So, I am probably just reaching for pie in the sky stuff here, but I was wondering if anyone has lore about their world's food, lol.
I am aware of the cookbooks for D&D that have been put out (and bought one,) but I am a person who really likes to cook, and so I was wondering if anyone had done any sort of "cultural dishes" and recipes for their worlds.
I have several, but the one that I am going to use is called "Road Stew", and ties into the deeper history of the world around an event called The Bleak Journey, when the people had to survive while moving along something they call The Bitter Road (from whence the Stew gets its name).
Road stew is made from water, beans, barley, and dried vegetables (potatoes, onions, garlic, peas, mushrooms, and whatever else is lying around). It is served with an air-leavened flatbread.
I do have a recipe for it, lol, and have even made it before (using dried veggies and adding in some chicken).
Road Stew is the closest thing to a universal dish I have, and has a whole silly lore thing attached to it.
Am I the only one?
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
I'm a fellow food lover, especially baked goods, but tend to leave it up to a randomizer to set menus for a region. If I had a player take on a chef/baker angle for their background and fun I'd go deeper. In general I like to think about the agriculture and ranching of a culture, but not down to the dish level. Otherwise I'm just doing DM work for my own personal entertainment.
In my main country where the action happens, the lower classes eat a very bland diet, mostly around grains, beans and occasionally eggs or a chicken, with festivals including a slaughtered hog, venison or even a cow. Less rare, a family will slaughter a sheep or a goat and share the meat with four or five other families, but this would be an occasion for celebration.
The upper classes enjoy much more varied meals including eggs or meat at most meals, and sweets. Their sauces are savory. Their soups are flavored with meat, not bones. They eat occasionally fish or shell fish, a variety of game birds, fruits and nuts.
The real delights come from the foreign race cultures. The elves can make things with spices the humans have not heard of. The dwarves make dishes flavored with mushrooms and other things that grow in the dark, and they are experts in roasting meats while keeping them moist. Even the Orcs have learned which spices they have access to that give their meats, a mainstay of the orc diet, a spicy flavor (imagine spicy dry-rub chicken wings). Gnomes are experts in pastry making dishes like baklava. Halflings are experts in baking who produce everything from whole wheat bread to sweat rolls, with sour dough bread, and buttered bread in between.
Bards are extremely popular. Once a Bard has tasted a dish, (s)he can use Prestidigitation to flavor other foods to taste that way. So Bards will travel to the City to sample food and drink so they may offer a better variety. The bards in my home country typically visit homes and flavor their meals for the family. They can do this for a whole hamlet for a single meal before stopping somewhere to enjoy dinner themselves. And this usually occurs at the Manor House where the Manor Lord invites the Bard to stay with them for news and help in the kitchen, as well as entertainment after dinner. There are more Manor Lords in this country than there are Bards, so having a bard travel through your area is a blessing to the hamlet and the manor, and bards are treated very well for this.
Bards learn of the ways the best foods are made in their sampling tours in the Cities. They share that knowledge with others, but generally only Manor Lords or Titled Nobility can afford to send of a request for the spices needed to make the dishes themselves.
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
I'm a fellow food lover, especially baked goods, but tend to leave it up to a randomizer to set menus for a region. If I had a player take on a chef/baker angle for their background and fun I'd go deeper. In general I like to think about the agriculture and ranching of a culture, but not down to the dish level. Otherwise I'm just doing DM work for my own personal entertainment.
That's not bad per se but I get distracted easy.
I feel that on the distraction part, lol.
My original plans had been to include five distinct dishes for each of my cultures, but distractions led to me cutting them out of my player book because, well, deadlines, lol. I do have about two for each, a couple have three. But I will wait to reveal them when we have another in person game.
My dishes do grow out of the agriculture and ranching, the available resources, and then (this time around) the trade routes. Things like tracking the spread of corn and peppers as they entered cultures is one of my side hobbies, seeing how a particular edible traveled to and became part of a region's whole culture just gets me weirdly fascinated, lol.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
In my main country where the action happens, the lower classes eat a very bland diet, mostly around grains, beans and occasionally eggs or a chicken, with festivals including a slaughtered hog, venison or even a cow. Less rare, a family will slaughter a sheep or a goat and share the meat with four or five other families, but this would be an occasion for celebration.
