What do alien cuisine actually taste like, if you were to describe it? I get that you can say "it tastes like chicken/pork/beef/lamb/fish", but still...
Picking each primary culture one by one:
Kasathas: Kasathan recipes are usually traditional and exclusively use plants and animals native to their original home world of Kasath. Kasathan cuisine has a decidedly alien appearance that many other species find disturbing, though most dishes are surprisingly savory and delectable.
This... sounds like an Earth-like culinary culture.
Lashuntas: Lashuntas delight in using local flora and fauna in their cuisine, emphasizing the use of native berries, fruits, and nuts to make delightfully palatable dishes. Lashuntas consume a variety of animal products, but arthropod meat—especially from giant insects—is most common. According to some old stories, lashuntas adopted this custom as an insult to their ancient enemies on Castrovel, the insectile formians.
THAT'S MY BIGGEST ONE! I've never eaten bugs in my life, so I have no clue here. I assume that it would be like shellfish and seafood, considering that insects are anthropods like crabs and lobsters, but an indication would be welcomed.
Shirrens: While artfully prepared, traditional shirren cuisine is almost always served raw, accompanied by honeys and nectars as both drinks and sauces for other dishes. Shirrens also eat meat in addition to vegetarian fare, though they prefer vermin and other lower life-forms, consumed still living and moving. To many shirrens, food is yet another choice in which they can express their individualism, and they are more than willing to experiment with other foods, often incorporating elements of other cuisines into their cooking.
Similar to Lashuntan cuisine... but raw O_o The vegetarian aspect seems like normal fruits and veggies.
Vesk: Vesk food tends to be pragmatic and utilitarian, as if every dish were handcrafted by a drill sergeant who didn’t care much for cooking. The exception to this rule is meat, which any self-respecting vesk agrees is the most crucial component of any meal. Vesk treat preparing and seasoning meat as an art, assimilating and enhancing each new world’s recipes for cooking meat almost as quickly as they conquer them.
Again, that's like the Kasathas most of the time.
Ysoki: The fact that ysoki will eat whatever they can get their paws on is largely reflected in their cooking. Ysoki fare tends to be scavenged meats and cheeses served either as finger foods or in stews, and the food is often questionable in color, quality, and texture. Many other species tend to avoid eating ysoki cuisine if they can help it.
Finally, once more like Earth, like people who willingly go dumpster diving for food.
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I just finished GMing Starfinder Society Scenario #1-32: Acts of Association. Let me dig up what was for lunch.
Chef Rovua Kakevysh performs a psychic reading on everyone except Triage. After the reading, he starts preparing the food at the table in a show that mixes culinary skill and performance art. Polished knives dance in a rhythmic chopping motion reflecting the lighting in the room, and ingredients are tossed in the air and caught at nearly imposable angles.
Grognard receives a plate of Fairly traditional-looking haggis. The sheep's lungs have been replaced with minced lungs of Verciten sandworms, giving it a slightly earthy flavor and gritty texture.
Naitier is presented with a plate of mixed seafood casserole, a combination of Mysis and brine Shrimp, in an algae sauce topped with a few small Tabridian fish for flavor and decoration.
Valodet's plate is specially arranged to highlight the aroma of the food. A mix of hydroponically grown meats flavored with a variety of rare valai berries from Lajok's lake regions.
Ikmanji and Triage both get a seafood plate with a mix of uncooked Trafodi sea bass and boiled crustacean legs from the coast of Amiz, sprinkled with Viljoian sea salt.
I-apvii's Dish is a Dykonian crystalline layer cake, which resembles highly contrasting sedimentary rock topped with tiny crystalline flakes. Each layer presents a different flavor.
Ambassador Kokaksa receives a bowl of mixed seeds, nuts, and fruit from throughout the vast suspended in a thick Neeroonian tree sap.
As the GM for this game, I had lots of fun putting that together. Every meal was researched, getting more uses of my rule books than any other scene in the adventure. Besides species descriptions, maps were really useful for this.
Grognard: Dwarf
I-apvii: Urog
Ikmanji: Ijtikri
Naitier: copaxi
Triage: Elf (ordered what Ikmanji had)
Valodet: Vlaka
Ambassador: Espraksa
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For some reason I imagine Akitonian food as being particularly spicy.
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I just finished GMing Starfinder Society Scenario #1-32: Acts of Association. Let me dig up what was for lunch.
Chef Rovua Kakevysh performs a psychic reading on everyone except Triage. After the reading, he starts preparing the food at the table in a show that mixes culinary skill and performance art. Polished knives dance in a rhythmic chopping motion reflecting the lighting in the room, and ingredients are tossed in the air and caught at nearly imposable angles.
