I had an idea last year, this year I’m planning to actually go through with it. Since I like cooking a lot, I want to collect recipes that may be typical / traditional for the Empire regions and nations and compile them in a cookbook.
Searching for interested players, who would like to contribute. I have plenty of ideas of dishes for Wintermark, the Marches or the Brass Coast for example, but no idea what people would eat in Urizen? Dawn? Do Imperial Orcs cook and what?
As one who cooks for my group, I know it might be just too time-intensive, but would this be good collected face-to-face, in person in uptime? If you had a wander and chatted to those you saw cooking, there’d be some welcome RP and distraction…
Just don’t let the rest of Highguard fool you into thinking all we eat (or like) is bacon.
While this is a great idea, I’m afraid I don’t have remotely enough time in the field to do that - I’m one of those madly busy people who are happy, when they can sit down for entire five minutes and maybe even have a tea! :mrgreen:
Also, what people cook in the field is in most cases not nation-inspired but mostly what they cook anyway when outdoors. Lots of stews and such. At least from what I have seen in various groups. I would like to add a few more recipes, that are not necessarily outdoor kitchen, but maybe something for player events or to try at home.
Also, to give me something to do in downtime, since on the field I’m mostly just madly running around or wrapping people in bandages.
Urizen tends to the oriental, mixing Chinese, Japenese and such. combined. And with a focus on careful refined delicate food. (at least off the field. Thoughts off the top of my head:
Urizen also tend to focus on group meals and as such I would think much more focus on a number of very delicate carefully prepared dishes served together and working in harmony.
Fish is plentiful in Urizen, both from the Bay of Catazzar and the various lakes and ponds of the inland areas (and they can easily be cared for inside a Spire with only a little set up). Indeed it is still traditional to eat fish from the Bountiful Autumn Lakes when having a wedding.I don’t doubt that well grilled fish with carefully spiced sauces sits side by side on Urizen tables with Sashimi.
Especially in the more mountainous areas Cows and pigs are likely to be rare, while goats and sheep being more hardy and adapted to the slopes of the mountain are likely to be more numerous. That said food imports from the Marches are likely to mean that Beef and Pork is available, if somewhat more elite than in its homeland.
Given the focus on skill and accuracy, Tempura is likely a common cooking style in Urizen, whether surrounding prawns from the bay of Catazzar or those vegtables grow n in the spires tiered gardens.
Rice is rarer in Urizen than in the real world cultures that it draws from, rather Urizen relies on Marcher Grain for its staple food. As such noodles and pasta’s are likely more common than rice as an accompaniment to the dishes.
To drink, well given the climate and the attitude I would not doubt that some spires have decent sized tea plantations on carefully carved steps in the mountain tended by soft fingered Ushabti. Though it is also warm enough that I’m sure there are several vineyards producing very fine wines. Beer and Cider are more likely to be imported from the Marches (or possibly Highguard)though that might give them more prestige than they have at home.
I’m trying quite hard to get chopsticks (‘poise sticks’) recognised as Urizeni, because their use is an exercise of skill.
Yes, we have forks. Being offered one when poise sticks are available is a studied insult - note that taking a fork when poise sticks are available is not a loss of poise - it is a statement that one’s Arete is not with poise sticks! We do do finger food, but offer such things at a meal where utensils are available and expect to be surprised when the Urizeni eat in the least convenient and most finicky manner possible with available equipment.
So far at events, the Spire of the Auric Horizon have regularly done communal group meals; dinner usually involves rice or noodles. We don’t bother with chopsticks at the moment, might change in the future
We do have chopsticks for everyone, but it’s harder to eat risotto with chopsticks
I think very Japanese for Urizen food, not so much in the flavours but the emphasis on presentation and decoration alongside flavour, and wish I had time and facilities in the field to do meals properly, but we’d need to be plating in the kitchen area as well as cooking all afternoon.
Just because it’s always helpful to let people know this when they’re planning to spend OC money publishing stuff: I would buy the hell out of that cookbook. More than once, in fact; I’d make a gift of it to my friends. Do eet.
Additionally, there are people on the field who are happy to help with layout/typesetting and printing/binding of IC books - there are at least 2 printhouses I know of, and a number of folks who are doing things too.
From wiki-writing experience I’d suggest not trying to define stuff that is National. Don’t try to suggest that *all *the people in a nation cook such and such a meal. A simple trick is to refer to generalities, to use phrases such as “a traditional marcher dish” or “a favourite in some parts of Highguard.”
That way you don’t come across as if you’re trying to mandate parts of the setting, and more like you’re presenting some cool that brings out bits of the setting you like. It’s really good to make the setting richer; it’s not so good if someone ends up feeling “stupid” because they didn’t know that some players had agreed that all Urizen eat sushi.
Also, despite some similarities, Urizen is not Japan. It draws on some Eastern influences but we were at pains to strip Oriental elements out wherever we could - it’s a bit more like an idealised version of Classical Greece with wizards than it is like L5R.
Also, the only accepted “facts” about Urizen food in the setting are that “Urizen food tends to be simple, but supplemented by a dazzling array of spices and sauces designed to make a limited palette of foodstuffs raised on the mountainsides more interesting.”
There was a crazy thread back in the day somewhere on facebook that gave some mad ideas about food by nation. Wish I could find it again. Mostly it had to do with elements that made food cool and national - so the suggestion that BC meals are often designed to be colourful and include lots of fresh fruit, or that Highguard likes puddings and other rich food that you steam and eat with sauces and the like. Someone must know what happened to it …
Consider the approach taken by Pellegrino Artusi, the 19th century businessman credited with creating the first pan-Italian cookbook. At the time there was no national cuisine - his travels took him all over the place, so he recorded local recipes and compiled them. A cookbook that factors in local variety could be very interesting indeed - find groups in play and ask them for some of their best recipes. So it’s not Highborn cuisine, it’s a recipe used by Felix’s Watch; it’s not Dawnish, it’s a dish passed down from the first House Novarion yeoman cook. Etc.
Let national identity come out through examples rather than being imposed by fiat, basically.
Yay! Thanks for the link! I thought this may have already been discussed elsewhere, but didn’t find anything.
Also I really like this from the wiki:
[quote]Are you going to recommend food styles for nations?
We are intending to have subpages on food in different nations. These will be done by foodies/crazy larp chefs. It’s not the highest priority but it is something a number of members of the team are quite passionate about (something to do with making sure they can steal good food when they go out as NPCs). As ever, we’re aiming to inspire rather than dictate.[/quote]
Whom do I have to bribe to be on that team? :mrgreen:
As for compiling a cookbook, the idea was really, to find 3-5 recipes that might be a favourite in that nation, for example I can imagine a fish chowder as a dish in Wintermark (Sermersuaq probably) or chicken tagine in Brass Coast. It is not about trying to dictate what people eat in that nation. I just love the idea that different cultures have of course different food and would like to see that on the field at some point.
Wintermark love having people over there’s nothing like a good gathering of the villagers. You get to eat together, share tales and see who is still alive.
Mostly I’ve seen the Southridge end of things and we are close to the southern border of the Marchers so I love wild boar, wild goat, when the geese come for the days that never end.
Most important is a good fire, good company, good hunk of meat and a good glug of ale.
There’s also good times to be had when you come home from a weeks work and find someone left you a dead animal to cook. Yummy.
