Some kind of fey version of a deer or something.  One reason half-elves tend to be kicked out of elven society isn't just racism, but the fact that half-elves literally can't survive on rainbows and smiles like their elven parents.

Gnomes:  We have to be careful to distinguish the hippie-trippy forest gnomes from the Adderall-snorting gadget gnomes.  I think of gnomes in general as fey-adjacent creatures.  A sort of rosy reflection of the dwarves.  So their cuisine tends to be similarly magic-heavy to the elves, but to a much lesser extent.  I picture them as living in hilly forests rather than at high altitudes. I think they're more vegetarian than vegan, and their animal friends are willing to spare them milk and honey and eggs.  I think they bake a lot and picture them using a lot of edible flowers, roses and dandelions and sunflowers, etc.  And they drink strawberry wine and a liqueur they make with carnation petals.  Gadget gnomes I assume eat whatever the culture they work in eats.  If their lab is in a human city, they eat human takeout.  If they're in a dwarven city, same.  If they live near each other, they eat the simplest and most calorie efficient stuff they can get.  Also, lots and lots and lots of sugar and if available, gallons of coffee.  Imagine those techbros who just drink slimfast so they don't have to look up while they're working.

Halflings:  The masters. Whatever the environment provides, they turn it into filling, delicious food and warm, cheering booze that never gives you a hangover.  These are the guys who invented beer and also whiskey.  Their cuisine is fit for any king, although most kings are too foolish to realize that.  Because there's nothing pretentious about it or exclusive.  An individual human chef may create stuff that is staggeringly brilliant, but as often as not, it's intended to show off a patron's wealth or appeal to a specific kind of snobbery.  Halfling food is always meant to welcome everyone to the table to eat together.

Orcs:  My Orcs are basically my Vikings.  So they have brought a few recipes for good stuff back North with them, but they're still working in a difficult environment.  Lots of rye bread, lots of fish, lots of turnips.  Not much in the way of spices, other than sea salt and dill and chives.  Chickens, duck, and reindeer are the most common meat.  Yogurt and cheese from the reindeer.  Lots of smoking and curing and pickling.  Gravelax and lutefisk, etc.  Their booze is mostly grain alcohol flavored with pine tar or grain alcohol flavored with cloudberries.  Pretty much anything other than that, they have to raid for.  So they raid often and enthusiastically.  Orcs would only eat the corpses of sentient beings for special religious ceremonies.  Or if we were talking about elves.  Or to win an argument.  But that's it.

Goblins/Hobgoblins:  I 100% agree with the hotpot thing.  I think goblins have something like chili or jambalaya or bi bim bop that's probably delicious.  I imagine every goblin tribe has what they consider a secret recipe.  A lot of goblins have moved to my campaign's main city.  Most of them work in the stockyards, but I could see lots of them finding work in kitchens where they'd quickly learn to replicate any kind of cuisine you can imagine.  But I have trouble imagining a unique cuisine for them.  I'll have to give it some thought.

I can recommend for Dwarf cuisines something unexpected...rat.
In a Warhammer novel I read, Fall of Dragonback, the dwarfs there ate rat BEFORE things went sour. They actually saw it like a delicacy. 

I would think it's more environmental than race-specific. (Different Humans in different parts of the world eat different things depending on what's available to them.)

Quote from EricHVela >>

I would think it's more environmental than race-specific. (Different Humans in different parts of the world eat different things depending on what's available to them.)

That is indeed true-- which is why I didn't bother creating any cuisine for humans. Humans would have a bit of all of these.

That's also why I chose the races that are basically humans, but super exaggerated in certain ways and often better adapted to certain environments than any human group we have today or with exaggerated physical or other powers than any, or at least most, humans have. I avoided those that are basically just humans but with some extra magic that doesn't affect things outside combat or are so alien or don't have much established about their society. But I opened the door for those who have such ideas.

If your Dwarfs live in the forest and have magic that can make plants grow at a super exaggerated rate, then they are probably the ones with the primarily vegetarian/vegan diets. And if your Halflings live in the marshlands instead of open plains, then maybe they are the ones growing rice and sugar cane instead of wheat, corn, grapes, etc.