The upper classes enjoy much more varied meals including eggs or meat at most meals, and sweets. Their sauces are savory. Their soups are flavored with meat, not bones. They eat occasionally fish or shell fish, a variety of game birds, fruits and nuts.
The real delights come from the foreign race cultures. The elves can make things with spices the humans have not heard of. The dwarves make dishes flavored with mushrooms and other things that grow in the dark, and they are experts in roasting meats while keeping them moist. Even the Orcs have learned which spices they have access to that give their meats, a mainstay of the orc diet, a spicy flavor (imagine spicy dry-rub chicken wings). Gnomes are experts in pastry making dishes like baklava. Halflings are experts in baking who produce everything from whole wheat bread to sweat rolls, with sour dough bread, and buttered bread in between.
Bards are extremely popular. Once a Bard has tasted a dish, (s)he can use Prestidigitation to flavor other foods to taste that way. So Bards will travel to the City to sample food and drink so they may offer a better variety. The bards in my home country typically visit homes and flavor their meals for the family. They can do this for a whole hamlet for a single meal before stopping somewhere to enjoy dinner themselves. And this usually occurs at the Manor House where the Manor Lord invites the Bard to stay with them for news and help in the kitchen, as well as entertainment after dinner. There are more Manor Lords in this country than there are Bards, so having a bard travel through your area is a blessing to the hamlet and the manor, and bards are treated very well for this.
Bards learn of the ways the best foods are made in their sampling tours in the Cities. They share that knowledge with others, but generally only Manor Lords or Titled Nobility can afford to send of a request for the spices needed to make the dishes themselves.
A troubadour touting the advantages of Bards, I see.... ;)
That's a great example of how flavor can change the shape of the way people perceive the world around them!
Thank you!
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
We just assume that the party will carry rations with, and it they have a cleric they will cast create food and water. For that matter I don't worry about minor items like torches, flint and steel etc.
I recently created a food which Dwarves eat with every dish. I can't remember what I called it off-hand, but they were basically churros made of yorkshire pudding. They would fill them with gravy or fruit compote to have with different dishes. My group immediately demanded that I stopped talking about them as they all desperately wanted to eat one!
Otherwise there is the Steepfield Cheese Chase, which features a giant fondue pot in the middle of the town square. The Fondue is communal, but stalls are all around selling things to dip. They also chase cheese wheels and determine how the year will be by how many they catch, but that's more lore involving food than actual food lore!
In one of Terry Pratchett's many books, Cohen the barbarian remarks upon seeing a group of peasants around a camp fire, eating pig ear soup, that some rich bastard had hogged all the rest of the pig. In other words, the poor peasants get to eat only the ears of their own pig.
I don't go into much detail about cuisine. In the imperial highlands, food is plentyful, and the full-fledged imperial citizens have a life of plenty - they dine on the equvalent of rib-eye steaks and vintage wine.
Around the empire are a number of old river kingdoms (now part of the empire) and they have crops that thrive with seasonal floodings (rice and corn, I guess - frankly I'm not sure that's accurate), fish and whatever else swims in the river.
Further off, different climates and different cultures eat other stuff. Deep in the southern 'desert' are the orc tribes - it's more savannah than desert, and they eat stuff akin to elephant, gazelle, bison, and some stranger, wilder stuff like the wild gromh, giant, horned, shaggy herbivorous bearlike beings.
For their part, the yuan-ti of the northern jungles have tons of spices, and few qualms about adding the occasional sentient to their cauldrons.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Not lore per se but food does come up a fair bit in my game. We routinely feed the people we rescue, pass supplies onto refugees, ply guards with bottles of liquor, bribe people with fancy cheeses or spices, that sort of thing. As well, the DM generates the menu for every inn or tavern we stop at. Usually five or six dishes, sometimes with a theme, like seafood for places near the shore and froo-froo stuff for the elf establishments etc. He’ll often include a special libation or two as well. Our bard has designs on managing a tavern in Luskan for which we own the deed so he collects the recipes of the more interesting dishes and drinks.
