Food in TTRPGs

Aren't plants meat?

They are.

-Crops
It's a tropical setting, so -and without a hint of memery- everyone eats quite a lot of Bananas, specifically Plantains, but other staples such as: Taro, Yams, Sweet Potatoes, Coconuts, Cassava, Peanuts, Beans, as well as a MILLION different sorts of Fruits are all pretty wildly available and enjoyed as common foods for all to enjoy. Vegetables as well are so horribly abundant you may wish to never eat Cucumber or see another piece of fried Okra again; many vegetable patches produce twice a year so long as they aren't drowned or dried in the coming seasons.
If you're looking for cereals you're going to have a harder time of it unless you're willing to settle for Chickpeas or Beans; since most folk aren't too eager to bend their backs in the boiling heat of the day growing huge fields of amber Wheat n' Barely. Though, all the flatbread in circulation has to be coming from SOMEWHERE, so if you're determined you can a few people here and there growing Sorghum, Wheat, Rye, n' Oats.. The odd man out, though, is Humans & Centaurs; they're copious consumers and cultivators of CORN and they're the only two races whom know how to do it... So if you want some cornbread or Corn tortillas you'll have to venture into their kingdoms.

-Livestock
I sincerely hope you enjoy chevon, because Goats are the most popular large meat animal followed by Chickens, Pigs, Sheep, and then Cattle. You'd think Cattle would be more popular, but since most Changelings (The most populous people) are lactose intolerant they see no reason to raise Cattle instead of say Goats or Horses- many people don't keep Pigs either due to PARASITES, but Orcs, Humans & Centaurs are once again the contrarians in that department. It goes without saying that EVERYONE is going to have Chickens, but you'll see farm houses and cottages with Turkeys, Geese, Ducks, and even Guineafowl, Pigeons, or Peacocks (typically raised for fancier noble feasts); eggs are just that important.

depends on how much you're willing to pay.

the specifics vary pretty wildly on the region but the general format, most of the time, is that a meal will consist of spiced and herbed meats accompanied by grilled vegetables and some kind of fruit or nut bread.

oh and ice cream. it's been around since the goddamn 5th century BC in real life, so its around, even if its bloody expensive.

I run flourishing magic, high fantasy settings so people have a diverse pallet. In most places water is abundant either by proximity, cave superstructure or magic so crops are grown on all available real estate. On roofs, greenhouses, terraces, planar farming, and crop symbiosis (like the Iroquois 3 sisters but with magic genetic modification an option). On that vein: Jerky that grows in sand, sentient flying apple trees, all day meal dates, obnoxiously large mushrooms, self healing bread. Also this is a world where dinosaurs are still alive as well as mammoths and megasloths. Not to mention colossal bugs and lots of people if a cannibal only counts if he eats his species or any humanoid. In one setting I had, all Elves born in their homeland are freegan anti-establishment arsonist treefucking nazi pirates. They subsided on human meat and sunlight (being photosynthetic when still). Viapor is a city on an even grander scale than even today's cities, receiving food through portals, farming the clouds, and marble is quarries and delivered via teleportation. Not to mention the merchant navy of a billion ships.

I like to go all out with sensory elements of food descriptions, and I find it really draws players into the game world. I research on peasant recipes and historic food traditions, but I don't think a GM should enshrine historic accuracy.

In fantasy settings, my players tend to roam over open countryside, so it's a lot of roasting and stewing of fowl and small game, tubers, mushrooms, and wild herbs. Inns, I go for comfort foods, like meat pies, almond crusted fish, roasted nuts, puddings.

Allow me to explain further:
I mean ways to prepare them that don't require pans, pots, etc... since stone and metals aren't allowed.

what is this, a neolithic era setting?

hunter-gatherers then. various herd beasts hunted in nomadic patterns, lots of river fish, fruits vegetables and herbs that tend to be easily harvestable, and grains and spices are rare.

Ummmm....is wood allowed?

If it isn't I don't think that civilization could really form. Most meats require preparation to be safe for human consumption which requires either heat or loads of salt. No wood, stone, or metal means no tools, which means no way to properly inspect meat to ensure it's been properly prepared. No tools also means all crops have to be hand-tilled which can only realistically support the number of people who work the crops, which means no cities.

If only wood is allowed then only wooden tools can be used which has several of the above issues: wood can't till soil effectively and will break, wood will burn so you can't use bowls to cook soup or boil water effectively, only wooden weapons for hunting means that hunters will need to spend considerable time repairing weapons after each and every hunt.

I don't think your full autismo divine mandate people would advance past a hunter-gatherer stage of civilization.

maybe all the tools and kitchenware are made from super durable clay/ceramic textiles?

are animal products allowed?
if not, then smoking, roasting, and baking are most of what you can do, I think.

