Duil Cuisine

Duil Cuisine reflects the struggle to grow a diverse spread of mundane crops in the magic-infused ecosystems of Duilintinn, while also demonstrating the kingdom's impressive tenacity and creativity.

Duilintinn is well-known for its culinary tradition of taking relatively bland base ingredients and elevating them through the use of a wide variety of herbs. The most common staples are herb bread, hard cheeses, root vegetables, and hunted game.

## Common Ingredients

Duil cuisine commonly consists of grains, root vegetables, meat, and herbs, which are produced in House Brody and distributed throughout the rest of the kingdom by the Merchants Guild and Farmers' Guild.

Common sources of carbohydrates in Duil food are:

* Barley
* Oats
* Wheat
* Rye
* Rice
* Potatoes

Common sources of protein in Duil food are:

* Beans
* Eggs
* Hard Cheeses
* Salted Meats
* Wild game

Common sources of fruits and vegetables in Duil food are:

* Green leafy vegetables
* Root Vegetables
* Vines (melons, grapes, peas, squash, etc.)

## Herbs

Despite the lack of variety in base ingredients, Duilintinn's cuisine is unique for the vast array of herbs that are used in almost every dish. Even if you eat barley, venison, and potatoes for every meal, you can make them taste completely different each time with different herbs, and the people of Duilintinn are *excellent* at this trick.

One of the most popular staples of Duil cuisine is herbed bread. With endless varieties and relatively simple ingredients, not a single meal goes by without a baked loaf of grain and herbs. Bakeries across Duilintinn pride themselves on creating unique combinations of flavors, but the basic formula remains the same.

Travelers will bring a very dense, dry version of this herbed bread to sustain them without spoiling on the road. While it's still just as firm and chalky as its herb-less counterparts, at least there's some rosemary or something else tasty in it.

Similar creativity is applied to the art of making cheese. Unlike other ingredients in Duilintinn’s cuisine, cheese is produced locally instead of in House Brody. As a result, you’ll find hundreds of different types of cheeses throughout Duilintinn. For example, goat cheeses from House Jameson, harder, more preservable cheeses from House Jackie, really flavorful spiced cheeses in House Brody, super neat and categorized cheese types in House Schneeplestein, and no one knows what cheese you’re gonna get in House Marvin because the close proximity to the forest does strange things to the livestock sometimes…

Unsurprisingly, alcohol is often spiced up with a medley of flavorful herbs as well.

## Drinks

Unlike most medieval-era societies, water is often drunk on its own. Thanks to the benevolent member of the fae living in Duilintinn's waters, the kingdom suffers from little to no waterborne diseases.

Milk is produced locally, and most people living outside of the cities keep at least one dairy animal for this express purpose. Within the cities, there are shops that sell dairy products from nearby farms.

Grain-based alcohol is very common throughout Duilintinn, while fruit-based drinks (alcoholic or not) are rare.

Hot drinks made from steeped herbs, such as tea, are very common. Coffee is also very popular and easy to purchase, but as an imported good, it’s a bit costly. As of June 1615, coffee became cheaper to drink, due to decreased taxes on imports and the government offering higher prices to buy it from merchants. It’s still expensive, but the price is consistent now, making it more accessible.

## Dessert

Most desserts in Duilintinn are some form of baked goods, such as cakes and cookies.

During the winter, House Marvin uses the snow to freeze sap from the evergreen trees in the Western Forest, creating hard candies. As the forest becomes more dangerous in recent years, this practice has grown rarer.

### Sweeteners

Sugar is expensive, so honey is used as a sweetener in almost every dessert in Duilintinn.

Due to the scattered but widespread nature of beekeeping in Duilintinn, prices of honey are entirely dependent on regional factors. If you live somewhere with tons of flowers at a decently low/mid-level elevation, you’ll probably be able to afford honey without too much trouble. The only region that might have trouble getting affordable honey is the southern reaches of House Jameson, deep in the mountains. Other than that… I think we can assume almost everyone in a decent economic situation has access to honey in some capacity. It would probably be an “every once in a while” sort of treat for most people.

## Cooking

With Duilintinn's cultural emphasis on finding one's place in the world and the pursuit of ones' passions which this encourages, many people don't have the time or energy to come home after a day of work and cook a meal. To solve this issue, it's very common for people to throw some ingredients into a pot at the beginning of the day and drop it off at a communal oven. Like a modern crock-pot meal, the person would then go about their business and pick up their warm, cooked dinner at the end of the day. For more involved recipes, such as bread, cheese, butter, etc., most people will either set aside a day to make multiple batches or will purchase these items from a local bakery or dairy.