A common delicacy among undead and other evil spirits are Bloody Toms. When the blood of a vampire falls on the ground,a plant that resembles large, juicy tomatoes might grow up from that spot. The juice of these tomatoes is actually blood and they can satisfy the bloodlust of a vampire for a little while. Hags also cultivate these plants and Bloody Toms are ingredients in many vile potions.
Lunar cheese is another delicacy. This type of cheese can only be crafted by the people who live on the moon. The hot air balloonists who travel from the moon to the earth often bring back lunar cheese to the markets. This cheese doesn't have any magical properties, it is just delicious cheese from the moon.
Mountain Dwarves in my world make "Cake Soup" - but the cake that's used for this, is actually made from dried fish and mushrooms, that are crushed to flakes, mixed with herbs and spices and pressed to small "cakes", which last a very long time, are nutritious, and can be dissolved in hot water. That's why many Mountain Dwarves are also expert fishers in my world - only that they normally fish in underground rivers and lakes.
I have a food called rock stew which is basically getting some clay and dry before getting a thick dough and bits of meat vegetables and whatever else you may have and heating the clay up before putting all of the meat and vegetables in the dough and the then get the clay and cover it with dough for a staple meal. (The clay comes from a magic stream that has properties that allow its clay to retain its heat for weeks.
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I also have the ability to manifest my thoughts in ways that cut people. I call this power words. -Tasha
My previous campaign took place in my version of the Middledark. Due to being so far from sunlight, many plants evolved to be bioluminescent. Additionally, the cities were melting pots of monstrous and mundane races, as a lot of creatures moved there to escape persecution on the Overbright, leading to carnivorous creatures learning to exist in harmony with what would normally be their prey. Finally, with few natural resources, the Middledark became a powerhouse of the arcane and alchemical pursuits. Put that together and you have a cuisine that is literally dazzling on the plate, can include blood as a thickener (or be candied), and often changes flavors or scents to be palatable to whomever eats it, thanks to innovations in culinary alchemy. The preeminent candy shop included cindersweet (brimstone cinnamon candies, just like mama hellspawn used to make), and my players loved it so much it became almost an alternative to coin for certain quests, lol.
My players also adopted a stirge because it was attracted to magic like a moth to a flame and used to bonk into things adorably. They got sick of it sucking their HP every morning, so they trained it to subsist on the blood equivalent of Pixy Stix. That was one hyper stirge.
In my current campaign, one player made an offhand comment about pineapples which sparked canon lore. My setting is a dense, self-contained steampunk city - nobody enters, nobody leaves, nobody knows or remembers why. Nothing is beyond the walls except barren fields and mist. Pineapples shouldn't exist. They don't grow, but you can still buy them. Because until recently, there was a whole world beyond the city walls. A world with countries and oceans and islands...and naturally growing pineapples. And that's just one of a bunch of hints that the city is actually on the verge of becoming a domain of dread. Save the pineapple, save the world.