But with the most basic versions-- if we are thinking about these races as exaggerated humans who are super adapted for the environments we typically see them in, then what sort of foods would they be eating as people super adapted for their particular environments. It doesn't have to be an absolutely hard line, if your campaign world radically departs from the default version of the race-- it will change the equation.

But when a person says "I am playing a _______. What would my character order at the pub? What kinds of foods would they prepare if they were throwing a party? What kind of cravings are they going to have when I am stuck in an unfamiliar environment." that there has been some thought put into "That race is traditionally from such-and-such environment and to survive in such-and-such environment, they probably eat A, B, C. Even if their family moved to a city a few generations ago, they probably still make A, B and C at home."

Sure-- the answer can just be "whatever you as the player likes to eat" or "I bought a daily ration, so I will just check mark off that I ate a daily ration" or "Everyone just eats the same food that we imagine people all ate in Medieval Britain, 'cause 'Fantasy'=Medieval Britain as perceived by Americans." That's just rather boring, isn't it? Doesn't really feel like Roleplaying.

Surely you have some concrete ideas! Please share them.

Alright, the cuisines from my latest homebrew campaign setting (may not match with your setting):

Elves: sylvan style vegan 7-grain blueberry bread, with Sylvan Fields (tm) ancient wine, and a blackberry compote on the side

Dwarves: a hearty dish of tubers, you know, boiled parsnips and carrots with the occasional giant spider meat to power you through the day

Orcs: my orcs live in the freezing north -- they eat mostly meat of the animals that live up there, then use the pelts for clothing and blankets.

Dragonborn/aaracockra: live in a jungle area, so they have an abundance of fruit, with the dragonborn enjoying exotic meats -- roast snake, dragon bacon, etc.

Gnolls: gnolls eat everything they can pillage, and older/weaker their kobold slaves.

Kobolds eat vermin and their gnoll enslaver's food scraps. Gnomes eat what elves eat, though college gnomes sometimes mix in oil on dares. Humans tend to eat what nearby cultures eat, though some (like the dragonborn's wild game and the kobold's rats) are inedible. Tieflings eat the same things as humans, but have more barbecue because...

I'm playing a Tortle in my current campaign, and we've ended up  with Tortles eating a lot of fish and tropical foods... a lot of details for Tortle culture were borrowed from Hawaiian culture.

Anyway, Tortles rarely have permanent homes, so Tortle food is designed to be prepared in the wild. This means a large focus on grilled foods, and virtually no baking. As well we figured that, being reptiles, Tortles can't process dairy, so any food with dairy in it is out of the question, but some recipes can substitute coconut milk.

Fish is the most common meat in Tortle culture, served either sashimi style or grilled over an open flame. Usually served with fruit, with a heavy focus on tropical flavors. My particular Tortle is based on a snapping turtle, so a particular treat for him is using his powerful jaws to munch down on a whole raw pineapple, skin and all.

I've spent some time thinking about the reptilians.  I think this Tortle diet is perfect.  The things I'd add are

Lizardfolk:. I think there's a lot of room to do these guys a lot of different ways.  I model mine physically after monitors, with keratinized tongues and no tastebuds to speak of, just a Jacobson's organ.  If I follow that through, I've got no idea what their cuisine would look like or even if they'd have one.  I'm inclined to think some lizardfolk druid at some point explained intestinal parasites and got his tribe to stop eating things raw.  But after that, I can't think of anything.  Actually, I have one thing.  Clambakes.  Big communal fire pit, everyone brings food to steam, seaweed, big rocks to use as the cannonballs.  I can see that being a lizardfolk tradition.

Grungs/Bullywugs:  I know no one plays these, but this is where the reptilians start getting interesting, because frogs are strictly carnivorous and won't eat anything that isn't moving.  But they do have taste buds.  So what kind of cuisine can a culture devise around eating only live animals?  I think the answer has to be that they cultivate their food in a certain way.  For example, if they have a cage full of lizards that they're saving for a feast, they'll be sure to feed them sweet potato to "gut load" them with Vitamin A that the grungs need.  They might also dust their prey with something flavorful or smear it with a paste.

