Flight Rising Discussion

[quote name="ShwoomWoom" date="2022-12-05 15:55:15" ] Adding onto Wind, I like to imagine that many dishes have bugs in them because of Spiral dragons' diets! Bamboo Shoot Soup combined with cooked Bean Beetle.. it would be the few times one wouldn't mind having a fly in their soup! [/quote] skydancers, too! there is so much Bugge

Wind would have the most varieties of foods due to their tendency to travel. Likely loads of different spices and flavors.

Arcane is basically "Eat? Oh right. Eat." and they just shove whatever is in the pantry into their face, while continuing to read.

Plague is all about fermenting and spicy food. Basically Thai food. They probably make some insane kimchi style dishes.

Nature is a confusing one, because well.. Wildclaws. I assume wildclaws were made to eat meat to keep them from eating Glademom, and maybe keep things like rabbits n such at bay. You would think they'd also eat insects.. but I guess glademom doesn't want them eating bees and butterflies and the like.

This actually came up in the Nature Discord once or twice, and a few ideas were proposed, which I'll add with some of my own here:

• Gumbo! The Viridian Labyrinth is pretty wet overall, and wetlands and other water sources make up a considerable percentage of the territory. Wetlands are also extremely productive ecosystems, so the sheer quantity and diversity of available edible organisms means that Nature has some sick seafood options.
  
• Cooked food isn't off the table for Nature, as some bird species are known to harness fire to flush out prey, and the leap to burning that prey for food isn't a far one for magic intelligent dragons. We figured out that an underground cooker like an umu could be right up the Wildclaw alley, as one can cook a LOT of food with very little technology, have a much lessened risk of setting the Wilds on fire, and the food is wrapped in large leaves. Basically, one could use multiple parts of a plant AND cook a lot of meat or other food. Wildclaw culture is also quite ritualized and communal, so it pays to be able to cook a ton of cuisine in one go! Mmm, slow-roasted spider monkey.
  
• Agriculture isn't either--I mean, have you seen leafcutter ants? Or permaculture?--but probably less common in its conventional forms as opposed to foraging and food forests. Rainforests are one of the other most productive ecosystems, and we have a whole area known for its flowering plants, so we have so much fruit. Plantains, blackberries, apples, cactus pears, figs, strawberries, chestnuts; and all sorts of edible blossoms, nuts, seeds, roots, and so forth; and this is just what's in-game! If asked, any Nature dragon could probably name their favorite and least favorite fruit, seed, and vegetable without their answers coinciding too much.
  
• Special shout-out to tofu. We have edamame, which means we have soy--and probably make a mean tempeh. It's an all-purpose kind of food, and building on the Asian inspiration mentioned prior, Wind likely imports a lot of soy products from Nature.
  
• Honey! Again, lots of flowers, which means lots of pollinators, including the buzzy ones. Chefs and horticulturists will coordinate efforts to plant gardens with specific flowers that give the local honey a unique taste; meanwhile the grove right over produces honeycomb with a completely different flavor to its neighbors. Given the easy procuring of honey, nectar, and fruit, sweet foods and additives are very common--even straight glucose.
  
• Sub-idea to honey: candied and less-candied insects. They're easily lured and even come with their own toppings!
  
• Just general weird stuff. Nature dragons can harness poison and venom, so they're likely at least resistant to some of the nastier natural concoctions that crop up, and so possess fewer qualms about eating, say, venomous snakes or toxic leaves. Bark is available in a pinch. If being wild and primal means following your hunting instincts to the nearest, newest tasty-looking thing, then so be it.

Oh Gladekeeper this got long.