Last night I had some very strange dreams, and woke up this morning with an urge to write a recipe for Goblins (who are the principal bad guys on my world) that is essentially a flatbread sandwich.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
I know I mentioned “frostballs” in another thread recently, but I’ll repost about them here too since it seems appropriate:
*When Frostrbreak*^ got adopted by the topside inhabitants of Cliffside, confectioners began making a seasonal specialty called “frostballs,” small, hollow spheres of frosted sugar containing a tiny toy. It is now a beloved holiday treat enjoyed by children and adults up and down the cliff. The custom is to “Break the Frost” over someone to shower them with sweet tidings and a surprise gift. *^Originally a working class celebration of the day each spring over the announcement that ice in the lock steps had sufficiently melted to reopen them.*^^ Popularity for the celebration quickly spread upcliff to the wealthier inhabitants and was eventually designated an official holiday. The city having grown to include much of the Cliffside itself, as well as the top and bottom, a frozen lock is no longer a problem. Since then the date has been tied to the lunar calendar and marks the official first day of spring. *^^At that time, the city’s existence was directly related to the canals and the first lock steps. Almost 30% of Cliffside inhabitants worked directly on the canals as lockworkers performing maintenance or emergency services or security, dockworkers at both top and bottom of the cliff including stevedores, and independent maintenance, emergency and security services; the crews for the various cargo ferries that transferred cargo up and down the locks for ships at either at either end, or as one of the Lockmen.*^^^ Another 10% provided ancillary support in the for the same companies. 25% were either government or public employees. The rest retail and service industry workers. Since then the city has grown to include much of the cliff face itself and exists to support itself. *^^^An old colloquial term for those now referred to simply as Lock Pilots. brave pepoe who’s job it is to relieve Ships’ Captains of command and pilot unfamiliar vessels through the locks up and down the cliff. One accident could shut down the locks for days. It is traditional to always wish the Lock Pilots safe passage.
Another confection I invented for that world are called “Mr Markaduke’s Sour Stones”:
*In all of Cliffside, the most well known confectioner in the city is Mr. Markaduke of Markaduke’s Sweet Shop. People come from all over the city to buy his candies. Anyone from Cliffbottom who can afford the luxury of candy goes to Markaduke’s for their special occasion purchases, and those from Clifftop send their servants halfway down the cliff to purchase from Markaduke’s on a regular basis. There has been a Markaduke behind the counter of Markaduke’s Sweet Shop for longer than anyone can remember. The current owner, one Mr. Able Markaduke is particularly known for inventing some of Cliffside’s less conventional confections, the most popular being his Sour Stones, a hard candy so sour it puts an instant pucker on the face of anyone brave enough to try one.
And a non candy food I invented for that world are called “gristlecakes”:
*(Gristlecakes are a local “delicacy^” in the Cliffbottom district of Cliffside. As poor people do everywhere in the world, they make delicious food from whatever the wealthy don’t eat. In this case, all of the gristle that gets butchered out from all of the animals gets collected together, slow cooked with spices until gelatinized, and stuffed into casings from a larger animal and hung overnight to firm. The following day it is sliced into round cakes, quickly chargrilled and served as a sandwich^^ on a roll with grilled onions.) *^(With the lock steps being such an important asset in Cliffside, and the need to keep fish from interfering with the mechanisms, fish is the dish of the day in most working class houses most days. Meat at all, even a gristlecake, is a delicacy when 96% of your diet is fish, fruits, vegetables, and fermentations. Especially around daychange,^^^ daychange thirty after several of those fermentations.) *^^(The sandwich has even become popular in the middle class districts, making it even more of a delicacy Cliffbottom. Even travelers from afar have their opinions on where to get the best gristlecake sandwich in Cliffside. But only residents of the Cliffbottom district, known to outsiders as “the bottoms” or “the maze” know the twisting tunnels of Cliffbottom well enough to know where the originators of the sandwich are still operating generations later.)
Finally I’ll mention something from another world from the last campaign I ran. In the island town of Safeharbor, every household has their own recipe for fish stew. Before the town’s recent decline due to the falling waling industry, every year during the summer, as part of the annual town fair there used to be a competition for the best fish stew. The competition was very fierce, and often the nobility would win, primarily on the strength of the stews produced by their hired cooks. To this day, even though the town is slowly dying, people still take great pride in their fish stews.
I do have to wonder how the locals of Cliffbottom view paella...
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
I made an entire setting inspired by Toriko, a food-based shonen manga. Every adventure is seeking out a new and rare ingredient, and it's up to the players to come up with something to do with it. So far we have had:
Chocolate Snail An ambulatory truffle that tastes faintly of chocolate. The smell of the oils is where a lot of the value comes from, much like with actual truffles. They look almost identical to the common Brown Liar Mollusk, which stick random objects to their shells. To mimic this, Chocolate Snails cover their backs with detritus. They do not have eyes, but instead have stolen heat-sensing organs from their favorite prey, snakeants.
