![]() ![]() “Orange Mountain Duck” is apparently a vaunted delicacy to dwarves. However, there’s an out of nowhere duck l’orange in the chapter that has great lore tied to it, and it saves the chapter in my mind. They talk about intricate marinades, but no recipe has one. They mention the dwarven love for dark bread, but there’s no recipe for it. The intro explaining dwarven culinary notions is very evocative of the sturdy undermountain folk, but it doesn’t pay off on many of the most interesting aspects. But this works out to be a double edged sword because you could swap many of these recipes in with the human chapter and not really notice. It’s exactly what you’d expect dwarves to love eating. There’s a take on bangers and mash, shepherd’s pie, and onion rings. The dwarven chapter is just pub food, and that’s awesome. The second makes use of squash, zucchini, and chinese eggplant, so it’s got some exciting things happening. My favorites here are the “Drow Steaks,” which are seared portobello caps and the “Qaulinesti Vegetable Stew.” The first is pretty self-explanatory, but I love the nod to dark elves. It makes sense, but I would have enjoyed this section more if they just left meat out all together. It’s supposed to represent half-elves and bridging their human pork-loving side with the elf love of fresh vegetables. But randomly they throw in bacon wrapped asparagus. There’s a couple pescatarian options in the elven chapter- a fairly standard salmon dish and a pointy-ear take on paella. It heavily features vegetarian/vegan recipes, which makes perfect sense, but they don’t stick to it exclusively. I think it would have landed better if they decided to stick to a clearer theme. The elven cuisine is definitely a low point for me. I imagine this could bail out stumped DMs when the players ask what’s on offer at the inn. I would have loved to see more items like this that assemble well-known foods in imaginative ways.Įvery chapter ends with a menu from an iconic D&D tavern, which is a nice touch. Not only is it a pretty bold mix of flavors, I could absolutely picture a group of famished adventurers savoring these after weeks on the road. It’s an open face burger with a yogurt sauce and fig spread on a hearty, toasted piece of bread. The “tavern steak” is another bullseye for me. ![]() If nothing else, this book includes a ton of interesting ways to prepare mushrooms up to and including a mushroom tea, which I’ll touch on again later. I love mushrooms, so this is a huge plus for me. This also highlights one interesting aspect of Heroes’ Feast: it features a lot of mushrooms. I haven’t made it yet, but it looks incredible. The “vedbread” is a savory bread roll with cheese, mushrooms, and thyme. The trout stands out because it’s not a super-invogue protein right now, so it’s a more unique choice than most of the fare in the book. The most interesting picks for me are the “Knucklehead Trout,” “Vedbread,” and “Tavern Steaks.” It’s got everything from soups to potroasts, but most of the options don’t have a distinct in-world feel to them. The human selections are sort of a grab bag of different ingredients and styles. However, the book curiously doesn’t include any elvish of dwarven recipes that feature any of these methods. Heroes Feast drops an interesting anecdote about how humans in Toril tend not to have long preparation times, so no prolonged periods of brining, fermenting, or aging. As expected, humans have broad flavor preferences and have extremely varied diets. This isn’t a bad thing per se, but I was disappointed that there weren’t more adventurous ideas explored in it.Įach section starts with a little explanation of the tastes and preferences for each group. If you disregard the D&D theme, you could probably sell this as a standalone book of recipes for beginners. Most of the recipes are pretty doable even if you have zero experience preparing food. The book is broken up by a few of the playable races in the game plus a section for beverages, so I’ll break down my comments along the same lines.īut before I get into that, I want to start with one big caveat. I just got a copy and I’d like to give it a review. My mind boggled dreaming of all sorts of exotic fantasy dishes. Of course, I was very excited when Heroes’ Feast, a Dungeons and Dragons inspired cookbook, was announced. I even ate the meat pies in Curse of Strahd (even after finding out what’s in them I have no regrets). It’s impossible for me to resist any local delicacies a DM throws my way. I think food and drink have a special way of immersing players in a gameworld. I’ve written on the food chain in the underdark, where you can get a bite to eat in a fantasy setting, and we had all those D&D beer pairing collaborations. If you’ve been reading the Charmstone blog for a while, you probably picked up that I love thinking about fantasy food. ![]()
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