The Probably Bread Podcast: Heroes' Feast

(21st June 2021)

D&Daniel

Welcome listeners of Bread and Thread and Probably Bad, to a very special crossover episode. D&Daniel here. Thanks to Hedwig, Carlo, and A Socialist Hobgoblin for their continued support in my feud with Tabletop Tim, the imposter announcer of the podcast. I’ve got my revenge on him though, I’ve sawn the legs of his tables, so when he tries to do anything with them, like, say, play a game, the dice will go all wrong. He’ll never see it coming

Pencil

Hello, and welcome to the Probably Bad Podcast, a podcast which is definitely bad. I’m Pencil

Liz

I’m Paper, and today it is also Bread and Thread. My two podcasts have combined into a glorious beast, so I am also Liz

Hazel

And I’m Hazel. I’m here from Bread and Thread, and now I’m on another podcast, so soon I shall take over the podcast world

Pencil

I have no name on Bread and Thread, so no-one refer to me

Liz

So…

Hazel

Actually, that’s a good point. So, are we referring to you by your name on Bread and Thread or am I saying Paper...Pencil

Pencil

Refer to me by whatever series of sounds you prefer

Hazel

Ok

Liz

Ok, if we just make a nonsense noise, you’ll assume it’s you?

Pencil

Yes

Liz

So, we have combined these two podcasts because it’s time for a book-based Bread and Thread, and Wizards of the Coast gave me a wonderful birthday present last year by bringing out a D&D cookbook. It legit came out on my birthday

Hazel

Oh wow! They were definitely thinking of you

Liz

I mean, it’s a probably bad cookbook

Pencil

It is probably bad

Liz

I’ve read through the whole thing and I have some thoughts

Pencil

Yeah, so, full disclaimer, I don’t eat food, so I’m not sure how useful I’ll be, but I’ll interject with intermittent points

Hazel

And we’ll describe the experience of physically eating something

Pencil

Yeah, I sustain myself entirely off likes on my social media

Hazel

Valid

Pencil

Reblog or I’ll die

Hazel

So I’ve had a...I’ve had a very quick look at this cookbook and it seems very well produced. It’s, it’s got some pretty pictures in it

Liz

It’s definitely...it looks good. I think you can tell that it’s properly by Wizards of the Coast, and you can tell that the people who wrote it are quite successful fantasy authors, but you can also tell the people who wrote it are quite successful fantasy authors in how the recipes are written

Hazel

Ok

Liz

Just very basic things that I would expect from a cookbook like total cooking times, or maybe what the food will look like just aren’t there

Pencil

They have made cooking…

Liz

Think only about a third of the recipes have pictures and some of them...because they all have fantasy names, I don’t know what this is

Hazel

Ok. That is a certain thing I’ve noticed, yeah, because it is a Dungeons and Dragons cookbook you have to get the Dungeons and Dragons flavour in, so a lot of the recipes seem to be kind of real world recipes but with the name of a place in the Dungeons and Dragons lore tacked on to the beginning

Pencil

A lot of the ingredients too, which is somewhat annoying

Liz

It’s like, there’s one that is “dragon salmon”, which is just a very basically cooked salmon fillet

Hazel

Ok

Liz

But there’s no serving suggestion or anything it’s just “here’s a way to cook a lump of salmon”

Pencil

To be fair, that’s how dragons make salmon

Hazel

Yeah, am I supposed to serve it to a dragon, or am I making it from a dragon? I feel like it’s unclear

Pencil

I love the idea that dragons taste like salmon

Hazel

What do dragons taste like

Pencil

I like you asking as if one of us would know the answer

Hazel

Well…

Liz

My assumption would be something like goose? ‘Cause if lizards taste like chicken, dragon’s probably gamier

Hazel

That makes sense, because they’re like a raptor, right, so tastes like some kind of bird

Pencil

Yeah. I feel like, I dunno, there are a lot of elemental things, so I feel like it might just taste like you’re eating mud, which would be sad

Liz

Maybe they just taste like whatever fire tastes like

Pencil

Hot

Hazel

So like spicy pheasant, is what I’m getting from this

Pencil

Yeah spicy

Liz

I don’t know. Maybe fire has a flavour that we can’t experience because it would burn our tongues and the only way we can experience it is by eating a red dragon

Pencil

Yeah, the message we’re not getting is “fire is delicious, please try and eat it”, but also, if you do eat fire, please don’t blame us

Hazel

Nothing on this podcast is legally liable

Liz

Yeah, they...I do find it interesting, there’s a lot of lore for each recipe but there doesn’t seem to be anything particularly interesting, it’s mostly just a lot of name-drops? Or “here’s a fun reference to a second edition sourcebook

Pencil

It sort of has the feeling of, it should be part of a sourcebook that doesn’t exist, if you know what I mean?

