Adventurers Three Course Feed

In a local fantasy game I made passing reference to a three course lunch served to a large group of adventurers that suddenly burst in on the small inn of a tiny village. It was a fixed menu so that surprised staff would cope and drew on basic ingredients the village could provide at short notice. More recently I decided to prepare these home-made dishes and see whether they were even remotely tasty. In designing them I was influenced by my past involvement in both role-playing and medieval recreation clubs. Here I will describe those dishes and whether they worked for me.

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The first course is a bowl of mushroom soup with toast. I lack a blender so had to do this by grating and slicing. The bulk of the mushroom was portobello for its size and tastiness. This I carefully grated and mixed with seasonings and water. Next I sliced a bunch of button mushrooms in profile. This provides a well-known shape signifying mushroom to anyone seeing the resulting dish. I stir-fried these in oil flavoured with a hint of truffle. Then I poured in the water-and-mushroom mix on top and cooked it all till boiling. The end result looks very different from canned mushroom soup puree. The water and mushrooms are still distinct components - this is a dish of textures as well as tastes. I enjoyed it with lumpy hot buttered toast.

The second course is roast turnips slathered in cottage cheese. I lack experience with roasting roots and bulbs and am re-thinking how to do this. I peeled three smallish turnips so that they had flat bases. While mixing some seasoning into the cottage cheese, I threw the turnips into boiling water. Next, I scored them with crosses to expose some of the insides for cooking then poured melted butter over them. Finally, I put them in the oven which had been heated to 200 degrees celcius. Initially I roasted them for 20 minutes but then extended that for another 10 minutes. Finally I prised them apart into barely connected quarters and dumped the cheesy curds over them. These roots were still firmer and more fibrous than I was expecting. They also tasted more 'garden' than I am accustomed to. I suppose this is because I was comparing them with potatoes. I ate it all but next time I will slice them into separate disks to allow for greater cooking.

The third and final course is simplicity itself. I just mixed together some almonds with raspberries (and then decorated them with some fresh grated mint). The only problem with this is how to serve it. The nuts are hard and crunchy but the berries are soft and squishy - does one eat with hands or spoons? Maybe I will see if blackberries are a bit firmer.

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Fantasy can be anything. Recently published Dungeons & Dragons cook books present thoroughly modern cuisine masquerading as something stranger by use of medieval fantasy names. But if you did want something that felt just a bit more medieval then a few self-set limitations may be useful.

Using simpler technology results in less processed ingredients (such as my variably textured soup). A more significant limit is to only use ingredients from the Old World (Afro-Eurasia). This gives you a lot to work with but does omit some things that are ubiquitous today. Excluding maize, potato, tomato, capsicum, pineapple, avocado and various beans can be difficult to imagine. But there is numerically far more foodstuff with an Old World origin. In my recipes I cooked and seasoned with garlic, ginger, mint, coriander, basil, olive oil, butter and parmesan. And finally using some surprising combinations of flavours can get away from modern conventions of separating savory and sweet.

My efforts I hope produced dishes that are rustic and hearty in character. Maybe I should serve them sometime at a mediavel fantasy themed gathering or game session.