Grognard receives a plate of Fairly traditional-looking haggis. The sheep's lungs have been replaced with minced lungs of Verciten sandworms, giving it a slightly earthy flavor and gritty texture.
Naitier is presented with a plate of mixed seafood casserole, a combination of Mysis and brine Shrimp, in an algae sauce topped with a few small Tabridian fish for flavor and decoration.
Valodet's plate is specially arranged to highlight the aroma of the food. A mix of hydroponically grown meats flavored with a variety of rare valai berries from Lajok's lake regions.
Ikmanji and Triage both get a seafood plate with a mix of uncooked Trafodi sea bass and boiled crustacean legs from the coast of Amiz, sprinkled with Viljoian sea salt.
I-apvii's Dish is a Dykonian crystalline layer cake, which resembles highly contrasting sedimentary rock topped with tiny crystalline flakes. Each layer presents a different flavor.
Ambassador Kokaksa receives a bowl of mixed seeds, nuts, and fruit from throughout the vast suspended in a thick Neeroonian tree sap.
As the GM for this game, I had lots of fun putting that together. Every meal was researched, getting more uses of my rule books than any other scene in the adventure. Besides species descriptions, maps were really useful for this.
Oh wow, nicely done ^_^
For some reason I imagine Akitonian food as being particularly spicy.
You watched Dune recently :P ?
I just finished GMing Starfinder Society Scenario #1-32: Acts of Association. Let me dig up what was for lunch.
Chef Rovua Kakevysh performs a psychic reading on everyone except Triage. After the reading, he starts preparing the food at the table in a show that mixes culinary skill and performance art. Polished knives dance in a rhythmic chopping motion reflecting the lighting in the room, and ingredients are tossed in the air and caught at nearly imposable angles.
Grognard receives a plate of Fairly traditional-looking haggis. The sheep's lungs have been replaced with minced lungs of Verciten sandworms, giving it a slightly earthy flavor and gritty texture.
Naitier is presented with a plate of mixed seafood casserole, a combination of Mysis and brine Shrimp, in an algae sauce topped with a few small Tabridian fish for flavor and decoration.
Valodet's plate is specially arranged to highlight the aroma of the food. A mix of hydroponically grown meats flavored with a variety of rare valai berries from Lajok's lake regions.
Ikmanji and Triage both get a seafood plate with a mix of uncooked Trafodi sea bass and boiled crustacean legs from the coast of Amiz, sprinkled with Viljoian sea salt.
I-apvii's Dish is a Dykonian crystalline layer cake, which resembles highly contrasting sedimentary rock topped with tiny crystalline flakes. Each layer presents a different flavor.
Ambassador Kokaksa receives a bowl of mixed seeds, nuts, and fruit from throughout the vast suspended in a thick Neeroonian tree sap.
As the GM for this game, I had lots of fun putting that together. Every meal was researched, getting more uses of my rule books than any other scene in the adventure. Besides species descriptions, maps were really useful for this.
Grognard: Dwarf
I-apvii: Urog
Ikmanji: Ijtikri
Naitier: copaxi
Triage: Elf (ordered what Ikmanji had)
Valodet: Vlaka
Ambassador: Espraksa
I take it Valodet is blind, and can thus best appreciate the plating of their meal if everything is arranged by scent? I love how that was taken into account here.
Also: we know that vesk turn out the best pitmasters (although you might want to have someone else handle the side dishes).
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Vlaka can either be blind, deaf, or both. Valodet is deaf with blindsight scent. So used scent to personalize the meal for her. There's not a lot written about species-specific food, so I used every clue I could find. When other info was lacking, planetary maps were useful to give foods local names.
Vesk likely have skittermanders handle the side dishes. More choices that way, one in each hand.
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Vlaka can either be blind, deaf, or both. Valodet is deaf with blindsight scent. So used scent to personalize the meal for her. There's not a lot written about species-specific food, so I used every clue I could find. When other info was lacking, planetary maps were useful to give foods local names.
Vesk likely have skittermanders handle the side dishes. More choices that way, one in each hand.
Not to turn this topic into a Rule one, but Vlakas can be blind, deaf or neither.
Hearing and Sighted: A vlaka who has hearing and sight also has blindsense (scent) with a range of 30 feet and low-light vision.
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Vlaka can either be blind, deaf, or both. Valodet is deaf with blindsight scent. So used scent to personalize the meal for her. There's not a lot written about species-specific food, so I used every clue I could find. When other info was lacking, planetary maps were useful to give foods local names.
Vesk likely have skittermanders handle the side dishes. More choices that way, one in each hand.
Not to turn this topic into a Rule one, but Vlakas can be blind, deaf or neither.
Hearing and Sighted: A vlaka who has hearing and sight also has blindsense (scent) with a range of 30 feet and low-light vision.