Hazel

Can I read the first paragraph of the introduction because

Liz

Absolutely

Hazel

I like it. Okay. “What is Dungeons and Dragons? For some, it’s a dynamic narrative game with infinite possibilities; for others, an exciting tactical contest of strategy and wit. But for many, it is far more than a game; it’s a way of life.” Oh gosh, it goes on. “If you’re holding this book, then you probably love two things: D&D and sharing a great meal.” Which, to be fair, I think they’re probably right!”

Pencil

They found their audience, you have to give them that

Hazel

Yeah. I mean, given that a lot of people play D&D over pizza or something they have got a pretty good niche here. There’s definitely a D&D cookbook market

Liz

I mean, they do then take about 40 pages to get to the actual recipes, but points for trying

Hazel

Yeah, this introduction is short and hilarious and great, but then there’s also pages and pages of exposition

Liz

Which, again, isn’t anything new lore-wise it’s just like “hey, did you know adventurers go to places that have food, and sometimes the food is nice”, but for 40 pages, which is also just a load of scene-setting photos

Hazel

Yeah, which, I mean they’re cool photos, but there is quite a lot of them. I’m looking at one of them now which is...it’s just a knife stuck into a table

Pencil

One of the issues I had

Hazel

That’s it

Liz

Yeah. Absolutely no disrespect to Emma Campion, the director of the photos, which I assume means the person in charge of the photos, but it doesn’t scream “recipe book” to me

Pencil

Yeah, there’s a bit of it where it goes through different settings and what food they have, but it doesn’t go into any real detail? A lot of them just have the food of the place they’re inspired by. It doesn’t go into Aethus or Ravenloft at all, other than mentioning they exist - which they don’t incidentally, I checked, they’re fantasy worlds - and then it...yeah a lot of it’s just “this place has food like traditional medieval European foods, which I’m sure you’re surprised by given that it’s basically medieval Europe with werewolves”

Liz

Yeah I did notice that, especially in the human section. So, there’s chapters split up by different D&D races, or at least some of them, there’s humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, and then “other”, which includes stuff like apparently lizardfolk are really into chicken tenders, but the human section is basically “here’s a bunch of European recipes, and also a stir fry because we’re going to pretend we remembered that all humans aren’t European”

Pencil

Yeah, I don’t like that all humans are basically medieval Europe

Liz

And it’s not even good versions of stuff, like the gingerbread recipe doesn’t even have syrup in. It sounds incredibly dry and kind of one-note in terms of flavours honestly? And there’s a stew for six people which is seasoned with a teaspoon of paprika. Humans in D&D are both European and don’t know how to cook

Pencil

To be fair, does check out

Hazel

Ok so I’m...yeah, the first recipe that is in this book is “iron rations”, which is supposed to be journey food that you take with you, your rations, and the recipe is just...I mean, it’s all just cured meats and cheese and dried fruits and things, and crackers. That’s it. The directions for this recipe are just “put the ingredients on plates and serve them” so, yeah, I feel like this is slightly redundant

Pencil

So again, I don’t eat food, but a lot of the meals do seem very simplistic

Liz

(agreement noise) I think I particularly enjoy the iron rations though, because they have a little note at the end that’s just “if you actually want to travel with this recipe, change it or it’ll go all soggy”. So it’s not even a good rations recipe, it’s just charcuterie

Hazel

I mean, to be fair, all those things do sound quite nice, but none of them are things that you make, they’re just food. Just buy food

Pencil

I guess that in their defence “just buy food” is the simplest recipe to put in a cookbook. Step one, pick up phone, step two, call takeaway

Liz

Ah, but which takeaway

Hazel

Ah! Decisions!

Liz

But the ingredients even in some of these stuff, there’s one that uses a brand name of peppers rather than saying what kind of peppers it is. I had to look up what it meant

Hazel

Ok

Liz

And there’s also a venison roast where the first ingredient is beef. There is no venison in this venison roast, which I have been informed by some Americans I play D&D with that venison is not that hard to get over there, so I don’t know why they went with beef

Hazel

I would think with having a lot of large national parks and hunting being popular you could just get venison

Liz

No, you must use beef for your venison roast

Hazel

I mean, you could even just say “use this much of venison, or beef if you can’t get it”, but no

Liz

Can I read you out the list of...so I went through the dwarven section, ‘cause I knew that was going to be interesting with the whole, the way that D&D does dwarves. I just want to read out the real-world equivalents of the various dwarven recipes. Bangers and mash, swedish meatballs, shepherd’s pie, leek and potato soup, all what I would expect. Sausage and sauerkraut, porridge...and duck a l’orange. Just throw that in at the end

Pencil

It was famously invented by dwarves

Hazel

The dwarves have only two settings, German peasant food and duck a l’orange

Liz

Apparently? Maybe that’s what they make for guests I guess? But I mean the elves also have Eton mess, which is called “meal’s end” ‘cause you have it at the end of the meal, great worldbuilding guys, so I feel like every race just has one recipe that’s completely out of place

