#I NEED MY GIANT SPICY TROPICAL RAINFOREST VOLCANO LAND DAMMIT

[m42-fr]

Some FR Food Headcanons

Inspired by a thread on FR, I may or may not have accidentally written up a massive column of text on the various foods of Sorneith. I’m gonna copy-paste it here! Also gonna reblog with some headcanons from other users on that thread, so I can keep track of the ones that I really liked.

Lightning: In a more modern world, I'm absolutely certain somebody's invented the equivalent of Soylent (the meal replacement, not people). A quick, efficient meal that you can live your entire life off of, liquid and flavorless. Most people try to get some real food in whenever possible, but a particular strand of dragons absolutely swear by the stuff and spend their entire lives subsisting on it. Lightning cuisine also has a wide array of shelled creatures, including crustaceans, beetles, and armadillos. Many traditional dishes use the hollowed-out shells of these animals as bowls, while others utilize the bowl as an edible element. Dragon jaws are strong, and many texture-based eaters love the feeling of the shell cracking between their teeth.

Fire: Firstly, as a spice lover, I 100% support the notion of Fire having super spicy food. Secondly, it should be worth noting that I personally headcanon a large chunk of Fire's territory being covered in humid tropical rainforests, nourished by the rich volcanic runoff and the moist sea winds blowing in from both sides. Climates are basically as far from realistic as you can get in this game, so really, anything goes. With that in mind, I personally headcanon a lot of Fire's cuisine to be like Indian food, especially the advent of curry and the usage of an insane amount of spices. Having such fertile farmlands lends itself well to the growth of all sorts of exotic spices, and even if you don't personally share my headcanons, it's easy to say that since it borders Wind, it could ship in spices from there. Also, Fire residents absolutely boil their coffee like this. No exceptions. Which brings me to Wind. If Fire is India, then Wind is China and/or Japan. Seriously, having that sort of aesthetic already, it's very easy to say that their food might be like that as well! I think they 100% have rice, and they might have a wide variety of spices as well - if Fire grows their own spices, then the two Flights likely trade their spices very often with one another. The Wind flight is artistic, creative, and adventurous, and their food is no exception. Wind has one of the greatest amounts of imported food, and it's well-known that they have some of the best and most well-traveled chefs. Wind, having a border on two large oceans, also likes to make sushi, seaweed wraps, and other seafood-based items. There's an interesting cuisine difference between the coasts and the mainland - the coasts tend to rely less on spices and more on meats and rice, while the inland likes to pack their food with spice, and loves to utilize doughy recipes like dumplings and noodles. Arcane food is very sugary. Faes have a special sweet tooth and a hankering for honey in particular. Arcane food is also very showy - the more colorful, the better! Many professionally-made dishes will even utilize inedible elements, such as crystal chunks and gold flakes, to really make a dessert pop. Arcane is also the home of food-based magic. Instead of potions, crafters will cover cupcakes in frosting runes, and mix magically-infused powder into their dough. While lacking the long-term storage potential of a bottled elixir, there's no arguing that magical confectioneries are significantly tastier. Their most popular use is in the realm of light pick-me-ups and mild painkillers. Why take a pill for your headache when you can just eat a magic cookie instead? Shadow food focuses heavily on texture over appearance. In the dark, the way food looks doesn't matter much - it's how it feels in the mouth that counts. Unsurprisingly, many of its dishes utilize mushrooms as a primary ingredient, and slow-roasting is a popular way to bring a dish to perfection. Shadow also absolutely loves puddings, and one of its most famous dishes is a dark, sludgy, tarlike stuff laced with dark chocolate and mint. Very filling, and so sugary that getting all of it down without making yourself sick is a challenge. Earth food is plain, but hearty. Tubers are the most common type of food; potatoes, carrots, leeks, onions, and other ground-growing plants are common. There are few traditional meat dishes, as meat is exceedingly rare. Earth food lacks many spices, but has an abundance of one critical substance: salt. The territory is home to massive salt flats that can be mined for their salt, and this alone makes up the backbone of its trading economy. Earth flighters love their salt - there's essentially no dish in their repertoire that doesn't use it to some capacity. Plague cuisine tends to favor strong, meaty flavors. They like their meat juicy, bleeding, and fresh. Given the land's propensity towards hunting parties and scavenger behavior, dishes tend to be local. Cooking is quite widespread, though. Most notably: stews. Plague dragons almost invariably boil their water before they drink it to rid it of potential diseases, and eventually somebody got the bright idea to drop some bits of food in the water as it heated. Plague is adaptive and will use whatever foods they find in their stews, so again, recipes are local, but a wide variety of meats are the most common. Bordering Wind, Plague also imports a very high amount of spices. Their region lacks the widespread farming arrays that would enable it to make spices on a large scale, and many from the flight love the extra kick spices give to their food. Ice food is hearty, with a solid serving of both meats and vegetables, sourced locally. Their distance from the rest of the world means that their food has remained the most traditional and locally-sourced of Flight cuisine, virtually unchanged for hundreds - if not thousands - of years. Most dishes use some sort of meat, typically deer, caribou, or rabbit. With a large population of Tundras, they also grow all manner of vegetables. Many in the Ice flight like to make use of all parts of a carcass, not just the meat. Tools, including utensils, are carved from bones. Hides are used as clothing and shelter. Organs may also be eaten - most of Ice's more 'out there' dishes involve some sort of strange organ, like a deer stomach that's been cleaned out and filled with a variety of seasonal fruits and vegetables. Nature food is also filled with both meat and plants, though has a much higher percentage of fruit-based dishes. Many foods utilize some sort of complimentary fruit, either as a side or as additional flavoring to the primary ingredient. As most inhabitants are the voraciously meat-consuming Wildclaws, their dishes tend to have a high amount of meat, and are cooked and flavored accordingly. Nature dragons like to slow-roast their food, cooking it until the meat's tender enough to rip apart with a fork and practically falls apart in your mouth. I like to think that Nature also is a big fan of sour and savory flavors - many of their dishes utilize things like lemons, limes, and pineapples. Light food isn't the tastiest, but it sure is the flashiest. Of the Flights, Light food is the showiest, and its bakers are exceptionally skilled in the art of making their dishes look the best. Light dragons have a propensity for large-scale feasts and celebrations. They bake insanely huge, mastercrafted cakes, and host banquets filled with exotic dishes from all around the world. Original Light cuisine is heavy on grains and dairy, creating all manner of beautifully knotted breads and succulent cheeses and butters. It also imports the most amount of ingredients and recipes; while it's hard to find a non-Light ethnic dish in Light that's as good as the originals back home, it's typically nothing to shake a stick at. Finally, we have Water. Water - what a shocker - really really likes seafood. As many spices and foods can't be transported properly underwater, they're quite uncommon, found only along the coastline and in the homes of those with the resources to magically ensure that their imports don't get ruined on the way down. They like fresh, raw fish, and probably also create something very much like sushi. They can't roast anything underwater, so they boil it all instead. Cuisine on the few over-land parts of the territory is heavily influenced by its neighbors, Lightning, Light, and Fire, and is just as varied.