I’ll be honest, in my lore skydancers occasionally eat a little bit of fish and meat bc some of the flight cuisine I thought up is too good for me to not be able to use. Flight specific…
Wind: Lighter, simpler dishes in most places. Rice is pretty common due to the high plateaus being perfect for rice paddies! Lots of fruits from trees, honey, goat cheese and dairy, simple grain dishes like quinoa. Meat dishes usually include fowl, caught fresh from the sky by agile dragons, or mountain goats plucked from the hillsides. Oftentimes more flavorful than you’d think, because Wind dragons love to travel and bring back flavors from around the world!
Earth: Above all, Earth prides themselves on their use of minerals such as various colors of salt from ancient deposits, iron, iodine, etc. One can always be guaranteed they’re getting all their required minerals from an Earth Dish! Their main meals often include desert plants like cactus fruit and agave, or tough desert creature meats. They’re fond of dried meats and fruits, flatbreads, and grain snacks for desert-traveling provisions. Earth food can also be surprisingly spicy depending on the region you’re visiting!
Plague: Experts in fermentation. Plague dragons make excellent fermented and picked preserves, and are particularly known for a variety of blue cheese. It’s also worth noting that their knowledge of microbial growth in food makes them excellent brewers as well—Plague drinks are quite strong-flavored and potentially an acquired taste but often sought out for their unique flavors
Water: You probably guessed it, but… seafood! Everything from fish to shrimp to crabs to lobsters is eaten and enjoyed here. More specialty dishes may include sharks or caviar. Depending on the region, Water cuisine varies from seafood paella to expertly-crafted sushi. The Sea of a Thousand Currents may be freshwater, but Water dragons dwelling on the ocean coasts instead are known to use salt deposits for excellently-salted meals
Lightning: Due to Lightning’s keep-working-always-busy culture, their cuisine tends to favor things that can be made quickly and eaten on the job, and flight chefs prefer things that can be mass-produced for worker meals (i.e. a lot of stews or mass-cooked meat dishes). Lightning dishes aren’t BAD, they just usually lack the time to make something more inspired unless that IS their job
Ice: Often, Ice meals are simple and pragmatic. They gather what they can, from tough tundra plants and tubers to arctic creatures such as seals, polar bears, elk, and whales. Food is usually served raw or boiled, and has very little spice added. At the very least, food keeps well in the subzero locations of some regions!
Shadow: Shadow is best known for its mushrooms. Fine truffles, oysters, puffballs, morels… tiny little finger mushrooms, broad flat shelf fungi, mushrooms the size of a dragon’s head! The wood’s environment is perfect for cultivating fungi, and Shadow dragons are experts at discovering the particular state certain fungi like to grow on. They’ve even managed to cultivate mushrooms previously thought impossible to grow in captivity, such as the flavorful morel and the elusive truffle
Light: Lots of baking, sugar, and flowers in Light cuisine. One might have honeycakes garnished with lavender, candied violets, herb cheese, or sugar cookies pressed with flowers. There’s much more to Light cuisine than that, but they’re particularly known for their tasty (and pretty) uses of the local edible plants in delectable baking. It’s been said their food tastes particularly sunny and warm
Arcane: Masters of culinary experimentation. Arcane dragons like to take other flights’ foods and figure out what a new way to try it is. Particularly, Arcane is the flight you might find dragons discovering the chemical compositions to make certain foods taste like something tastier, engineering crops to either have better yields or just taste better, or sometimes creating new plant breeds entirely (useful or an abomination to Gladekeeper? You decide). Their use of arcane energy-infused ingredients such as chalcedony snippets, hardshells, and manaweed gives their food a unique and inviting flavor according to some…. To others, it’s a reason to avoid it
Nature: A LOT of plants. Salads, fruits, herbs, vegetables… One might think they’d be strictly vegetarian but that’s not the case. Nature just takes a particular care and respect for their meat dishes. They take a special pride in one having grown and raised their own food in a garden or such, a self-sufficient respect for nature and the growing process. Usually not too spiced-up as they’re experts in bringing out the natural flavors in foods
Fire: Exceptionally hot and spicy. Fire cuisine is usually some form of meat, flame roasted or grilled to perfection and spiced with peppers. Grilled steak, seared salmon, grilled chicken, etc. One thing Fire is PARTICULARLY good at is smoking meats—their jerkey and smoked fish is exceptional and often sought out
Wind: Lighter, simpler dishes in most places. Rice is pretty common due to the high plateaus being perfect for rice paddies! Lots of fruits from trees, honey, goat cheese and dairy, simple grain dishes like quinoa. Meat dishes usually include fowl, caught fresh from the sky by agile dragons, or mountain goats plucked from the hillsides. Oftentimes more flavorful than you’d think, because Wind dragons love to travel and bring back flavors from around the world!