Hazel

Maybe it’s like the thing where, you know, your country has a national dish, but it’s not really something that people actually eat

Liz

I love the idea of duck a l’orange being the weird traditional food your granny makes but no-one really likes it

Pencil

I like the idea of...you know, I’m a bit torn on whether or not it should be “this is what you’d expect the species to have” versus “here’s some worldbuilding on why these species’ might eat something other than what you expect them to eat”, but it doesn’t really do either? As you said, it’s sort of like...if it was like “ok so here’s why duck a l’orange is eaten by dwarves for whatever reason”. I don’t fucking know why they would do, but they do, and that could be some interesting worldbuilding stuff

Hazel

The dwarf-king’s mother was killed by ducks when he was a child

Pencil

Yeah, the founder of dwarf society was pushed over a cliff by three ducks, and ever since then they have sworn revenge on all ducks by cooking them with orange

Liz

Yeah, the entirety of the flavour-text for this recipe, which is “orange mountain duck” is basically “maybe being near humans made them like oranges”

Hazel

Ok. Do humans particularly like oranges?

Liz

Oranges don’t come up in the human section! They come up in the orc section, where you cook bacon in orange juice

Pencil

I like the idea of the orcs having stolen all of the oranges

Liz

That is a level one one-shot right there. Sorry, I’m getting weirdly passionate about hating on this book

Hazel

I mean, to be fair some of the recipes do sound quite nice, it’s just that they’re not particularly...they just don’t really scream “fantasy” to me I guess

Pencil

You are a human. It’s a human-dwarf meeting, and you go in to serve the traditional duck a l’orange, which as you know is the traditional human-dwarf food, but orcs have stolen all of the oranges, and now you need to get it back in a cook-off with the orc warlord who is also a five-star Michelin chef

Liz

And we have achieved what every episode of probably bad achieves, in coming up with something I want to play

Pencil

And you need to go on a quest to find all of the rare ingredients. And you also need to go on a quest to find a better cookbook than the Heroes’ Feast book that you have, and then, yeah, this orc tribe are famous for their culinary skills. They run a series of high-class restaurants. Instead of attacking towns and pillaging them they attack towns and gentrify them by setting up their high-class restaurants and attracting in various wealthy bugbears and goblins and hobgoblins and so forth and start gentrifying the area

Liz

Oh no!

Pencil

I just feel very strongly that orcs should be metaphors for the bourgeoisie. If you’re going to have an imperialistic raiding species that goes around violently enforcing its will on other races and stealing from them, you don’t make them a metaphor for whatever “primitive” group you don’t like, you make them a metaphor for the bourgeoisie. Orcs should be wearing suits and monocles and top hats, and coming in and setting up high-class restaurants. I don’t remember what we’re reviewing, what I’m reviewing is my dislike for the fact that orcs could be a really good metaphor for colonialism if people put them on the right side of the colonialist divide

Hazel

See, and then, instead of having a campaign where we go adventuring and beat up goblins in dungeons, we could have a campaign where we sit around the table and discuss the ethics of, the nature of food, and how certain recipes that are popular among the working class get taken and used in fancy restaurants as this really fancy thing and what that means for us all

Liz

So what you’re saying is we need to expand on the one-shot that I ran that both of you were in where you ended up introducing a bunch of halfling navvies to the concept of collective bargaining

Hazel&Pencil

Yeah

Pencil

In case you’re wondering, all of our RPGs eventually turn into the bourgeois vs the proletariat

Liz

They really do

Hazel

There was that game where we invented trade unionism

Pencil

Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains, this is a joke Jeff Bezos please don’t cancel our podcast

Hazel

Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your duck a l’orange

Pencil

So, more recipes then

Hazel

So yeah, I’m looking right now at “greenspear bundles in bacon”, which is in the elven section, which is in fact...it’s asparagus wrapped in bacon, that’s it, and baked, which you know, again, quite nice, asparagus and bacon go quite well together. It’s more that the flavour text, as you put it, which, I really like that term, especially for a cookbook, yeah, the explanation for why this is a thing, which, I don’t think this one would really need much explanation? It’s just asparagus and bacon. But they’ve gone for the take that elves just eat asparagus raw, or greenspears as they call it in D&D world, but half-elves have, as they put it, “In an irreverent touch, but one that flavorfully complements the greenspear, half-elves add salted and cured pork into the mix, in deference to their half-human taste buds”, so…

Liz

Ah yes, because elves are vegetarian

Hazel

So yeah, halfelves apparently ruined this sacred elven vegetable with bacon

Pencil

A weird idea that asparagus is a sacred elven vegetable. I also like the idea of everything in D&D getting ridiculous fantasy names, it’s not asparagus, it’s greenspear

(crosstalk)

Liz

The elf section is interesting ‘cause I feel like they ran out of good vegetarian meal ideas pretty quickly, so you have one that’s just mashed butternut squash. That’s the dish

Hazel

Oh I found dragon salmon

Liz

It’s called “high harvest puree” but it’s just mashed butternut squash. I don’t know at this point you guys

Hazel

Apparently elves eat fish. So elves are pescatarians

Liz

You could probably serve the salmon with the mashed butternut squash but I would call them together a dish, separately it’s just hey I cooked two things

Hazel

Actually this is just a slab of salmon, you’re right. Why is it dragon salmon, has it got chili in it?