Ceramics are made from mud and ash, no metal or stone there.
You can also form a large leaf into a cup or bowl shape for a single-use pot to boil water in.
More of a survival tool than an everyday cookpot though.

Large leaves have also long been used basically the way we use tinfoil, you wrap fish and small game in leaves and throw it on an open fire to roast, large animals would wrapped and buried with hot coals to slow-cook all day.

Watch basically any episode of Rob Bredl, he cooks "bush tucker" at any and every opportunity
youtube.com/watch?v=-U8wO1blBuo#t=1m40s

If the setting was going to include things that were "just as good as x but isn't x so it's okay" then there was no point in asking to begin with.

welp, good luck trying to ferment ANYTHING.

This user: I dunno about 'wood', but in tropical regions around the world people use bamboo poles to boil, steam, or cook food over open fires: dump some shrimp, pepper, rice, maybe some water and cork it with another piece of bamboo or tie it shut and just toss it in there for it to boil.
I'd also suggest you can just dig a hole, place hot coals or hot rocks (from a fire) into the hole, then wrap some meat with banana leaves before bury the whole thing and letting it cook for a few hours before digging it back up.

I guess drying meat doesn't require metal or stone, since you just need salt and the sun- or if you're smoking it, an enclosed space and some low-burning, smokey, (hopefully flavorful) wood or leaves.

Yep neolithic era setting.

I want to know recipes I can show the players instead of
>Is meat on stick and mystery salad.

You're a savior buddy. Time to have fancy food again.

can we use heated stones in the ground?

cuz if you stuff a whole pig with pineapple and wild yams, you have yourself a neolithic luau. 14 hours in the ground and you can be fed for wuite a while based on the size of the pig. plus you can wrap the guts in banana leaves and steam it all as it rest above the carcass.

>Yep neolithic era setting.

Primitive Technology channel is your friend
youtube.com/watch?v=mL3sho1CpkI

>You're a savior buddy. Time to have fancy food again.

No problem, it almost be a bit more "smelly dirt-farmer tier", but a lot of foods you can also just throw onto the camp fire like a big dumb idiot and let them cook in their own casing/shell or what have you.
Starchy produce with thick hides like potatoes & breadfruit can just be thrown onto the hot coals and baked like the dirt and tree potatoes that they are, while something like an EGG can be scrambled or fried in it's own shell; just crack open the top and make a little bowl so you can stir/scramble the insides with whatever tool you've got available.. This kind of thing is obviously easier to do with larger eggs (something like a large flightless bird or a dinosaur maybe) since it can make a larger bowl- maybe even fit some herbs and spices in there while it's cooking to make a sloppy omelette.

Anything with a shell also follows the same rules: monstrous/giant insects, shellfish, lobsters, crabs, & prawns you can all just throw them into the ashes or hot coals and they'll cook themselves in their own exoskeletons without any cookware needed.

This user gets it.
Primitive Technology Channel even did a catch and cook with some prawns: youtube.com/watch?v=e5nfrehyWDM

Bumping for interest

just use potter

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

what about ceramics? clay pots are good cooking vessels.

...

...

I like this one the most.

When I run Shadowrun, I really deemphasize the soykrill stuff. Meat's harder to come by, but our sprawl of choice is in a Midwestern farm state. It's hard to justify there not being, like, corn and vegetables.

I wouldn't recommend eating hardtack out of anything other than necessity.

On one hand, lots of delicious mushrooms. On the other hand, century eggs.

Had it before, actually liked it.

Hardtack is still a regular food on the east coast and the Canadian territories (Yukon, Nunuvut, etc.. ), but it's called Pilot Crackers- which I 'had' always thought was because pilots shipping goods out to awkward parts of Canada would always pack lots of these hardtack crackers.

No, but, yeah, you're not eating it right: you're supposed to have it in chowder and fishy newfie soups, but most normal people just have it with tea and cheese.

Yep, leaf here too I guess it might just be a Canadian thing.

I can understand. A century egg is not as strong or unpleasant as durian can be, but is more harsh than most marbled cheeses. An acquired taste.

Hmm, i prefer a coastal culture for my orcs so more fish.

This guy is from Indiana, and his vids are great for 18th century recipes. Here's the hardtack episode.

youtube.com/watch?v=FyjcJUGuFVg

What's that weird wrinkly shit on the left

Mushrooms, look like morels to be specific, but I could be wrong.

master race cooking

Huh, in some people's games they eat dog turds.

>I'll just boil a fucking kidney.

whatever they eat it had better be reasonably well described...

tripe / cow stomach?

>dog turds

You've obviously never seen a good sausage.

o.O
century eggs are delicious in congee with a little shredded pork.
marbled cheese makes me gag. how can people eat that?