Good catch. The book actually says, "Vlaka Senses: Vlaka can be born with one of three possible sets of senses." Then goes on to list four.
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I would have never had time to make that menu GMing in a live game. Having time to do things like make that menu is one of the great advantages of play by post.
Luckily no one in the party was native to Eox. I fear the look and smell of it might make others at the table sick.
I wonder what comptemplatives eat that made their brains so big?
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Luckily no one in the party was native to Eox. I fear the look and smell of it might make others at the table sick.
That's an understatement ^^; Undead creatures need raw flesh and viscera to "live", despite being dead.
Then again, who knows if a well-versed Eoxian can feed on tartar and sushis XD
Vlaka can either be blind, deaf, or both. Valodet is deaf with blindsight scent. So used scent to personalize the meal for her. There's not a lot written about species-specific food, so I used every clue I could find. When other info was lacking, planetary maps were useful to give foods local names.
I'm familiar with vlaka, and know about their sense variations. That's why my initial guess was that she was blind, and that plating it by aroma was a nod to that; as it is, she can still appreciate the visual aspect (although I suppose all vlaka could appreciate a dish plated by aroma, seeing as they have the scent ability).
Vesk likely have skittermanders handle the side dishes. More choices that way, one in each hand.
That makes sense.
And I'm sure flesh-eating undead can eat carpaccio.
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I wondering if a shirren restaurant has a ridiculously long menu or is an all you can choose buffet? If it's a buffet, I suspect there's a traffic jam as all the shirren try to decide what to choose. Which leads to the common saying, "slower than a shirren buffet."
I imagine shirrens love diner menus, but a restaurant could get away with a limited menu by offering multiple-choice courses. Soup or salad? Chicken or fish? Cake or sorbet?
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I imagine shirrens love diner menus, but a restaurant could get away with a limited menu by offering multiple-choice courses. Soup or salad? Chicken or fish? Cake or sorbet?
Wait until you get to choosing your dipping sauce XD
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Welcome To pizza shanty. For shirren, press 3 to stay on hold for half an hour picking your toppings...
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Welcome To pizza shanty. For shirren, press 3 to stay on hold for half an hour picking your toppings...
Just posted this to a Play by post where I playa shirren.
Jek feeling they are being too suspicious looking for the helmet, Jek starts people watching, seeing if anyone else is looking suspicious. Trying to look busy Jek pretends to be using his com unit to order a pizza.
"Hello. Yes I'd like to order a pizza, what options do you have for the crust, Oh, that many options that's great let me think... " A few minutes later Jek gets to the topping options. "Could you repeat all the topping options, I may have to get a few more pizzas to fit all my choices so many options.... What planets do you have mushrooms from? 7 types of Veskarium cheese you say, I'd like a Veggie lover's pizza with all the odd options, and a meat lover's pizza with all the even-numbered options from your menu but no meat from Eox, and a combo with" Jek pauses to think "can you repeat all the options again..."
Which gets me thinking the list of ingredients available for a pizza on Absalom Station must be enormous...
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I wonder if the setting's infosphere is advanced enough for restaurants to offer online versions of their menus :P
I could see a disclaimer saying "if you're a Shirren, use the online form please" XD
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I wonder if the setting's infosphere is advanced enough for restaurants to offer online versions of their menus :P
I could see a disclaimer saying "if you're a Shirren, use the online form please" XD
Or signs near check-out stands saying "All shirren please make your choices before getting in line."
It makes me wonder if culinary synthesizers can handle such a wide array of choices.
I'll ask again: what do bugs taste like? This has become a delicacy in the Pact Worlds ^^;
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I googled what do bugs taste like
from the above link:
"Some put bugs into three unofficial flavor categories. The first nutty and earthy. Crickets and mealworms are examples of bugs that taste a little like seeds, nuts, or mushrooms. The second is fishy and seafood-like. Locusts and scorpions are examples of bugs that have been compared to crab. The third is meaty and savory. Sago grubs are often called the bacon of the bug world."
I think the taste could vary greatly, but most will like to be crunchy in their adult form.It makes me wonder if culinary synthesizers can handle such a wide array of choices.
I'll ask again: what do bugs taste like? This has become a delicacy in the Pact Worlds ^^;
This is a situation where... you, the GM, has to "take one for the team" and bite a few cooked insects XD I know big cities have nature centers with bug taste tests and degustations.
On a sidenote, in P2E's Kingmaker Companion Guide, pg. 114, one of the campside meals is... Baked Spider Legs, which "this dish consists of choice segments of an oversized spider's legs, served with a variety of savory dressings and dipping sauces."