Festus Crab Large crabs with extremely sturdy shells and powerful claws. They disappear for half the year to reproduce on Festus Island, where the truck-sized females live. You know pistol shrimp claws? That's what the Festus Crabs have. They have sweet, buttery fat, which is actually more valuable than the meat itself. Their strong shells keep them from spoiling until the shell is breached, which would be helpful if they weren't very dangerous creatures with a short-ranged audio/waterjet attack.
Unicorn It's a unicorn. It's delicious, but sapient and extraordinarily rare. The party didn't even know they were looking for a unicorn until it was in their grasp.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
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So, I am probably just reaching for pie in the sky stuff here, but I was wondering if anyone has lore about their world's food, lol.
I am aware of the cookbooks for D&D that have been put out (and bought one,) but I am a person who really likes to cook, and so I was wondering if anyone had done any sort of "cultural dishes" and recipes for their worlds.
I have several, but the one that I am going to use is called "Road Stew", and ties into the deeper history of the world around an event called The Bleak Journey, when the people had to survive while moving along something they call The Bitter Road (from whence the Stew gets its name).
Road stew is made from water, beans, barley, and dried vegetables (potatoes, onions, garlic, peas, mushrooms, and whatever else is lying around). It is served with an air-leavened flatbread.
I do have a recipe for it, lol, and have even made it before (using dried veggies and adding in some chicken).
Road Stew is the closest thing to a universal dish I have, and has a whole silly lore thing attached to it.
Am I the only one?
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
I'm a fellow food lover, especially baked goods, but tend to leave it up to a randomizer to set menus for a region. If I had a player take on a chef/baker angle for their background and fun I'd go deeper. In general I like to think about the agriculture and ranching of a culture, but not down to the dish level. Otherwise I'm just doing DM work for my own personal entertainment.
That's not bad per se but I get distracted easy.
In my main country where the action happens, the lower classes eat a very bland diet, mostly around grains, beans and occasionally eggs or a chicken, with festivals including a slaughtered hog, venison or even a cow. Less rare, a family will slaughter a sheep or a goat and share the meat with four or five other families, but this would be an occasion for celebration.
The upper classes enjoy much more varied meals including eggs or meat at most meals, and sweets. Their sauces are savory. Their soups are flavored with meat, not bones. They eat occasionally fish or shell fish, a variety of game birds, fruits and nuts.
The real delights come from the foreign race cultures. The elves can make things with spices the humans have not heard of. The dwarves make dishes flavored with mushrooms and other things that grow in the dark, and they are experts in roasting meats while keeping them moist. Even the Orcs have learned which spices they have access to that give their meats, a mainstay of the orc diet, a spicy flavor (imagine spicy dry-rub chicken wings). Gnomes are experts in pastry making dishes like baklava. Halflings are experts in baking who produce everything from whole wheat bread to sweat rolls, with sour dough bread, and buttered bread in between.
Bards are extremely popular. Once a Bard has tasted a dish, (s)he can use Prestidigitation to flavor other foods to taste that way. So Bards will travel to the City to sample food and drink so they may offer a better variety. The bards in my home country typically visit homes and flavor their meals for the family. They can do this for a whole hamlet for a single meal before stopping somewhere to enjoy dinner themselves. And this usually occurs at the Manor House where the Manor Lord invites the Bard to stay with them for news and help in the kitchen, as well as entertainment after dinner. There are more Manor Lords in this country than there are Bards, so having a bard travel through your area is a blessing to the hamlet and the manor, and bards are treated very well for this.
Bards learn of the ways the best foods are made in their sampling tours in the Cities. They share that knowledge with others, but generally only Manor Lords or Titled Nobility can afford to send of a request for the spices needed to make the dishes themselves.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
I feel that on the distraction part, lol.
My original plans had been to include five distinct dishes for each of my cultures, but distractions led to me cutting them out of my player book because, well, deadlines, lol. I do have about two for each, a couple have three. But I will wait to reveal them when we have another in person game.