Oh dang, Pocketdog's post rocks it! I have a [url=https://frlorebook.fandom.com/wiki/Nature_Cuisine]separate writeup[/url] on the topic, no conflict, I just really love what they brought up. I've [i]especially[/i] always loved us having gumbo, so I add some nature definitely-not-gumbo-what-are-you-talking-about notes to the pot: [quote]A radical departure from the Everbloom Gardens, Gladeveins dishes tend to be intensely savoury, shaped as they are by the region's waterways. Soups and stews are popular. Onion and sweet pepper serve as a base to which local ingredients are added, with no two stews being exactly alike, with additives including freshwater crawdads and fish, the roots of water plants, obscure herbs, swamp insects, mushrooms, and kelp. It's considered poor manners to ask a chef what they've put in their stew before eating, as it demonstrates a lack of faith. Other popular dishes tend to emphasize simplicity and taste, and include pan-fried fish, roasted root kebabs, and smoked buttery grubs. [/quote] I just like to think that we'll eat pretty much anything, to an extent that can seem a little weird given we live in an eternal harvest season with perfectly reasonable fruit all over the place. Everything just tastes really good, okay? Don't knock the mystery shrooms 'til you've tried 'em. eta: nature dragons make roux with lard and acorn flour and I'm not arguing it

I imagine Water would have stuff like ceviche and raw sushi-- stuff that doesn't need to be cooked over a fire.
Lots of boiled food too, whether by magically heating water or cooking over hydrothermal vents. Maybe dragons that live primarily underwater can hunt and cook at the same time by heating the water around their prey. snackin on the go

Dragons on the surface probably default to steaming and boiling by default too even though they could definitely make a fire on the beach or something. I imagine they're so used to using water to cook that they're like "lol oh yeah" when other Flights mention other ways of cooking. Like it just isn't the first thing they think of, to them using water is the default.

Although personally my palate is apparently unrefined and can't tell the difference a lot of people insist different brands of bottled water taste better than others... I bet the freshwater from the Sea tastes like Extra Special Water and enhances the food cooked in it. Its hard to replicate the flavor/quality with normal water from out of flight. Not everyone notices the difference but a Water dragon definitely would and those living out of flight commonly import water from the Sea as a little treat sometimes. Those around them assume it's for magic purposes but it's really just to get a taste of home.

I like thinking light is a mix between Greece and Finland/Norway (not stinky sweden), mostly for the evergreens and the "always light" thing (midnight sun)

so;

-Lots of almost raw fish. Graavilohi, smoked, salted..
-Lots of olive oil and salt.
-A metric ridgeback-ton of chicken and wild game
-Yogurt and cheese, specifically coffee/breadcheese
-Oh yeah, coffee. Also light makes wine. You cant convince me otherwise.
-Lots of nuts, honey and berries. Usually baked to simplistic desserts; a lot of light food is either very beautiful with basically no taste or extremely tasty and/or unhealthy (and looks like absolute crap)

I love threads like these! They don't come up often enough. Someone once mentioned that Snappers would have tofu, and it totally makes sense to me. I imagine Snappers would also have sushi (being both plant and fish-eaters) and foods that get preserved for long trips. It's hard to place what Earth as a whole would be like, and we don't have much information on what Beastclans eat.

If anyone is interested I'm working on a food guide. I'll let you know when it's done.

Didn't think this would actually get responses oh my oh my also I have to admit I completely forgot about Flights' native breeds when I made the original post (skull emoji), like instead of thinking something like "well tundras only eat plants so Ice dishes = plant" my thought process was more like "Windswept Plateau -> bamboo -> bamboo dish????"

Anyways do y'all think Ice would have like, spruce tea or something

And do y'all think fancy Nature dragons would serve cooked birds of paradise or some other colorful jungle birds, kinda like how wealthy medieval Europeans used to serve cooked peacocks with (most of) the feathers still intact

[quote name="SCB" date="2022-12-05 16:02:33" ] Nature is a confusing one, because well.. Wildclaws. I assume wildclaws were made to eat meat to keep them from eating Glademom, and maybe keep things like rabbits n such at bay. You would think they'd also eat insects.. but I guess glademom doesn't want them eating bees and butterflies and the like. [/quote] Reminds me of the Wood Elves from the Elder Scrolls series. They're basically reverse vegans for religious reasons.

@Corndog I know you're being sarcastic, but there are a few species of freshwater shark (bullsharks can do both fresh and salt, though they're more marine, and the Glyphis genus has one species that's restricted to fresh water + two more species that can live their entire lives in fresh water or salt) and more species of freshwater ray (amazon river basin in particular, but also australia)