The closest thing I've found is a Wiki article about Fried Spiders:
The taste has been described as bland, "rather like a cross between chicken and cod", with a contrast in texture from a crispy exterior to a soft centre. The legs contain little flesh, while the head and body have "a delicate white meat inside". The abdomen is often not consumed however, as it contains a brown paste consisting of organs, possibly eggs, and excrement. Some people call it a delicacy while others recommend not eating it.
All I'm going to say is that if you ever get a chance to eat a witchetty grub you should do it.
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^I would also expect the existence of a subset of food synthesizers that is expensive for high capacity but not for quality, to churn out fast food in places where the management doesn't want to pay fair wages or in dangerous neighborhoods (although in the latter case, considerable expenditure would be needed for security, so that miscreants don't steal or trash the food synthesizer). A subset of such dangerous neighborhoods would be prisons (for which the management probably wouldn't want to spend money on real cooks anyway, unless they thought they could get the prisoners themselves to do the work).
"Alright on how to cook. We take the 100 UPB cow, put it into the UPB grinder, and print up 10 ups worth of hamburger. Or Space lasers. Or batteries! "
Space cow "MoOOOOO??!! "
Wouldn't food synthesizers be more common on spaceships than in households, considering that... you don't have easy access to food stops ^^; ?
I mean, in the core rulebook, we have prices for meals based on different degrees of food chains. If food synthesizers were "the next new thing", any restaurant and cooking would have been long gone.
What about civilizations which still honor their roots with hunts? Lashuntas would never give up their "guilty pleasure" of hunting insects :P
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For my latest character I joined a group and introduced my character as a really tall human Cook riding around on a hover chair. Fed my group and the settlement my signature Chili for a few days (DM was in on it). First combat rolls around and I tear off my arm to use as a weapon and surprise he's a Brakim.
After the fight I quickly clean off my arm and start preparing it for more meat for the chili. It took the group a second to realize what was happening.
Brakims: Sustainable, Fresh, Free Range meat.
great character to have along in Scenario #3-01: Crash Down
"Hello. Yes I'd like to order a pizza, what options do you have for the crust, Oh, that many options that's great let me think... " A few minutes later Jek gets to the topping options. "Could you repeat all the topping options, I may have to get a few more pizzas to fit all my choices so many options.... What planets do you have mushrooms from? 7 types of Veskarium cheese you say, I'd like a Veggie lover's pizza with all the odd options, and a meat lover's pizza with all the even-numbered options from your menu but no meat from Eox, and a combo with" Jek pauses to think "can you repeat all the options again..."
7 types of just Veskarium cheese? Are the rumors that Oromeras Kazren has taken to milking her defrex true? Do pahtra run megafauna dairies? Or is it just true that you can tell what breed of monoux, what she was grazing on, and where?
For my latest character I joined a group and introduced my character as a really tall human Cook riding around on a hover chair. Fed my group and the settlement my signature Chili for a few days (DM was in on it). First combat rolls around and I tear off my arm to use as a weapon and surprise he's a Brakim.
After the fight I quickly clean off my arm and start preparing it for more meat for the chili. It took the group a second to realize what was happening.
Brakims: Sustainable, Fresh, Free Range meat.
I've had two similar ideas for a while, but they didn't involve brakims. One was that there would be a scandal involving cultured dromada muscle tissue being sold as food; another was that a ghoran chef would be known for "peeling" their own arm for "spice."
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I do recall in Eberron, there were "luxury prison cells" for influencial criminals, mostly of the political class. That's an easy split for real and synthetic food :)
Or signs near check-out stands saying "All shirren please make your choices before getting in line."I wonder if the setting's infosphere is advanced enough for restaurants to offer online versions of their menus :P
I could see a disclaimer saying "if you're a Shirren, use the online form please" XD
Coffee shops have a separate line for Shirren, be a use they are (a) obviously caffeine fans, and (b) their coffee orders take five minutes each to recite.
Kasathe are in hot demand as baristas and mixologists at places frequented by shirren, for their ability to mix multiple drinks at once.
I do recall in Eberron, there were "luxury prison cells" for influencial criminals, mostly of the political class. That's an easy split for real and synthetic food :)
That sounds disturbingly familiar . . . .
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Coffee shops have a separate line for Shirren, be a use they are (a) obviously caffeine fans, and (b) their coffee orders take five minutes each to recite.
It's a running joke that if a new shirren customer walks in, their first order will become an overly complicated fancy special named after them.
Kasathe are in hot demand as baristas and mixologists at places frequented by shirren, for their ability to mix multiple drinks at once.
Same would go for skittermanders, I'd wager.
Kasathe are in hot demand as baristas and mixologists at places frequented by shirren, for their ability to mix multiple drinks at once.Same would go for skittermanders, I'd wager.
kasathans can see over the bar though