Liz

I think dragon salmon is a species

Hazel

Ok

Liz

In one of the D&D worlds

Pencil

There is no fluff text. Well there is fluff text but it’s just “this is salmon”

Liz

Yeah I think dragon salmon shows up in a sourcebook as just a really big salmon

Pencil

Yeah, it seems like, yeah, it’s just a very big fish

Hazel

It sounds like it should be one of those Victorian mock-foods, like mock turtle soup, dragon salmon

Liz

So is that salmon made to taste like dragon, or dragon made to taste like salmon?

Hazel

Again, we’re back to the eternal question

Liz

Salmon that just tastes like fire without the pain

Hazel

Ok, I’m looking at the dwarf cuisine

Liz

Again, the dwarf stuff is stuff that sounds quite nice and warming, but one of them is just bangers and mash

Pencil

Dwarves famously don’t eat sweets apparently

Hazel

“A common misconception about dwarves is that they lack adventurous culinary spirit or imagination, but in fact they have highly sensitive taste buds often overwhelmed by bright, piquant, or saccharin flavours. They prefer their soups dense”

Liz

I really love the idea that dwarves prefer plain food because pretty much all of D&D tumblr has agreed that dwarves have really spicy food because they can handle poisons better than everyone else. So then opening this and it just being like “dwarves don’t like seasoning” is really weird to me

Hazel

I just...I like the choice of words as well, “they prefer their soups dense” is just making me think dwarves just want a really sumb soup. I want my soup to have failed its 11+

(laughing and crosstalk)

Hazel

Bangers and smash, because they’re dwarves

Liz

Which is great, because smash is a brand of instant mashed potatoes, but the writers probably didn’t know that. I do love the idea though that dwarves wouldn’t call it mash, they need a slightly more violent word

Hazel

Everything that appears on a dwarven table has been mauled in some way or other

Liz

Of course I am now just imagining The Hulk in the kitchen going “Hulk mash!”

Pencil

I feel like that is the ultimate conclusion of all probably bad rpg ideas

Liz

But that’s just me

Pencil

The Hulk is in a kitchen run by the imperialist orcs

Liz

They saw how big he was and went “yes, he must be the greatest of us all”

Pencil

I like the idea that, yeah, we decide who’s the chef based on who’s tallest

Liz

So they can reach the top shelves

Pencil

Yeah, that’s where they keep all of the good food

Liz

I do also enjoy “dwarves don’t like seasoned food”, and then one of the recipes has cumin and cayenne and tahini

Hazel

Well, paprika, it’s not seasoning

Liz

There is no consistency to dwarven cuisine

Hazel

Ok, yeah, orange mountain duck

Pencil

Again, the food doesn’t sound bad, just it seems like just a cookbook of completely random recipes with the names of dwarves put on them, and I guess to be fair they can’t put in actual magical food

Hazel

That would be quite a good take actually, if it was all the most ridiculous magical fantasy food, but then the ingredients were like “ah, well, if you can’t get sparkling blue moon mushrooms then you can just use chanterelles”

Liz

I mean, they do make an attempt at that in exactly one of the dwarven recipes, where they’re like “if you can’t source authentic underdark vegetables, use radishes”

Hazel

I like that

Liz

Which is just a sentence in itself, I think

Hazel

It’s the high fantasy contrasted with the mundane. It’s just radishes, man

Liz

Special darkness radishes

Hazel

Yeah, no, it’s just the way that the recipes have kind of just been shoehorned into the fantasy setting that just makes it a bit of a let-down

Liz

Yeah, again, none of the three named authors are the food person, who’s apparently an actual chef who’s been on tv in the states and stuff, called Adam Reid, and is not mentioned anywhere in the book except on the copyright page, as the recipe developer. I feel kind of bad for him, but also develop some better recipes. One of the things in the dwarven section is called black pudding, presumably after the monster, except it’s a chocolate pudding and it makes my Lancastrian heart hurt

Hazel

Oh no

Liz

It sounds nice, but it’s not black pudding

Hazel

Do you think Bury can get out a copyright on that?

