Travel Guide Food and Drink - a review

[Johann Weiss]

I got the Lost Omens Travel Guide just after release and wanted to run one of my games as a festival day. So me and my players did an Ascension Day feast while playing a session. We made all 4 cocktails and the Thuvian Spiced pastries.

TLDR; it was fun but some of the recipes required modifications (not coming down on the authors, I know it's not a real bar/cookbook).

The meat pastries turned out very good, but I heavily modified them. I don't know how the meat would cook properly in the same time as the pastry dough, not to mention all the fat released would make them soggy. So I precooked the ground lamb before assembly. I also upped the amount of mint/parsley, added a bit pf peas for extra veg, and some small hot chilis. Assembly was way harder than I thought it would be, so if you want them to look nice, you'll need some experience making dumplings. There was also a lot of extra filling but it was tasty so easy to use elsewhere.

Anishani Tonic is basically a sour absinthe drink. It's good, but pretty obvious what it'll taste like. Sugar should be simple syrup to help it dissolve or it needs to be shaken maybe?

Carpenden Twist was a very extreme flavour as written. One teaspoon of almond extract for a drink is intense; only one of my players liked it. The rest we just put a very small amount of almond in, which turned out pretty good. Honestly I ended up adding almond extract to bubbled wine after this to finish the bottle. The sugar cube doesn't dissolve though, that's a weird instruction. Should just be a simple syrup if it needs sweet.

Fruit Cornucopia is a bunch of fruit with rum. It's good, exactly what you'd expect.

Spiked Mint Tea was the standout favorite. Wouldn't have thought of mint tea with whiskey but it's a good combo and the spiced simple syrup was a great addition. Definitely will make this again, outside of gaming.

Overall was a fun game playing out an in game party. Kept the action light but got to have a lot of NPC interaction while we also ate.

[Hilary Moon Murphy]

I love that you did this! Thanks for all the details on what you changed and / or adapted. Did you serve any foods with the pastries? I would be tempted to do a leafy fruit salad and claim it was from Bhopan.

We did a themed food night years ago for a sea campaign, making recipes that might have been served shipboard at an Admiral's table, along with some of traditional sailor dishes -- which when fresh are actually okay. Fortunately we did not go too realistic!

[Dancing Wind]

I'm reminded of the video about surviving on rations. Much like someone making their own backpacking food for a week's trek, this guy created nutritionally balanced rations within the given weight limits for the item.

Surviving on REAL D&D Rations for 3 Days

[Hilary Moon Murphy]

I am always amused when people go all in on a thought experiment like surviving off rations. Then again, I have spent time trying to make both ancient roman and medieval recipes -- some of which turned out fantastic, and others were really, really weird. It can be fascinating learning about a culture or a historical period by making their food. The hardest part is guessing at measurements, or trying to adapt ancient cooking techniques to the modern kitchen.

I will admit that I TOTALLY cheat. I love using modern appliances to chop, puree and pressure cook. I much prefer having modern technology to lighten the cooking labor. I did get the opportunity once to try a brick oven, and I've done some campfire cooking, but oh... such experiments were enough to make me grateful for the modern kitchen.

[Dancing Wind]

My family's traditional Thanksgiving main dish is a medieval meat pie recipe that uses cranberries (instead of other bitter bog berries) and venison. It was a deeply researched recipe from one of those SCA chapters that is all about Authenticity.

My annual search for galingal is one of the first signs that the winter holidays are upon us.

[Johann Weiss]

Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:

I love that you did this! Thanks for all the details on what you changed and / or adapted. Did you serve any foods with the pastries? I would be tempted to do a leafy fruit salad and claim it was from Bhopan.

We did a themed food night years ago for a sea campaign, making recipes that might have been served shipboard at an Admiral's table, along with some of traditional sailor dishes -- which when fresh are actually okay. Fortunately we did not go too realistic!

My creative energies were tapped out so I just told the players to bring some extra food potluck style. We ended up with plenty to eat but not with any other fun themed elements.

If I were to do any actual traditional cooking based on old recipes, I'd want to test it in a smaller quantity beforehand. It's too wasteful to make a large amount of a dish and then realize no one is going to want to eat it. That being said, there's some good youtubers who make ancient recipes and give reviews, which allows you to skip that step and trust their judgement. A great example is Tasting History