My dishes do grow out of the agriculture and ranching, the available resources, and then (this time around) the trade routes. Things like tracking the spread of corn and peppers as they entered cultures is one of my side hobbies, seeing how a particular edible traveled to and became part of a region's whole culture just gets me weirdly fascinated, lol.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
A troubadour touting the advantages of Bards, I see.... ;)
That's a great example of how flavor can change the shape of the way people perceive the world around them!
Thank you!
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
to be honest food never really comes up.
We just assume that the party will carry rations with, and it they have a cleric they will cast create food and water. For that matter I don't worry about minor items like torches, flint and steel etc.
I recently created a food which Dwarves eat with every dish. I can't remember what I called it off-hand, but they were basically churros made of yorkshire pudding. They would fill them with gravy or fruit compote to have with different dishes. My group immediately demanded that I stopped talking about them as they all desperately wanted to eat one!
Otherwise there is the Steepfield Cheese Chase, which features a giant fondue pot in the middle of the town square. The Fondue is communal, but stalls are all around selling things to dip. They also chase cheese wheels and determine how the year will be by how many they catch, but that's more lore involving food than actual food lore!
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In one of Terry Pratchett's many books, Cohen the barbarian remarks upon seeing a group of peasants around a camp fire, eating pig ear soup, that some rich bastard had hogged all the rest of the pig. In other words, the poor peasants get to eat only the ears of their own pig.
I don't go into much detail about cuisine. In the imperial highlands, food is plentyful, and the full-fledged imperial citizens have a life of plenty - they dine on the equvalent of rib-eye steaks and vintage wine.
Around the empire are a number of old river kingdoms (now part of the empire) and they have crops that thrive with seasonal floodings (rice and corn, I guess - frankly I'm not sure that's accurate), fish and whatever else swims in the river.
Further off, different climates and different cultures eat other stuff. Deep in the southern 'desert' are the orc tribes - it's more savannah than desert, and they eat stuff akin to elephant, gazelle, bison, and some stranger, wilder stuff like the wild gromh, giant, horned, shaggy herbivorous bearlike beings.
For their part, the yuan-ti of the northern jungles have tons of spices, and few qualms about adding the occasional sentient to their cauldrons.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Not lore per se but food does come up a fair bit in my game. We routinely feed the people we rescue, pass supplies onto refugees, ply guards with bottles of liquor, bribe people with fancy cheeses or spices, that sort of thing. As well, the DM generates the menu for every inn or tavern we stop at. Usually five or six dishes, sometimes with a theme, like seafood for places near the shore and froo-froo stuff for the elf establishments etc. He’ll often include a special libation or two as well. Our bard has designs on managing a tavern in Luskan for which we own the deed so he collects the recipes of the more interesting dishes and drinks.
A common delicacy among undead and other evil spirits are Bloody Toms. When the blood of a vampire falls on the ground,a plant that resembles large, juicy tomatoes might grow up from that spot. The juice of these tomatoes is actually blood and they can satisfy the bloodlust of a vampire for a little while. Hags also cultivate these plants and Bloody Toms are ingredients in many vile potions.
Lunar cheese is another delicacy. This type of cheese can only be crafted by the people who live on the moon. The hot air balloonists who travel from the moon to the earth often bring back lunar cheese to the markets. This cheese doesn't have any magical properties, it is just delicious cheese from the moon.
Mountain Dwarves in my world make "Cake Soup" - but the cake that's used for this, is actually made from dried fish and mushrooms, that are crushed to flakes, mixed with herbs and spices and pressed to small "cakes", which last a very long time, are nutritious, and can be dissolved in hot water. That's why many Mountain Dwarves are also expert fishers in my world - only that they normally fish in underground rivers and lakes.
I played in a one shot where the tavern had maybe 10 drinks which each had a different magical effect. was very cool.
Food, Scifi/fantasy, anime, DND 5E and OSR geek.
Rock stew.
