Heroes' Feast by Kyle Newman, Michael Witwer, and Jon Peterson is the official cookbook of Dungeons & Dragons, with 80 recipes ranging from Elven Bread and Orc Bacon to Drow Mushroom Steaks to Trolltide Candied Apples and a Potion of Restoration (above). These aren't just cutesy names—the authors did their homework, as they explain in an interview with CNet:
We scoured 45 years of D&D product (source books, modules, novels, comics) to find every notable dish and then evaluated and curated each for viability. We also conducted an extensive study of each D&D fantasy culture, such as elves, dwarves, and halflings, and worked to define details such as common ingredients, palate, etiquette, and so on.
We had to look at this from both an in-universe perspective as well from our own point of view to ensure that we were presenting a robust, balanced, forward-thinking selection of dishes that are both tasty as well as narratively and historically accurate, representing the varied tastes and traditions of the major cultures — human, elven, dwarven and halfling.
In an interview with SyFy, they added:
He continues: "We also felt it would be good to anchor these with artifacts, coins, curios from within the world. Things that would be applicable to that world. We spoke with Justin about creating four unique objects that we could put just left of center in the frame to help bring you into the world and if you know, you know that, 'Oh my god, that's the Talisman of Ultimate Evil sitting right there.' In the case of the Chultan Zombie, we do have Sirac's famous talisman, so there are some cool little Easter eggs like that in there. I think they're more than Easter eggs, the way they're positioned on the page, but we just wanted to anchor it with some very familiar, iconic, legendary items from the world of Dungeons & Dragons."
In terms of different chapters, the book is broken up by the various cultures found throughout the game's mythos: humans, dwarves, elves, halflings, etc. "We had a lot of discretion and a lot of trust from Wizards to help develop from the various fantasy cultures, the elves, the dwarves, the halflings, and so on," Peterson says. "What really could we extrapolate from what was there and say, 'Is there taste? Is Elven cuisine more like Japanese food? Is it more like Nordic cuisine?' That process of sussing all that out was a lot of fun."
This makes me even more excited to have nerdy dinner parties once again.
Heroes' Feast: The Official D&D Cookbook [Kyle Newman, Michael Witwer, and Jon Peterson / Ten Speed Press]
