Dwarven Trail Rations

Back in December wats6831 took a break from the usual snacks for his tabletop RPG game and offered up his take on trail rations. Now he's returned with some dwarven trail food:

I made what I thought could go in a dwarven trail ration: garlic chicken livers, smoked and peppered cheese, spiced pork sausages, hard tack, dried vegetables, dried wild mushrooms. We tried to eat the livers wife just about threw up. I gagged one down with plenty of ale. Never again. We tried to eat the hard tack by soaking in hot tea. None of us could even get a bite. It took a couple hours of soaking in the sink to even get a fork in it.  Everything is made by us except the sausage and cheese. I picked the morels this spring.

I find this really fascinating, since one of my other hobbies is vintage-style bushcraft. The only food I take major issue with is the chicken liver. Organ meats spoil incredibly quickly, so they're usually eaten immediately after slaughter or preserved by incorporating the fat-heavy meat into sausages.

Just as a thought experiment, I think there are some other foods our hearty little dwarven friends would be carrying. Given their homes in mountainous, cool climates (at least in the stereotypical fantasy world) wheat is probably a luxury grain that has to be imported.  Their locally produced staple grains are most likely oats, buckwheat, or rye.  That means dwarven travelers are presumably carrying sacks of groats or rye berries, all of which make a filling porridge. How about some oatcakes, the go-to food for generations of Irish and Scotts?  Or some buckwheat kasha? Dense, dark rye bread keeps for weeks after baking, and is effectively good indefinitely when dried, as in ruisreikäleipä.  And you can turn it into kvass, a refreshing alcoholic drink, in about 48 hours. 

It's not too much of a stretch to assume that dwarves are experts in preserving food with salt.  Outside of metal ores and gems it's the most valuable underground commodity available, in demand by every race and culture.  In addition to vegetable pickles dwarves are likely to be carrying salted meats including ham, bacon, and salt pork.

Viking Trail Food

We've featured a number of fantasy inspired trail meals that offered up interesting takes on the dining habits of DnD adventurers. It's a subject I find fascinating, since primitive camping and bushcraft is one of my other hobbies. This video from Marobud is a nice look at preparing a conjectural meal on the trail during the Viking era.  Period supplies probably weren't so fresh most of the time, but as the old saying goes, "Hunger is the best sauce."

Elven Trail Ration Prop

Wats6831 is back with another collection of edible props for tabletop fantasy gaming.  This time he tackles an elven trail ration:

Top left to right: Evereskan Honey Comb, Elven Travel Bread (Amaretto Liquer Cake with custom swirls), Lurien Spring Cheese (goat cheese with garlic, salt, spices and shallots), Delimbyr Vale Smoked Silverfin (Salmon), Honey Spiced Lichen (Kale Chips), and Silverwood Pine Nuts

The elven travel cake was absolutely amazing (double the strength of iron rations in half the weight!). The cheese as well. Pungent, rich and just the perfect amount of salt. The lichens were sweet and spicy. We each took a bite out of the honey comb, it was WILD. The honey is dark, rich, and much stronger than "normal" honey. The honey dissolves in your mouth, then you have an enjoyable chew on a small ball of bee's wax.

I really like these projects. In and of themselves they're great tools for getting players more immersed in the game. Beyond that, they're interesting thought experiments. You'll find the Reddit discussion about the elven rations here, and Wats6831's earlier human rations and dwarven trail food after the links.

Duergar Trail Ration

Wats6831 returns with another fantasy RPG inspired meal. This time it's the food of the dread Duergar, the Grey Dwarves of the Underdark.  The Reddit discussion is over here.

The Duergar (gray dwarves) are the hated subterranean cousins of the surface dwelling shield dwarves. Vast Duergar kingdoms exist beneath the Surface in the Underdark. Duergar are known for their foul tempers, penchant for cruelty, grim and bitter dispositions. Their food is as coarse and uncouth as they are. Clockwise from top left: Sour Deep rothé pepper cheese (Limburger), boiled Deep rothé kidney (whole beef kidney), foraged roots and tubers; skirret and Fellroot (ginger and turmeric roots), contorted strangler fungus (Enoki mushrooms), onion & mushroom gravy hand pies.

I really liked these projects when they started. They were interesting thought experiments about the diets of stereotypical fantasy races and how that could be adapted as player snacks during a game. Now it feels more like "What gross food can I get my wife to vomit in the sink?"

I understand not everyone has an adventurous palate. That's what makes the lack of effort to actually create something genuinely tasty all the more puzzling. Why just plop a fresh beef kidney into boiling water, the absolute worst way to possibly cook it? If you're going to posit the Duergar have access to fresh kidneys, mushrooms, onions, and root vegetables, why not try one of the dozens of real world recipes using those ingredients?  Why pair un-prepped kidney and its ammoniac tang with Limburger, of all the cheeses?

Maybe I'm over reacting.  I just assumed a project focusing on bringing fantasy foods to life would feature a bit more craft.

Edible Props

I stumbled across this on Reddit and thought it was pretty cool. Wats6831 jazzed up his tabletop game with some authentic "trail rations" to serve as snacks.

Homemade artisan herb bread, home grown and dried apples and prunes, uncured beef sausage, munster cheese. Made a small bag from cheesecloth and tied it closed. Going to try some other variations like a dwarf variety with black bread and blood sausage, and a halfling variety with waybread and honeycomb.

We've touched on food as an immersive game element before, primarily in regards to iron rations and pemmican.  There's nothing wrong with the traditional menu of chips and soda for tabletop snacking, but for the same price you can get something far more lore-friendly.  I'm a big fan of nuts, dried fruit, landjäger, and biltong. Which, surprisingly enough, is what I eat when I'm actually hiking.