Food and Drink

[Adam Daigle]

So yesterday, Wes asked me the following question in the Ask Adam Daigle thread:

Wes wrote:

You're one of Paizo's more adept culinarians. When are we going to get Golarion themed recipes from you!?

I'm about to go to the local farmer's market and do some materials research, so while I'm gone I'd like to see how many of y'all can glean mentions of certain dishes, drinks, and foods that we've mentioned in products over the years. I tried to find a list like that on the PathfinderWiki but didn't have any success at first.

Anyone know some good Golarion food and drink?

[xidoraven]

I always recommend boiled eurypterids when traveling in the Mwangi Expanse.... >.> :P ;) With lemon and butter.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

The menu of the Cornucopia feast in The Sixfold Trial has the following items (foods that are likely unique to Golarion either due to the food being fictional or the size of the food in question being larger than possible in the real world are bolded):

Beef marrow fritters
Boiled side of axebeak
Loach flavored with spices and sage
Eels in jelly
Smoked fillet of giant gar set in jellied aspic
Roast peacock
Thick broth with salty strips of worg flank
Fresh chuul soup served with Chelish black bread
A roast dire boar of such size that it takes 12 bearers to bring it into the Garden
Honey-roasted hogfish, sturgeon and lampreys in hot sauce
A vast caravan of fruits and breads, olives, jars of curious pickles, huge stuffed peppers, figs, dates and honeycombs
Whole roast baby squid served with honey sauce
Minted lamb with fresh vegetables
Sauced hatchling alligator
Tureens of cod spawn in garlic
Leveret stewed in wine and parsley
Live serpents that have been gorged on drugged mice and other mind-altering substances

[Adam Daigle]

That's a good start. This also reminds me... I need to bug a few people here in the office.

[William Ronald]

There may be some problems with the eating of sentient beings by some characters. Worgs and chuuls both have intelligence scores above three and speak Common.

I would suggest that a lot of what is eaten depends on climate. Thus, the fare in Brevoy will likely differ greatly from much warmer Absalom.

[YogoZuno]

There's some good old-fashioned cooking samples in Feast of Ravenmoor - My two faves were the Stirge Blood sausage, made from stirge bloodsacks and boiled Giant Tick legs (similar to crab legs, and eaten in much the same way).

[Archpaladin Zousha]

William Ronald wrote:

There may be some problems with the eating of sentient beings by some characters. Worgs and chuuls both have intelligence scores above three and speak Common.

It was a Chelaxian feast, hosted by Westcrown's NE lord mayor. I doubt the sentience of those creatures bothered him much.

[CalebTGordan]

Rise of the Runelords has a few dishes mentioned in the very beginning.

Curry Spiced salmon and early winterdrop mead
Lobster Chowder
Peppercorn venison

Later there aren't any specific dishes mentioned, but it is suggested that the PCs are eating boar in Ameiko's tavern and that she also served some type of dish that involved fish stock and potatos.

[xidoraven]

In the PFS Scenario #3-10, The Immortal Conundrum, a six-course meal is served.

Seared sea scallops presented on a bed of butternut squash pureed with exotic Thuvian herbs and drizzled with chive oil.

Reefclaw cakes presented with fire roasted corn, garlic, and sauteed leeks.

Roasted beets in a dwarven mead reduction, presented with fresh goat cheese and pickled Chelish greens.

Grilled fillet of ankheg, presented with caramelized shallots in a Thuvian wine reduction, crisp truffle-scented potato, white asparagus, and Darklands mushrooms.

Sorbet served with berries soaked in Irrisen ice wine and topped with a delicate chocolate lattice.

A rich Rahadoumi coffee and a choice of either a fine Taldan dessert wine or a dark Molthuni brandy (Ofarah stirs her brandy into her coffee).

After clearing the table, the servants light a number of hookahs, filling the air with the scent of rose-infused tobacco from Molthune.

[N'wah]

There's a list of purposefully over-the-top food (and more common street fare) in the Jade Regent adventure, "Forest of Spirits." I don't have the issue at hand at the moment, but if no one's posted that stuff up by then, I'll see if I can.

And it's hardly canonical, but I made a menu for a fancy meal in my Shattered Star game. You can find that here.

Also, I'd like to point out that IIRC, Richard Pett wrote both "Sixfold Trial" and "Forest of Spirits," so asking him about more food items might not be a bad idea.

[Thomas Jones]

Didn't the Gorilla King serve his guests fair like monkey brains,eyeball soup and hippo steaks in blood-sweat (something hippos really do produce)sauce

[Thomas Jones]

William Ronald wrote:

There may be some problems with the eating of sentient beings by some characters. Worgs and chuuls both have intelligence scores above three and speak Common.

Worgs and chuuls are other sapient species all the time, isn't turn about fair play?

[Vamptastic]

Children.

Slightly more seriously, I wonder how dinosaurs taste. Or how the Terrasque tastes.

I wonder how Ents taste. I wonder if you can eat an Ent and still be a vegetarian or a vegan.

What kind of drinks do they make in Golarion? Have they figured out how to make sodas? Or is it just booze and tea and coffee if you want to drink something?

[Lilith]

Some Golarion-themed recipes appeared in early issues of Wayfinder. :D

[N'wah]

Wasn't there an officially-published recipe in the article on Varisians in one of the RotR books? I swear there was. You served it over rice or garbanzo beans. I was gonna cook it once.

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

Reefclaw claws are routinely eaten, despite it being common knowledge that they're intelligent. Of course it's also common knowledge that they're ravenous man-eaters who absolutely do not care about their prey's intelligence, so turnabout etc.

[N'wah]

I'd guess its less "turnabout is fair play" than it is "look at that giant lobster! I bet it's delicious with lemon and butter." I'd assume to most Golarion humanoids, eating stuff that's not anthropomorphic is pretty easy to do, even if it turns out to be intelligent.

That said, I could also see certain folks taking a moral stand against eating stuff that is known to "understand the languages used by humanoids near their hunting grounds" and "use this knowledge in order to avoid fishermen and coordinate attacks."

All said, though, the usual policy for the food in Golarion books seems to be to either gross us out ("chilled monkey brains"), show us the difference in culture X vs. culture Y ("here we eat snails!"), or to simply serve as a quick backdrop line ("the grateful peasantry serve you a simple but hearty radish and bean stew with loaves of thick, crusty bread, washed down with farmhouse ale and grateful tears"). Most of the long lists of food are decadent, over-the-top courses served by nobility looking to impress with their weird offerings. From time to time we get a simple dish (like Ameiko's winning meal at the Swallowtail festival) that's usually short and simple, and thus we forget it because we could actually eat it in real life.

[Benchak the Nightstalker]

All I know is, I only eat reefclaw-safe tuna.

[Limeylongears]

N'wah wrote:

Wasn't there an officially-published recipe in the article on Varisians in one of the RotR books? I swear there was. You served it over rice or garbanzo beans. I was gonna cook it once.

It was in the second volume of Curse of the Crimson Throne (Edge of Anarchy), and called 'spicy chickpea simmer'

[Fitzwalrus]

Skull and Shackles includes the feast given to the PCs by Lady Smythee at Tidewater Rock in Raiders of the Fever Sea:

Boiled Crab
Butter-simmered Sturgeon
Goat Cheese
Hard Bread
Ale and Rum

Nothing Golarion-specific there however, unless there is some unique method of preparation involved. Tessa Fairwind also gives the PCs a feast in Tempest Rising, but no menu is quoted.

[Cpt_kirstov]

We have a list of alcoholic beverages on the wiki, but I don't remember anything for foods.....