Of course, there are people who still set aside time to cook every day, while in families where there one parent feels called to be a homemaker, this isn't as much of an issue. However, without the gender roles of the real world, there's no guarantee or expectation of this upon either partner unless they really want to or feel that it's necessary for whatever reason.

## Food Industries

### Bakeries and Dairies

While many people without time to cook will leave pots of food at communal ovens at the beginning of the day, this only solves the problem of a hot meal. Making some of the other staples of Duil cuisine, like herbed bread and cheese, can be a lot more time-intensive. While some people might set aside an entire day to make multiple batches of these items as needed, most of the folks who use communal ovens will save time by purchasing these goods from a local bakery or dairy. As a result, these industries are a staple in Duilintinn, often with multiple sellers in every town. Many of these stores are run by people who took so much pride in their specific variety of herbed bread/cheese, they took the opportunity to dive into that passion full-time, thanks to the demand.

### Alcohol

Much like the production of herbed bread and cheese, many taverns and breweries take enormous pride in their uniquely spiced drinks.

### Beekeeping

Beekeeping is also a major agricultural industry throughout Duilintinn and is the primary source of sweeteners in Duil cuisine. Beekeepers aren’t really regulated to a specific house, but certain areas are just better for bees than others. You’ll find a LOT of beekeeping operations in House Brody and House Marvin because there are so many plants in those areas for the bees to pollinate. They are slightly less common closer to the mountains/trees in these regions though; apparently bees prefer low-altitude areas with less shade. You’ll also find beekeepers in the valleys of House Jameson and scattered intermittently across House Schneeplestein. House Jackie has regulations in place for beekeepers and where they can keep their hives due to the large amount of wild and domesticated horses that roam/are ridden through the plains at top speeds. No one wants their hive to be trampled or their horse to be spooked because they ran into a random beehive! Usually, beekeepers in House Jackie are found near the streams and rivers that flow through the region.

### Misc. Farms

While most of Duilintinn's food supply is grown and distributed from House Brody, towns will also have a few local farmers to produce perishable goods such as milk, eggs, meat, and local crops.

## Preservation

In most homes, food is kept in underground storage basements, which are cooler, hidden away from wild animals, and easily accessible. Meat would be salted, smoked, or dried to keep it from going bad, and the truly perishable items (eggs, dairy) would need to be acquired on a local level and used immediately.

That being said, between the mages and inventors of Duilintinn, other preservation methods are being discovered. However, these contraptions tend to be expensive, so you'd only find them in places that would benefit economically by preserving large amounts of food, such as taverns, trade storehouses, and Watch Outposts and Garrisons.

## Special Occasions

> *See More: Duil Holidays*
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Large community meals are a common holiday tradition. Oftentimes, many people will use their time off work to help prepare several courses as a group. These courses usually include fancier, time-intensive versions of the herbed breads and cheese that are so popular in Duilintinn, in addition to an equally involved main course.

This is a big deal because (in part, due to a lack of assigned gender roles and a cultural emphasis on pursuing ones’ passion), most of Duilintinn’s daily cuisine consists of meals that can be slowly cooked over the course of the day, and then quickly prepared into a finished meal in the evening. Therefore, meals that require constant attention are saved for special events, such as holidays.

Duilintinn generally celebrates events by eating *more* food on special occasions, rather than specific meals. However, a few special traditions exist.

The first crops of the harvest are generally eaten in a big, celebratory meal that often corresponds with the April Holidays, depending on the region.

During the Trade Season, it's traditional for people hosting foreign traders in their homes to share a meal with their new housemates using elements from both their cultures and Duil cuisine.

In late October and early November, the magic of Hallows' Eve causes a boom in magical plant growth. Many people take this opportunity to eat foods with magical ingredients. While this is normally discouraged due to the risks of mixing magical effects, Hallows' Eve is the one day people indulge in a bit of magic in their food.

Much like in the spring, there's a celebratory harvest meal in the fall. However, this doesn't correspond to any of Duilintinn's unique holidays.

Finally, the December Holidays are absolutely full of feasting and celebration. This is another rare time when people let loose and put some magic in their meals, especially alcohol. During the outdoor celebrations, you'll often find large bonfires where everyone cooks together and warms up from the cold. At the end of the day, nothing evokes the feeling of contentment and thankfulness of the December Holidays like a full stomach after a big family meal.