Earth: Above all, Earth prides themselves on their use of minerals such as various colors of salt from ancient deposits, iron, iodine, etc. One can always be guaranteed they’re getting all their required minerals from an Earth Dish! Their main meals often include desert plants like cactus fruit and agave, or tough desert creature meats. They’re fond of dried meats and fruits, flatbreads, and grain snacks for desert-traveling provisions. Earth food can also be surprisingly spicy depending on the region you’re visiting!
Plague: Experts in fermentation. Plague dragons make excellent fermented and picked preserves, and are particularly known for a variety of blue cheese. It’s also worth noting that their knowledge of microbial growth in food makes them excellent brewers as well—Plague drinks are quite strong-flavored and potentially an acquired taste but often sought out for their unique flavors
Water: You probably guessed it, but… seafood! Everything from fish to shrimp to crabs to lobsters is eaten and enjoyed here. More specialty dishes may include sharks or caviar. Depending on the region, Water cuisine varies from seafood paella to expertly-crafted sushi. The Sea of a Thousand Currents may be freshwater, but Water dragons dwelling on the ocean coasts instead are known to use salt deposits for excellently-salted meals
Lightning: Due to Lightning’s keep-working-always-busy culture, their cuisine tends to favor things that can be made quickly and eaten on the job, and flight chefs prefer things that can be mass-produced for worker meals (i.e. a lot of stews or mass-cooked meat dishes). Lightning dishes aren’t BAD, they just usually lack the time to make something more inspired unless that IS their job
Ice: Often, Ice meals are simple and pragmatic. They gather what they can, from tough tundra plants and tubers to arctic creatures such as seals, polar bears, elk, and whales. Food is usually served raw or boiled, and has very little spice added. At the very least, food keeps well in the subzero locations of some regions!
Shadow: Shadow is best known for its mushrooms. Fine truffles, oysters, puffballs, morels… tiny little finger mushrooms, broad flat shelf fungi, mushrooms the size of a dragon’s head! The wood’s environment is perfect for cultivating fungi, and Shadow dragons are experts at discovering the particular state certain fungi like to grow on. They’ve even managed to cultivate mushrooms previously thought impossible to grow in captivity, such as the flavorful morel and the elusive truffle
Light: Lots of baking, sugar, and flowers in Light cuisine. One might have honeycakes garnished with lavender, candied violets, herb cheese, or sugar cookies pressed with flowers. There’s much more to Light cuisine than that, but they’re particularly known for their tasty (and pretty) uses of the local edible plants in delectable baking. It’s been said their food tastes particularly sunny and warm
Arcane: Masters of culinary experimentation. Arcane dragons like to take other flights’ foods and figure out what a new way to try it is. Particularly, Arcane is the flight you might find dragons discovering the chemical compositions to make certain foods taste like something tastier, engineering crops to either have better yields or just taste better, or sometimes creating new plant breeds entirely (useful or an abomination to Gladekeeper? You decide). Their use of arcane energy-infused ingredients such as chalcedony snippets, hardshells, and manaweed gives their food a unique and inviting flavor according to some…. To others, it’s a reason to avoid it
Nature: A LOT of plants. Salads, fruits, herbs, vegetables… One might think they’d be strictly vegetarian but that’s not the case. Nature just takes a particular care and respect for their meat dishes. They take a special pride in one having grown and raised their own food in a garden or such, a self-sufficient respect for nature and the growing process. Usually not too spiced-up as they’re experts in bringing out the natural flavors in foods
Fire: Exceptionally hot and spicy. Fire cuisine is usually some form of meat, flame roasted or grilled to perfection and spiced with peppers. Grilled steak, seared salmon, grilled chicken, etc. One thing Fire is PARTICULARLY good at is smoking meats—their jerkey and smoked fish is exceptional and often sought out
_