Yuan-Ti Pureblood:  Again, snakes are purely carnivorous. To the extent we're talking about an actual cuisine, a pureblood's would probably be the same as a malison's or an abomination's, whatever that is.  The question that interests me is what they eat when they're trying to pass in human society?  Snakes can't digest vegetables, so do they just fake it?  Did they invent keto as a kind of cover-story?  Either way, snakes need whole animals to process all the stuff they need.  Hair, organs, everything.  So when they're back in their own lairs, I imagine them gorging on bunnies and kittens, just because they're so eeeevil.

Dragonborn:  Now this is the one that's interested me, because while I have dragonborn players, we've never given this much thought.  Based on the eating habits of dragons and the eating habits of spiny lizards, I'm inclined to say that dragonborn like eating live prey.  But based on their massive superiority complexes, I think they don't like displaying that side of themselves to non-dragonborn.  So I think their meats would be lots of fish and poultry and maybe small goats, no dairy products, not much vegetable matter.  Most of the time, I think they'd try to prepare their dishes with unneccesarily complicated and flamboyant techniques, just to demonstrate that they'd mastered them, with the most expensive ingredients obtainable.  But then they'd also have special occasions where an individual "was forced" to eat a whole live goat or something.  They'd say it was for some rite of honor or ritual but the truth is that they just really like eating live animals, they just don't want anyone to know.

Thri-kreen: Elves. 

Tieflings can eat anything a human can. But they also enjoy hot coals from exotic woods (those with Fire resistance anyway), roasted crickets on a skewer or by the bag. and literally anything that moves and they can cook...like skunk.

I had a dark elf character I ran a couple years ago who's backstory was that she was from a village on the surface.  The village grew things like squash, cabbage, apples, and melons and used them to trade to other subterranean races.

Quote from Gorvar >>

I can recommend for Dwarf cuisines something unexpected...rat.
In a Warhammer novel I read, Fall of Dragonback, the dwarfs there ate rat BEFORE things went sour. They actually saw it like a delicacy. 

 Well, rats and other rodents are a common staple in many parts of the world.

This is really solid stuff, good work dude.

Quote from Cyclops08 >>

Tieflings can eat anything a human can. But they also enjoy hot coals from exotic woods (those with Fire resistance anyway), roasted crickets on a skewer or by the bag. and literally anything that moves and they can cook...like skunk.

It sounds like you have a very western view of what human foods are! Humans will eat basically anything which doesn't kill you, and will also go out of their way to eat things which are actively trying to kill/harm you but fail - spicy food, narcotics, hallucinogens, alcohol... Heck, a Japanese delicacy is a pufferfish, which if you cook it at all wrong is extremely poisonous. I guess they must have cooked it right the first time, otherwise they would have stopped after the first few attempts killed whoever ate it...

This is a very interesting thread. 

The first item I think worth noting is that playable races have expanded from humans & demi-humans, to sentient races from across the planes and in every environment... maybe most importantly, playable races now include former 'monster' races like Goblins, Orcs & etc. (like, what do Gith eat or grow in LIMBO!?)

If any of the readers of this thread find themselves in Central African Countries:  DO NOT EAT 'BUSH MEAT'!  It might be gorilla, or it might be something even more taboo.  Our species has only given up cannibalism very recently, and among other non-herbivore primates (gorillas being herbivores), it's not uncommon in the wild.  D & D is an environment where many sentient species live in close proximity to each other and compete over hunting and gathering resources.  In parts of the world where apex predators live in close proximity with humans, humans are prey animals, just like other monkeys.  My point is that in a universe where monsters are somewhat common, humans as well as other weaker monster species should just be considered part of the food chain.  (i.e. an ogre could demand tribute from goblins, or baring that, eat them).  The weaker the demi-human or humanoid species, the less particular they can afford to be about what they eat. 