Liz

Although I do appreciate that it’s at least, it’s one of the things where there’s a picture, and it’s in a metal bowl with some runestones next to it, so you know it’s fantasy

Hazel

Oh yeah, I’ve just got to the black pudding recipe. It is just chocolate soup apparently

Liz

And again with completely ignoring the fantasy part in the ingredients. You want Dutch process cocoa powder, which we actually talked about in our chocolate episode, but also maybe don’t specify a real country if you’re doing a fantasy thing, just put cocoa powder

Hazel

It’s a good point. Where in the D&D realms is Holland?

Liz

I don’t know, but apparently D&D stands for Dwarves and Dutchmen

Pencil

Although, to be fair, the first...the second edition monster manual did canonically decide on some creatures coming from India

Liz

Did it?!

Pencil

So apparently real...yeah some of the fiends were described as coming from India, which is a whole thing in its own right. But yeah, no, it does canonically mention India as a place that exists in D&D world in the second edition monster manual. So there you go, India and Holland, those are the two real world countries that exist canonically in D&D world

Liz

This is like some Narnia stuff, where if you walk far enough towards Holland you hit Faerun apparently

Hazel

Is there just a portal somewhere in the Forgotten Realms that leads directly to the kitchen of a corner restaurant in Rotterdam?

Pencil

Yes, now. I have decided

Liz

Can’t prove there isn’t

Pencil

Weirdly like the idea of a portal to the real world, but it’s just in a really mediocre location

Liz

Can we talk about the first recipe in the halfling section

Hazel

Sure

Liz

So, it’s fondue, but they don’t call it fondue

Hazel

Oh I just found it

Liz

Would you like to read out the name?

Hazel

Community cheeses

Liz

I don’t want your community cheese!

Hazel

Oh no! Cheese is not a community! Cheese is individualised

Pencil

Don’t know what that’s a metaphor...I don’t know what that’s a euphemism for but I know I don’t like it

Hazel

Oh gosh. “A cauldron of community cheeses for all to enjoy” how many people are dipping into this fondue pot

Pencil

“It wouldn’t be a halfling jamboree without a cauldron of community cheeses on the table”

Hazel

And that’s how all the halflings got typhoid

Liz

I mean the choice of the word jamboree is its own separate issue, I feel

Pencil

“Each bite is replete with a surprising new taste combination” “this fondue is perfect for dagger dipping, just be sure to clean the blood off first”

Liz

What is dagger dipping?

Hazel

I was thinking, yeah, I do actually like the idea of fondue where you’re only served it with a dagger and you just stab things into the cheese

Liz

Don’t dip your dagger in my community cheese

Hazel

I won’t...unless...nah I’m joking...unless….

Pencil

Haha joking...unless…

Liz

The halfling section really goes into it with the whole “we’re gonna name stuff other things”, like we have...it’s not a grilled cheese, it’s “melted cheeses”, or perhaps if you fancy something sweeter would you like some “sweet nibbles”?

Hazel

I’d like some sweet nibbles

Pencil

Halfling cuisine is bizarrely horny

Hazel

Ok there’s “chicken something dumplings”. Apparently there is a mysterious ingredient

Liz

Except also this is a recipe book so we have all the ingredients. So, I don’t know which of these ingredients is the something, ‘cause none of them’s particularly unusual

Hazel

Trying to figure it out, and there’s nothing in here that’s like “oh that’s a completely...oh I never thought that that would go with it but it does”

Liz

Yeah, I probably wouldn’t put sherry in a chicken stew myself, but I don’t think it counts as “oh this is a really weird ingredient, this is Something”

Hazel

Yeah it’s just vegetables

Pencil

Hogs in bedrolls

Hazel

Aww. Is that pigs in blankets

Pencil

That’s adorable

Hazel

Ok

Pencil

I believe so, yes. Yes it is pigs in blankets, anyway

Hazel

Oh

Pencil

“Few things put a spring in a halfling’s step like the buttery sausage scent of freshly baked”

Hazel

That’s just a sausage roll

Pencil

“Hogs in bedrolls”

Liz

The buttery sausage scent. It’s not even a good sausage roll, it’s hot dogs wrapped in puff pastry

Hazel

No, don’t make a sausage roll with a hotdog!

Pencil

I think you’ll find if you look at this they’re making sausage rolls with hotdogs

Liz

No, they’re making hogs in bedrolls

Pencil

Yes. I like that one of the ingredients is frozen pastry that’s been thawed

Liz

You can’t buy just the refrigerated ready-made pastry, you have to buy the frozen kind and then unfreeze it

Hazel

Oh yeah, you can’t use unfrozen

Pencil

Halflings are cheesy boys confirmed

Liz

Horny cheesy boys

Pencil

Horny cheesy boys. I apologise for that sentence

Hazel

Hold on a sec, if you blend it, that’s not a broth, it’s a soup!