I have a food called rock stew which is basically getting some clay and dry before getting a thick dough and bits of meat vegetables and whatever else you may have and heating the clay up before putting all of the meat and vegetables in the dough and the then get the clay and cover it with dough for a staple meal. (The clay comes from a magic stream that has properties that allow its clay to retain its heat for weeks.
I also have the ability to manifest my thoughts in ways that cut people. I call this power words. -Tasha
I play 3.5E…sometimes.
Come swim over to the Bloody Barnacle! The Bloody Barnacle against the world!
They/them
My avatar is stuck in Archeon help would be ideal.
Silhouette of determination! Thanks drum!
My previous campaign took place in my version of the Middledark. Due to being so far from sunlight, many plants evolved to be bioluminescent. Additionally, the cities were melting pots of monstrous and mundane races, as a lot of creatures moved there to escape persecution on the Overbright, leading to carnivorous creatures learning to exist in harmony with what would normally be their prey. Finally, with few natural resources, the Middledark became a powerhouse of the arcane and alchemical pursuits. Put that together and you have a cuisine that is literally dazzling on the plate, can include blood as a thickener (or be candied), and often changes flavors or scents to be palatable to whomever eats it, thanks to innovations in culinary alchemy. The preeminent candy shop included cindersweet (brimstone cinnamon candies, just like mama hellspawn used to make), and my players loved it so much it became almost an alternative to coin for certain quests, lol.
My players also adopted a stirge because it was attracted to magic like a moth to a flame and used to bonk into things adorably. They got sick of it sucking their HP every morning, so they trained it to subsist on the blood equivalent of Pixy Stix. That was one hyper stirge.
In my current campaign, one player made an offhand comment about pineapples which sparked canon lore. My setting is a dense, self-contained steampunk city - nobody enters, nobody leaves, nobody knows or remembers why. Nothing is beyond the walls except barren fields and mist. Pineapples shouldn't exist. They don't grow, but you can still buy them. Because until recently, there was a whole world beyond the city walls. A world with countries and oceans and islands...and naturally growing pineapples. And that's just one of a bunch of hints that the city is actually on the verge of becoming a domain of dread. Save the pineapple, save the world.
the poor fool who only dreams of pineapples!
I do love that. That's incredible.
Last night I had some very strange dreams, and woke up this morning with an urge to write a recipe for Goblins (who are the principal bad guys on my world) that is essentially a flatbread sandwich.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
I know I mentioned “frostballs” in another thread recently, but I’ll repost about them here too since it seems appropriate:
*When Frostrbreak*^ got adopted by the topside inhabitants of Cliffside, confectioners began making a seasonal specialty called “frostballs,” small, hollow spheres of frosted sugar containing a tiny toy. It is now a beloved holiday treat enjoyed by children and adults up and down the cliff. The custom is to “Break the Frost” over someone to shower them with sweet tidings and a surprise gift.
*^Originally a working class celebration of the day each spring over the announcement that ice in the lock steps had sufficiently melted to reopen them.*^^ Popularity for the celebration quickly spread upcliff to the wealthier inhabitants and was eventually designated an official holiday. The city having grown to include much of the Cliffside itself, as well as the top and bottom, a frozen lock is no longer a problem. Since then the date has been tied to the lunar calendar and marks the official first day of spring.
*^^At that time, the city’s existence was directly related to the canals and the first lock steps. Almost 30% of Cliffside inhabitants worked directly on the canals as lockworkers performing maintenance or emergency services or security, dockworkers at both top and bottom of the cliff including stevedores, and independent maintenance, emergency and security services; the crews for the various cargo ferries that transferred cargo up and down the locks for ships at either at either end, or as one of the Lockmen.*^^^ Another 10% provided ancillary support in the for the same companies. 25% were either government or public employees. The rest retail and service industry workers. Since then the city has grown to include much of the cliff face itself and exists to support itself.
*^^^An old colloquial term for those now referred to simply as Lock Pilots. brave pepoe who’s job it is to relieve Ships’ Captains of command and pilot unfamiliar vessels through the locks up and down the cliff. One accident could shut down the locks for days. It is traditional to always wish the Lock Pilots safe passage.
