#Bosmer are just reddish like default

[dawns-beauty]

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[icicleteeth]

Ack apologies for the lateness, cheesepost going over the choices for all the Tamriel cheeses is here! As before, explanations are under the cut!

High Rock: I tend to default to finding inspiration for High Rock cuisine in French cuisine, for reasons I’m not really able to explain other than “it just feels right” (which is consistent with how I handled High Rock’s bread, haha) Thus, High Rock’s cheese is based on French blue cheese (bleu d’auvergne, specifically). Blue cheese tends to be pretty strong in flavor and odor, and since “strong/good flavor” was a theme I went with for the breads (in that case, having very sweet and buttery breads) so I thought it fit High Rock well in that regard too!

Hammerfell: Hammerfell’s cheese being goat cheese is based entirely off the headcanon that goats are the most common livestock kept there. I just remember from my time in ESO that there were many, many goats out in the wilderness of the Alik’r desert, so I felt goat’s cheese was fitting (though it is certainly a headcanon I could just be misinformed on!)

Wrothgar: This cheese is based directly off of “drunken cheese”, which is when the cheese is soaked in wine for flavoring, hence the outer wax binding being a deep reddish purple. For this one, I did stick to it being soaked in wine because the purplish binding made it stand out better from the other cheeses, though I’d imagine orcs would prefer to use something stronger, like a hearty ale to soak their cheeses in! 

Skyrim: Though Skyrim has a few in-game canon cheeses already, I wanted to make something outside of canon, so I went with a cheese made from sheep’s milk! This was actually taken from a comment from @theshotgunsailor​ here!

Who is absolutely right, there should’ve been sheep in Skyrim! (I understand the canon that Nords are pretty cold resistant so might not be able to raise sheep, but think of all the other races who live in Skyrim! Wool products would certainly be popular enough to encourage farmers all across the land to raise sheep for wool!)

Er, not to derail cheeseposting into clothesposting, but I liked the headcnon, so I used it!

Morrowind: “Cheese” in Morrowind is of course scuttle! I answered an ask about what scuttle is here, but for those wanting a more condensed description, it’s a “cheese-like” food made from mashed beetle flesh (similarly, I’d imagine, to how scrib jelly is just mashed scrib). It is also described as being greasy, hence the...shininess, which has the unfortunate side effect of looking like something far less appetizing, what with the brown coloring... But who knows, it is referred to as a popular dish, so maybe it doesn’t taste that bad!

Black Marsh: Another cheese I’ve answered an ask about here, but it is essentially mite cheese! That is, it’s based on a german cheese called milbenkäse, which is a cheese flavored by, uh...the excrement of mites who eat the cheese; the mites are also eaten with the cheese, from what I’ve read... Sometimes I parallel Tamriel foods with irl countries/cultures that parallel said province, though that wasn’t the case here, since I’m not sure how many similarities Black Marsh and Germany have, haha. I’ve just read from the A Culinary Adventure series of lorebooks that Argonian cuisine commonly uses insects in their dishes, so figured mite cheese was a perfect fit for them.

Valenwood: This one might’ve caused a bit of confusion with it being slightly tongue-in-cheek, but Valenwood cheese isn’t so much a specific specialty cheese as it is thin slices of cheese wrapped around slices of cold meats, since meat is of course a very favored part of a bosmer’s diet. I think they’re technically just called dried meat snack rolls, and the specificity of what kind of meat/what kind of cheese is used isn’t important to the “dish”. Either way, it looks like this lasdfjs

Elsweyr: Elsweyr cheese is based on a smoked polish cheese called oscypek! The shape and color varies, though I referenced off of these!

The choice for this one wasn’t too deep, I just felt ornate and decadent design fit very well with Khajiits, as well as the shapes being suitable for portability (a lot of headcanons I have for Khajiits come from Beyond Skyrim: Elsweyr stuff, which includes items meant for nomadic Khajiits--thus, travel-friendly cheeses!)

Summerset: Summerset cheese is a soft imported cheese lavished with many fancy herbs and spices, as the typical direction I like to go in with Summerset foods is “this must scream decadence”. It being a soft cheese, it’d be eaten more as a spread you’d put on fancy crackers and breads at teatime, though I don’t see why one can’t eat the cheese on its own! 

Cyrodiil: Cheese in Cyrodiil wasn’t headcanonned too fancily, as I have a blanket hc with all foods in Cyrodiil being at least somewhat sourced/inspired from other provinces’ cuisine due to the Imperial City being the capital of Tamriel, thus being a large cultural hub. For native Cyrodiil cheese, I just went with a basic swill-like cheese since it closely resembles Oblivion’s in game cheese model. Just you’re standard cheese made from cow’s milk, though still tasty nonetheless!

Shivering Isles: Though the Shivering Cheese and Olroy cheese weren’t officially labelled as from the Shivering Isles (nor can I speak too much on it as I’ve not played Shivering Isles) I’d imagine they’re at least in some parts a strange creation from a certain jolly prince.... (Olroy, from what I understand, being a cheese used in his daedric quest in Oblivion, and the Shivering Cheese being from ESO, though my understanding of both games are sadly limited ^^;)