Liz

Yeah broth is pretty much explicitly “I made this with bones”

Hazel

Yeah broth is watery

Pencil

Sorry, just going a bit further on, there is Lluirwood Salad, it’s a salad, but it’s flavour text just casually mentions oh yes, everyone here is dead, but

Hazel

What?!

Pencil

“Prior to”...so it’s from the place...the nation of Lurien. “Prior to the Spellplague, which submerged all of Luiren, this sweet and savory salad”, and I weirdly like the power move of just “if you want to know more about this meal, you can’t, everyone involved in it died but…”

Liz

But it’s got pecans and spring cheese!

Hazel

Oh right, yeah, it was really popular in this region that was entirely submerged by a terrible plague. Well, guess I’ll just imagine that

Liz

Yeah, I know we keep saying it, but the attempts to work in world-building, except again not really world building so much as name dropping stuff that someone else already came up with is just

Pencil

Apple and blackberry pie has a mythic origin, which is just “a halfling had apples and blackberries and made them into a pie”

Liz

I mean that does sound like a halfling myth, to be fair

Pencil

Yeah

Hazel

That’s fantastic. I am in awe of the legend

Pencil

It’s very legendary

Liz

I mean, apple and blackberry pie is delicious

Hazel

Oh yeah, I mean that looks like a nice pie

Pencil

Ooh, uncommon cuisine

Liz

Yeah! So, again, I play D&D with some people from the southern US, and they had some opinions about “Arkhan the Cruel’s flame-roasted halfling chili”

Hazel

Hold on

Liz

Which...ok, so Arkhan the Cruel is a actual D&D character who works for Tiamat, the evil dragon, and apparently this book has his chili recipe, which is not particularly spicy, and also made with turkey mince rather than beef

Hazel

But, yeah, are we just not gonna talk about the fact that this is made of halfling in universe?

Liz

And also that halflings taste of turkey

Pencil

It has the evilest recipe ingredient, where it has a “Vecna’s handful of cocoa powder”

Liz

Also Vecna has very small hands, it’s 1.5 tablespoons

Pencil

Vecna’s famously tiny hands

Hazel

Oh my goodness

Pencil

Oh also, sorry, I’m just going back through things. Tieflings either eat very spicy foods or, if they’re more in touch with their demon inclinations, then they eat raw meat, and I weirdly like the idea that the more demonic you are, the less you cook things

Liz

I guess if you get to a certain level of demonic you can just use your own internal fire to cook the meat

Pencil

Also I like that the orc bacon has orc in quotation marks. Also, incidentally, canonically if you’re being chased by orcs, you can leave bacon behind so they’ll stop and eat the bacon so you can escape

Liz

It’s like throwing rice at vampires

Pencil

Orcs are mandated to eat any bacon they come across regardless of context

Hazel

Yeah, I would just like to give a shout-out to the best fantasy, popular series cookbook that I have ever read, which is the Redwall cookbook, it is excellent. It’s written for children, but also the recipes are nice. It is in fact written by Brian Jacques. I do not know if he wrote the recipes but there’s a whole entire story about how they’re preparing this feast, and the recipes are part of the story and it’s so cute. Yeah…

Liz

See that sounds like a much better way of doing it. You do either that or you go “this book exists in universe” like the Nanny Ogg’s Cookbook from Discworld

Hazel

Oh, I’ve not read that one, is that good?

Liz

There’s a lot of stuff in it that I really want to make, and it’s really fun, and it is written as if Nanny Ogg wrote it

Hazel

That’s a good idea, because then you can basically just get away with anything by saying “well this is what the character wrote”

Liz

But instead we have this

Pencil

Yeah, the character...the World of Darkness cookbook a) exists for some bizarre reason, and b) is also actually quite good. The premise is different supernaturally things giving their different meals, and luckily it has the advantage that everything has to exist in universe rather than giving it a weird fantasy label, so there’s another surprisingly good one

Liz

So we’ve established that the problem with this book isn’t that it’s based on a fantasy property, and isn’t that it’s based on a TTRPG, because those have been successfully done

Hazel

Yeah, I feel like if there’s enough focus on food in the original media then a cookbook is probably gonna work quite well, and I think…

Pencil

“This dish”, sorry, “this dish is as sweet and as smooth as a tall glass of owlbear milk”

Hazel

I have no reference for that

Liz

Something that everyone reading the book can relate to

Pencil

Anyway, you were saying

Hazel

I mean, I suppose there definitely is...a D&D cookbook is a good idea, because there is a lot...everyone has, with their D&D party, gone to a tavern and then spent about half an hour ordering food instead of actually talking about the plot

Liz

And I mean it is named after a spell which, a lot of people do sit down and go “ok so what’s everyone having, you can have anything” and you get these big discussions about the characters’ favourite foods, which is really fun

Hazel

Yeah

Pencil

I feel like what we should do is heroes’ feast but you have to choose one of the meals in this book, and it has to be community cheeses. It just always summons the community cheeses.