Since the setting is contemporary, it's more or less the same as what you'd eat today. Just ingredients spice things up immensely, monsters are consider more or less wildlife, with Chimera being the most common creatures. They're used for meat and are comparable to beef (albeit slightly tougher with a unique taste). In recent times in setting research into the fields of biology and the advent of firearms allowed them to both be hunted and raised far more safely than in the past (since they have necrotic breath after all). Generally I think of at least one use a monster has besides "it's meat". Chimera blood is used in sauces after being boiled, either as is or thickened with flour. While a cockatrice for example may have it's toxin extracted and used to synthesize drugs.

>how can people eat that?
variations in palate, preference, and upbringing I suspect...

Fairly sure that's a stomach stuffed with something

>Food is beyond your clearance, good citizen.
>Please submit your contraband to your local IntSec eatable disposal bin

In my setting halflings are known to be the inventors of brownies, does that count?

>A mix of cooking practices from different cultures the taco has gained almost crazed fame within adventurer parties.

>Here we see the result. Chicken being introduced by humans in the Mana Isles colonies is fried by halfling cooks. They then place the fried and breaded chicken strips on fluffly tortillas, a recipe learned from native lizardmen but using good dwarven flour. To top it off fresh native cilantro is added in addition with a avocado buttermilk ranch sauce invented by an orc pirate. The entire thing is sprinkled with lime juice and served with cold horchata, with ice provided by gnomish ice boxes.

A popular treat in orcish kingdoms is the chicken cone. Breaded and fried chicken is placed in cones made of fried waffle. Different sauces are available at different food stalls, which pool in the bottom of the cones to make savory last bites. These sauce recipes are fiercely guarded secrets, and blood has been spilled in the streets many times over fights to "acquire" the recipes of a competitor.

>The lizardmen from the Coast of the Crystal Coral have historically subsisted on a diet of mainly shellfish and other seafood. While they show little interest in manufactured goods they have a voracious appetite for new spices and flavors. A wise sea trader stocks heavily in livestock and food from home, knowing he can get their weight in pearls from trade.

>Here we see the result of such trade. A bacon wrapped jumbo shrimp dipped in molasses and grilled over an open fire and then dipped in a variety of different mustards presented in seashells turned containers.

forgot the pic

>A popular treat among students at wizarding colleges the Astral Doughnut is a succulent snack in between classes. Made from the highest quality flour and fried to perfection they are then covered in an icing that has been imbued with Illusion magic, shifting in vibrant color in replication of the Astral Sea.

>Food vendors in holy cities are commonly seen selling this comfort food known as the Cleric's Vice. Garlic Knot Bread is used to sandwich Parmesan encrusted grilled chicken covered in gooey melted mozzarella cheese. The scent is known to penetrate inside the local monasteries and temples, distracting the religious from their prayers and meditations.

>It is said that in an effort to clean their city of vice before the arrival of a living saint, certain priests banned the cooking of this dish and even went so far as to imprison certain food stall owners. When the living saint arrived however, he was said to be disappointed that his favorite comfort food was no longer to be found. The ban was quietly lifted that day and has been a constant ever since.

I like these.

Bread, cheese, preserved meat like smoked sausages or ham, pickles and whatever fruit is in season washed down by as much small beer as you can carry.

So basically a ploughmans lunch, both flavorsome and using items commonly grown or made by anyone with a bit of land and no refrigerators.

None of these look too appetizing

They're trail rations, not art. They're meant to be eaten, not looked at in a gallery. Often, food isn't beautiful.

Brief history:
Earth has gone to shit in the future and became an industrialized hunk of metal and chemicals. Every surviving form of flora and most fauna are considered endangered and are nearly extinct.
On the far fringes of the solar system is a wormhole leading to the opposite side of the galaxy, close to a virgin ocean planet with perfect conditions to sustain Terran life.

That said,
On Earth, people eat nutrient paste, sort of what Soylent is like IRL, just with less water as the oceans have almost completely dried up and what little water that is left is mostly polluted.

On the ocean planet, the place is rich with all sorts of aquatic life from fish to seaweed, most of which is not toxic and perfectly suitable for human consumption. Every possible nutrient a human would require is easily obtainable from the vast oceans, so people have constructed massive seaweed & edible coral farms and have fugghuge fishing platforms. The vessels man used to traverse space to get to the new planet are all about the size of a large city, and upon arrival, "land" and drift upon the waves. Due to the two moons having such an effect on the tides, the cities have to submerge routinely to avoid several hundred foot tall tidal waves, so the farms are constructed along the undersides of the vessels. The fishing ships submerge as well and often prefer to ride the currents below the waves for a time as to catch a fuckton of fish that can only be found traveling within said currents.

So people pretty much eat fish and oceanic plants, as that's all they have. Things intended to add flavor to a dish are still being discovered, but one of the most popular is an oil extracted from a small barbed crustacean that tastes almost of citrus, akin to a lemon.

tl;dr strange alien seafood. Lots of seaweed and very large fish

Townsfolk eat bread, cheese, bone and vegetable stews, and occasionally wild game.