Dwarves... there are a number of parallels between mountain dwarves and human cultures... Although they primarily live underground, or in protected valleys, in the Andes and Alps there are large high altitude lakes and river valleys with both animal husbandry and farming (like tiered fields for growing corn, which does very well at altitudes where rice won't grow).

Halflings.  There seems to have been a close relative of homo sapiens that was the size of a hobbit or gnome that lived in Indonesia until very recently.  It seems a better example than pygmies and bush-men (Xosa or *osa) in Africa.

Using Orcs in place of Vikings is... sort of odd.  The term 'Viking' is the same as "Scotti" or Scot (one term is Old Norse, the other is Gaelic)... it just refers to raiding and piracy.  If Orcs were Vikings, wouldn't Anglo-Saxons, Scots, Danes & Rus etc. also be 'Orcs'?  lol.  That's giving Orcs all of Northern Europe, as well as European colonies in N. America.

anyway... interesting topic!

Quote from ThorukDuckSlayer >>

Quote from Cyclops08 >>

Tieflings can eat anything a human can. But they also enjoy hot coals from exotic woods (those with Fire resistance anyway), roasted crickets on a skewer or by the bag. and literally anything that moves and they can cook...like skunk.

 

It sounds like you have a very western view of what human foods are! Humans will eat basically anything which doesn't kill you, and will also go out of their way to eat things which are actively trying to kill/harm you but fail - spicy food, narcotics, hallucinogens, alcohol... Heck, a Japanese delicacy is a pufferfish, which if you cook it at all wrong is extremely poisonous. I guess they must have cooked it right the first time, otherwise they would have stopped after the first few attempts killed whoever ate it...

 I agree with you... but I don't know if pufferfish is as good an example as... Miso or tofu.  But the bias does seem to be very [southern] European. 

Also... it seems like Japanese fantasy writing includes a lot more monster eating and cooking elements than western fiction... which I think is really fun.  I'll admit that I was surprised when alligator and snapping turtle was first given to me, but it's delicious... as is rattle snake (the only snake I've ever tried).   Maybe it depends on the main diet of the animal? 

Quote from YossarianX >>

Quote from ThorukDuckSlayer >>

Quote from Cyclops08 >>

Tieflings can eat anything a human can. But they also enjoy hot coals from exotic woods (those with Fire resistance anyway), roasted crickets on a skewer or by the bag. and literally anything that moves and they can cook...like skunk.

 

It sounds like you have a very western view of what human foods are! Humans will eat basically anything which doesn't kill you, and will also go out of their way to eat things which are actively trying to kill/harm you but fail - spicy food, narcotics, hallucinogens, alcohol... Heck, a Japanese delicacy is a pufferfish, which if you cook it at all wrong is extremely poisonous. I guess they must have cooked it right the first time, otherwise they would have stopped after the first few attempts killed whoever ate it...

 I agree with you... but I don't know if pufferfish is as good an example as... Miso or tofu.  But the bias does seem to be very [southern] European. 

Also... it seems like Japanese fantasy writing includes a lot more monster eating and cooking elements than western fiction... which I think is really fun.  I'll admit that I was surprised when alligator and snapping turtle was first given to me, but it's delicious... as is rattle snake (the only snake I've ever tried).   Maybe it depends on the main diet of the animal? 

 Yeah, it really depends on the main diet of the animal, and that's not just true for carnivorous ones.  A cow that's fed primarily corn tastes substantially different from one that's fed primarily grass.

Quote from YossarianX >>

 

Using Orcs in place of Vikings is... sort of odd.  The term 'Viking' is the same as "Scotti" or Scot (one term is Old Norse, the other is Gaelic)... it just refers to raiding and piracy.  If Orcs were Vikings, wouldn't Anglo-Saxons, Scots, Danes & Rus etc. also be 'Orcs'?  lol.  That's giving Orcs all of Northern Europe, as well as European colonies in N. America.

 

Correct...?  I also gave them a big chunk of Central Europe so they could be my Cossacks.  But those orcs have developed different customs to the far northern tribes I was thinking about here.

What can I say?  Here be dragons.