Liz

You could combine the community cheeses with the iron rations and then just have cheese and salami, you’re halfway to a pizza at that point

Hazel

I suppose there isn’t a pizza recipe

Pencil

I like heroes’ feast and it summons a pizza but it only summons each bit of the pizza separately and you have to combine them

Liz

Well, this book has flatbread, it has melted cheese, it has cold cuts, it doesn’t have a tomato sauce but one of the things is served with ketchup so I’m counting it. You could heroes’ feast up a pizza

Pencil

With duck a l’orange

Hazel

I love that idea of just a giant pizza

Liz

“We need to gird ourselves for the coming boss battle, I’ll order a 20 inch pizza”

Hazel

Love the idea that pizza can be delivered. I know it’s a spell, but I’m imagining a delivery person just strolling into the depths of the deepest dungeon just like “well, it was quite tricky to get here”

Liz

But it’s still got it in less that 30 minutes

Hazel

“Bit hidden away this place, isn’t it”

Liz

There’s a one-shot idea

Hazel

You are a party of pizza delivery people

Pencil

You’re a pizza delivery guy

Hazel

You have received

Liz

Bring a giant pizza to the center of a dungeon

Hazel

Yeah, that’s your main quest. You have to fight your way through a dungeon to deliver a pizza

Pencil

I notice we’ve been going for nearly an hour now

(all saying there’s a lot to talk about)

Liz

I’m still not over lizardfolk chicken tenders

Pencil

Lizardfolk love their chicken tendies

Liz

So considering we have been going for so long, can we move on to the drinks section?

Hazel

Yes please

Pencil

Yes

Liz

Or should I say “Elixirs and Ales”? There is no recipe for ale in this

Pencil

Are there recipes for elixirs?

Liz

There is a recipe for a cocktail which includes just blending some jam into your mocktail

Hazel

Ok…

Liz

I’m trying to re-find it now. There’s some good stuff, there’s a mulled cider, and there’s a mint absinthe thing and a coffee hot chocolate, and then there’s also

Hazel

Jam drink

Liz

Blend up some jam, spices, and honey in some water and call it “evermead”. Putting honey in does not make it mead, my dudes

Pencil

Actually, anything with honey in is mead, a beehive is mead

Liz

Does that make me mead?

Hazel

Mm-hmm

Liz

Nice

Pencil

Yes

Liz

There are some genuinely good ones, but there’s the jam mocktail and there’s a spinach and blueberry smoothie

Hazel

Oh gosh, ok. I know green smoothies are meant to be good for you but also I’ve never been persuaded to drink…

Liz

We’ve also got dwarves and their oranges again, we’ve got dwarven mulled wine with oranges in

Hazel

It really sounds like dwarves are the ones that like oranges in this universe

Liz

Maybe the orcs just stole the oranges from the dwarves and put it on their bacon while some anthropologist putting together this book is like “what are you eating?” “Orange bacon.” Write it down

Pencil

I like the idea that in this universe oranges originated underground

Liz

They’re brightly coloured so that you can see them in the dark

Hazel

Famous cave oranges

Pencil

Yeah

Liz

I need you both to know I’m now putting cave oranges in my D&D setting

Hazel

Excellent

Pencil

Yeah. Your quest is to stop the orcs stealing the cave oranges and then making into some crappy mass produced orange bacon thing

Hazel

That they will then serve in their fancy gentrifying restaurants

Pencil

Yeah

Liz

There are some interesting sounding cocktails in here, like there’s one called “The Mindflayer”, which is ginger, lime, grape juice, and vodka, which sounds interesting

Hazel

Ok, mindflayer is a great name for a cocktail

Liz

It is, it’s...I mean, the description kind of reminds me of a pangalactic gargleblaster. It’s purple and citrusy and makes your brain feel funny, and it’s got ice in it. It’s a pangalactic gargleblaster

Hazel

Wonder if it feels like being hit by a golden brick

Liz

I don’t drink, but I imagine that it would be nice. And the Potion of Restoration sounds really nice as well, it’s mostly blackberries and lemon, and then you put in some gin and some blackberry liquore

Hazel

That sounds good

Liz

Which, again, I don’t drink but it sounds delicious

Hazel

Yeah, that would restore me

Liz

But then my brain just goes “but there’s also a jam cocktail”

Hazel

Well I think you should try the jam cocktail, for reasons

Liz

I would, but I also value my sense of taste

Pencil

That sounds like a you problem

Hazel

Can’t believe you don’t respect us enough to drink jam

Pencil

Every time you get a natural one, Paper does have to chug a jar of jam

Liz

It’s true, please stop rolling 1s, it hurts. But yeah, then after the drinks you get into general advice for cooking for your D&D group. One of the actual pieces of advice is “establish in advance whether you’ll be eating before or after the game” like...yeah? Yeah, that’s how meal planning works

Hazel

Makes sense

Pencil

Don’t just wait for your players to walk in, and then hold them down and force-feed them your community cheese, that’s bad

Liz

Just halfway through the game stick some jam in the blender and don’t explain

Hazel

It’ll add flavour to the game

Pencil

To be fair, if you’re playing a more surreal game, if you’re just sat there blending jam for the entire time you’re GMing, that is gonna add some flavour to it. Just every time the players roll a natural 1 you just sort of look solemn, take out a blender, take out a jar of jam, and blend it

Hazel

“If you are the dungeon master it might be better to leave the cooking to someone else” I mean, yeah, you probably can’t DM while cooking a 3-course meal

Liz

Maybe you can’t

Pencil

“You don’t want to have to”...”You don’t want to have to fish a d4 out of your Community Cheeses.”

Liz

But would you dagger dip it?

Hazel

I would

Pencil

Don’t dagger dip your D4

Liz

I do also like that rule 3 is “the rules are guidelines”. Yeah, because you haven’t really given me full recipes

Pencil

“For example, you could assign tofu, chicken, pork, and beef each to a number on a d4.” And whichever it number it lands ends up being in your meal

Liz

I mean, that sounds fun, but also some sauces go well with some of those and not others

Hazel

Kind of do want to try making a recipe entirely by dice roll

Liz

That sounds awful, I love it. Can’t believe how long that has gone

Hazel

Yeah, they do actually...there’s a postscript where they thank everyone involved in D&D over the years, they thank Wizards of the Coast, all of the designers, the writers, the people who made the book, the people who were involved...they don’t thank the chef

Liz

Yeah. The poor guy wrote all of these recipes, there’s quite a lot of recipes honestly, they’re very basic but if this is your first cookbook you could do worse, and they don’t...like I said, he isn’t mentioned beyond the copyright page

Hazel

They’re just like “we’d like to thank everybody who made this book possible”, and the chef is not one of them, apparently

Liz

They thank the publicity manager

Pencil

Yeah

Liz

But not the guy that made the recipes

Hazel

I thank you...who was it again?

Pencil

They do thank the chef, don’t they? “This is not to forget the incredible recipe developer and chef responsible for making a delicious reality of the fantasy dishes we compiled and conceptualized—our infinite thanks to Adam Ried!”

Liz

Ok, it’s just hidden away

Pencil

Which, to be fair, is admittedly several paragraphs in

Liz

Oh yeah, they thank him after they thank Chris Perkins and Mike Mearls and just D&D people

Pencil

Yeah, it does seem like they might have forgot the incredible recipe developer and chef responsible

Liz

Yeah, he’s thanked in basically the same breath as the Dwarven Forge guy, who basically just gave them some stuff to take pictures of. He’s in the special thanks section, not the people who actually made the book section

Hazel

Oh, there we go. Special thanks...they thank...special thanks to about 10 people, and then the chef. He has one sentence. Oh I see, so they apparently compiled and conceptualised the dishes, and then he had to make them into recipes

Liz

I love that. So they basically went “hey what if we had fondue” and then Adam Reid had to figure out how to make some halfling fondue

Hazel

Fondue, but can you make it fantasy?

Pencil

Fondue, but can you make the name sound slightly skeevy?

Liz

I just, I feel bad for Adam Reid

Hazel

Petition to have a second D&D cookbook where Adam Reid has full creative freedom

Liz

Especially ‘cause after all of the thanks the three authors get their own little section, and he just gets half a section after the...in the special thanks. It’s not fair

Hazel

They totally missed an opportunity to have a picture of Adam Reid, I don’t know what he looks like, but have him dressed up in completely outlandish fantasy armour with a little chef’s hat on top

Liz

That would make me approximately 80% more likely to buy a cookbook

(all thank Adam Reid)

Hazel

You did a great job

Liz

We’re sorry we were mean to your recipes

Hazel

In our defence...

Liz

But it’s mostly the presentation that’s the problem. So yeah, thank you for listening to the crossover episode

Pencil

We’re now friends

Liz

If you like Pencil more, you can go to patreon.com/probablybadrpgideas, and if you like Hazel more you can go to patreon.com/breadandthread

Hazel

Joke’s on you though, ‘cause it’s all under the probably bad umbrella

Liz

It is, it’s all Pencil/Paper productions

Hazel

It is the Pencil/Paper podcast empire

Liz

By empire we mean two podcasts

Pencil

Hazel is disposable, no offence Hazel

Hazel

Hey listen, you cannot replace my knowledge of obscure viking textile methods

Liz

But yeah, we hope you enjoyed this special episode. We will see you next time, and remember to have a probably bad day

Hazel

And eat your community cheeses

Pencil

Remember to have a probably bad bread and thread

(end music)

Liz

Eat your community cheeses?