The PCs eat pottage that's been cooked into a sludge, dried, and then rehydrated later with whatever alchohol is on hand.

They used to eat tons of tree rodent and venison, but the hunter died and they're all too stingy to spend money on not gross rations.

Still wondering what catgirl rations would be, thinking either smoked salmon or a smoked poultry meat.

A big powerful vial of negro sperm!!

>super durable clay/ceramic textiles
>clay/ceramic
>textiles

Sez you, the guy who has never been hungry. I'd eat the shit out of any of those, even the ones with fish and fish by-products.

We in the first world have no idea how good we have it. We are barely involved in the production of our own food, it might as well be magic.

Just read Dungeon Menshi my dude

"Clockwise from top left: Sour Deep rothé pepper cheese (Limburger), boiled Deep rothé kidney (whole beef kidney), foraged roots and tubers; skirret and Fellroot (ginger and turmeric roots), contorted strangler fungus (Enoki mushrooms), onion & mushroom gravy hand pies (Morel mushroom with shallot and dill in cream sauce)."

I'd eat it and enjoy it.

Probably just because I'm white though.

So dose the recipe call for actual brownies?

>What do people eat in your setting?
Depends entirely on where you are.

In the Immortals setting you can be served a "normal meal" at any given spot that ranges from roasted goat drenched in honey and hot peppers to soups with stock made from ground insect and nuts, to one nation that is vegetarian going on vegan

But mostly people eat grains and vegetables with a bit of meat and probably some sort of fruit dish for dessert

I watched Toriko a few years back.
None of my settings have ever been the same.

Amaranth is the staple food in the most of my setting. Come at me, fags.

This is my favourite kind of thread.

If you're poor, you eat your grits with cheap, gristly cuts of meat that have to be stewed for hours before they come off the bone.

If you're a bit more well to do your options start to open up. Eel pies, baked potatoes, blanched greens tossed with garlic, beans and sausages, oatmeal biscuits, mushroom stew over rice, etc.
There's always cheap wine, kefir and gin to piss away your life with too.

If you're a vampire, you can buy your blood bottled or pay someone to drink it straight from the source- diseased or drink-riddled blood is cheap and plentiful but makes for poor sustenance.
You want to eat like a real vampire? Either you buy it a high price from a healthy young man or woman trying to make a buck on the side, or you start hunting aristocrats.

Well-off folk can afford finer treats such as venison with gravy, peas and carrots, tarts and cakes with icing sugar and whipped cream, fried potatoes dipped in horseradish and mayonnaise, stuffed and roasted pheasant, voidfish with butter and caramelised onion, sticky-date pudding to name a few.
Fine whiskey, calvados and wine fortified with spider venom are served in the parlour after dinner.

At the most obscene heights of luxury the wealthy might enjoy candied bacon, poached eggs, peaches, grapes and cherries all with butter sauce at breakfast and roasted swan served with velouté and a salad of lettuce leaves, pear, cheese and balsamic vinagrette at tea.
At the time of writing it's fashionable for rich vampires to dine alongside their equally rich mortal friends, sipping noble virgin's blood from crystal glasses as the living share plates of crème fraîche syllabub and grated chocolate.

I can't tell if you're trying to get a rise out of the "muh historical accuracy" fags or not, but that still sounds bitchin for setting foods
What's a voidfish?.

Common, plentiful fish similar to cod or trout that comes from the sea, and so is tainted by the demonic energies of all the otherworldly monsters that live down there.

In this setting eel and other fish mostly come from inland lakes and rivers. Voidfish is one of the only thing you can fish out of the ocean that won't drive you insane.

>grits
Really?

Earth (modern) food and recipies have been exported to pretty much every plane in the past hundered years and have absolutely overtaken most native dishes due primarily because of how earth seasoned her dishes
Spices in the cosmos were originally from the essential faewild and usually would fuck you up, so were used in magical dishes or potions. Some were always from earth, but there were issuea getting a sizable quantity in the short and limited excursions until ways to grow the spices on other planes efficiently were found, in addition to finding more permanent methods of reaching earth
One famous earth mage remarks in his writings about his initial confusion upon reaching "'lovecraft meets some sort of weird weeb cyberpunk story'-land", and being handed a philly cheese steak by a creatures' tentacle

That sounds ridiculous.

>Rations
>Fish, freshly cooked meats and light bread feature prominently

This triggers my autism. The people behind them went to great lenghts to be creative and get everything right, sure, but I can't imagine many of these being very practical or appealing after a full days trekking.

Some basic research into what would make suitable foods for long durations and for what reasons would have been more i teresting IMO.

Well, considering it's a TESRPG based in blackmarsh and morrowind, some pretty funky shit.

Why don't you suggest some foods?

...