Cuisine

Food and drink throughout the world is wide and varied. Several things so stand out, and are notable for their taste, or for other reasons.

Common Foods
Certain foods are common throughout the world.

Trail Food
Large travelling parties, adventurers and others on the road have several options for feeding themselves: The most prudent tend to mix the four. Inns and taverns cannot be counted on every day during travel, so all travellers must prepare for feeding themselves.
 * 1) Trail rations
 * 2) Hunting
 * 3) Foraging
 * 4) Inns and taverns

A variety of foods are used as rations. Most popular are dried meats, which allow camp stews and soup to be created. Also popular travel meats are salted meats and sausages. Added to this is often breads. Usually, those who know they have longer journeys ahead enjoy twice-baked bread and hardtack, both which last longer than loaves of bread on their own. A final staple of rations are hard cheeses, which naturally preserve themselves.

Inns and Taverns
Up and down the Imperial Roadway, and in lots of large villages, towns and cities can be found inns and taverns. Throughout the world, these remain much the same, serving the same type of food and drink, with some exception for locality and available resources and preferences.

Food for the day’s meals would be purchased at the start of the day from a local supplier. Meat would be cooked regularly throughout the day. A soup or stew might be prepared in the morning for all day use or might even be kept warm for several days. Side dishes would be prepared early for use throughout the day as well. Popular throughout the world is the trencher, usually unsold or dating bread hollowed to act as a bowl, and also a supplement to meals. A smaller tavern might have several small birds roasted or available for roasting for the day, while larger establishments might butcher larger animals to feed a larger crowd. The largest establishments offer a reasonable choice of food, for those willing to pay.

Drink however changes quite frequently throughout the world. While ale or bitter is a usual standard, in regions with the orchards perry and cider are often available, along with mead. More coastal towns also tend to serve rum and various others sailors favourite.

Forstem
Forstem can be split into three areas when it comes to food and drink.

The North
For the purposes of cuisine, the North includes most areas past Dietersbruck. This is an area where the short summers and harsh winters, along with a constant cold climate make it almost impossible for conventional farming to take place.

Lichen Bread
Although some grains are imported and ground into flour, dwarfs also use several species of lichen which are ground to create a unique and flavorful flour. When used to bake bread, commonly called stone bread, it gives a crusty bread, mildly leavened, heavy in texture that preserves remarkably well.

Lingon Porridge
Eaten throughout the day, this dish is often simple rye porridge with the addition of lingonberry preserve. Lingonberries are a rare, sweet berry found in the not often foraged north.

North Mix
A popular trail ration found throughout Forstem, but originally originating from the far north, this mix is similar to a normal trail mix but for one usually addition: tiny fish, smaller than a quarter of an inch long, fried whole and salted. Such fish are able to be eaten in a single bite, and their small size means they are not even gutted or prepared in anyway.

Stonegrass Soup
Stonegrass is a kind of lichen often cultivated underground by Dwarves, it is one of the few food exports of the Mountainhomes. While it is common in the underground realms, it remains impossible to grow above. While it can be used in other recipes, this soup is made from a mixture of the boiled stonegrass with goat meat. Tasty and nourishing, this is a staple of the diet of Dwarves.

Central Forstem
This region covers a huge area, from Dietersbruck to Hektor's Rest. Vast areas of this land is rich farmland, allowing healthy diets based on yearly cycles. By and far the single most grown crop is wheat. Since the inventions of upright windmills and water based mills, bread has formed an integral part of the diet of those who live in the central area. Trenchers are not uncommon: hardened and stale bread hollowed and used an edible bowl. Most villages are built around or near a mill, with access to them free to all. Mills form a cornerstone of civilisation in the central regions.

Livestock and seafood are also common in the central diet, along with the results of hunting and foraging, even though it may be rarer amongst the poorer and less well off. Most villages, once reaching a certain size, will often have one, or two, hunters present to supplement the simple diets with game.

Benessauce
A dark salty sauce made from fermenting beans in brine. Popular with simple boiled vegetables, mushroom, bread and fish. A flagon of Benessauce is said to improve food on the move, and is highly valued by frequent travellers.

Gundroast
A loaf made from ground mushrooms, grains and vegetables, herbs and spices for flavor, usually baked on a stone. Not a real bread but a dense savory dish. Gundroast is often eaten traditionally on the new years day.

Lereth en' Laure
Dense sweet bread made with both honey and mead, often simply called mead cake. The mead is used as the leavening agent. This bread preserves well and travels well.

Liver Rolls
Liver rolls are flatbread rolls stuffed with chicken livers fried in garlic butter, and garnished with diced pepper potatoes and dill. Popular in inns and taverns throughout the Empire, there are particularly well savoured by traveller on long journeys. In a meal, three or more rolls are eaten along with a trio of trumpets.

Pig Oysters
Common in Frenshire, pig oysters are often fried and cooked in a sauce made from tomatoes, a rarity common to the region.

Schulla Mack
Made in the most north most areas of this area, Schulla Mack is a widely praised and much loved form of smoked fish, originating in Schullaruck. Smokers take a mackerel, stuffing it often with a pickled gherkin or similar, before rubbing or bathing the fish in a bath of meat salts. Smoked above fires with these gherkins in, this treat keeps it flavour and lasts for a long time, allowing the treat to make it's way inland. The tradition has been stolen by other smokers since it first became popular after the Empire's expansion into the north, but Schullaruck still boosts smoke houses hundreds of years old where the flavour itself has penetrated the stone walls, allowing for a much better taste.

Three Crab
Popular around the Great Maw. Three soft-shelled green river crabs yielded up locally by specialised crab fishers and they are are served whole, with only the eyes, mouth, and stomach removed. Cooked in fat until golden brown, they face each other on a round toasted loaf of flatbread that has been spread with chopped greens and a white sauce of cooked leeks and garlic, parsley vinegar, and beaten egg yolks. A popular treat in taverns and inns around the Maw that have the ability to create it, it continues the rich seafood tradition found around the Maw.

Trumpets
A long, crisp, fried cracker as long as a human hand. These trumpets are horn-shaped crackers stuffed with melted white cheese, chopped nuts, and fried mushrooms. Popular as a side dish or a standalone snack throughout the Empire, they are often served as a trio.

Desert Forstem
The Deserts surrounding Thinna have a third variety of food.