Another confection I invented for that world are called “Mr Markaduke’s Sour Stones”:
*In all of Cliffside, the most well known confectioner in the city is Mr. Markaduke of Markaduke’s Sweet Shop. People come from all over the city to buy his candies. Anyone from Cliffbottom who can afford the luxury of candy goes to Markaduke’s for their special occasion purchases, and those from Clifftop send their servants halfway down the cliff to purchase from Markaduke’s on a regular basis. There has been a Markaduke behind the counter of Markaduke’s Sweet Shop for longer than anyone can remember. The current owner, one Mr. Able Markaduke is particularly known for inventing some of Cliffside’s less conventional confections, the most popular being his Sour Stones, a hard candy so sour it puts an instant pucker on the face of anyone brave enough to try one.
And a non candy food I invented for that world are called “gristlecakes”:
*(Gristlecakes are a local “delicacy^” in the Cliffbottom district of Cliffside. As poor people do everywhere in the world, they make delicious food from whatever the wealthy don’t eat. In this case, all of the gristle that gets butchered out from all of the animals gets collected together, slow cooked with spices until gelatinized, and stuffed into casings from a larger animal and hung overnight to firm. The following day it is sliced into round cakes, quickly chargrilled and served as a sandwich^^ on a roll with grilled onions.)
*^(With the lock steps being such an important asset in Cliffside, and the need to keep fish from interfering with the mechanisms, fish is the dish of the day in most working class houses most days. Meat at all, even a gristlecake, is a delicacy when 96% of your diet is fish, fruits, vegetables, and fermentations. Especially around daychange,^^^ daychange thirty after several of those fermentations.)
*^^(The sandwich has even become popular in the middle class districts, making it even more of a delicacy Cliffbottom. Even travelers from afar have their opinions on where to get the best gristlecake sandwich in Cliffside. But only residents of the Cliffbottom district, known to outsiders as “the bottoms” or “the maze” know the twisting tunnels of Cliffbottom well enough to know where the originators of the sandwich are still operating generations later.)
Finally I’ll mention something from another world from the last campaign I ran. In the island town of Safeharbor, every household has their own recipe for fish stew. Before the town’s recent decline due to the falling waling industry, every year during the summer, as part of the annual town fair there used to be a competition for the best fish stew. The competition was very fierce, and often the nobility would win, primarily on the strength of the stews produced by their hired cooks. To this day, even though the town is slowly dying, people still take great pride in their fish stews.
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I love the sausage sandwich!
I do have to wonder how the locals of Cliffbottom view paella...
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Thanks. It’s half inspired by the cheesesteak, and half inspired by scrapple. Philly gotta represent!
I don’t know, maybe we’ll find out one day.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
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Content Troubleshooting
I made an entire setting inspired by Toriko, a food-based shonen manga. Every adventure is seeking out a new and rare ingredient, and it's up to the players to come up with something to do with it. So far we have had:
Chocolate Snail
An ambulatory truffle that tastes faintly of chocolate. The smell of the oils is where a lot of the value comes from, much like with actual truffles. They look almost identical to the common Brown Liar Mollusk, which stick random objects to their shells. To mimic this, Chocolate Snails cover their backs with detritus. They do not have eyes, but instead have stolen heat-sensing organs from their favorite prey, snakeants.
Festus Crab
Large crabs with extremely sturdy shells and powerful claws. They disappear for half the year to reproduce on Festus Island, where the truck-sized females live. You know pistol shrimp claws? That's what the Festus Crabs have. They have sweet, buttery fat, which is actually more valuable than the meat itself. Their strong shells keep them from spoiling until the shell is breached, which would be helpful if they weren't very dangerous creatures with a short-ranged audio/waterjet attack.
Unicorn
It's a unicorn. It's delicious, but sapient and extraordinarily rare. The party didn't even know they were looking for a unicorn until it was in their grasp.
Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.
May each word that I speak be backed by each of my teeth.
Wonderful!
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds