#and best of luck with both your foraging/feasting and dungeons & dragons

[astriiformes]

Hey Nate! Now that my group is playing dnd in person again, we are thinking of ways to incorporate dnd themed food into game days, because we usually play through a mealtime. As a forager and local cool ingredient expert, do you have any thoughts on non traditional foods or ingredients that can be fun to include? (i am willing to forage but i know. nothing. so maybe easy mode for those suggestions haha)

Hm! Well one of my first suggestions would have been spruce tips, since forest vibes are often good for D&D, they are very accessible and easy to safely identify even if you don't know much about plants, and you can do quite a few things with them (tea, syrups, even just eating as is). Tragically they're just out of season, though, so maybe next spring! The same goes for fiddleheads, which are only tricky in that you need to make sure you are gathering ostrich ferns specifically, but are also one of those things that look so whimsical many people are surprised to learn they're real.

Things that might be more in season right now:

Foraged mushrooms, definitely, some of which are actually pretty beginner friendly. Chanterelles seem like one that have a bit of a fantasy feel, and aren't too hard to learn how to ID safely.

As summer goes on you could also do some berry-picking, which is about as safe as foraging gets if you're gathering something distinctive like blackberries or raspberries, and while they may not be non-traditional, foraged ones are often much more flavorful (plus you get that special satisfaction that you picked them yourself -- maybe even with the friends you game with!).

Elderflower/elderberries are also somewhat entrenched as fantasy staples (thinking about the elderflower cordial that cropped up a lot in the Redwall books), and eminently foragable

Wild roses and rose hips are probably just about in season as well -- rosewater was a common ingredient in many medieval recipes, so it would be perfect for trying in D&D-inspired dishes as well!

Juniper "berries" are a little more of a toss-up, but something you might consider. They've traditionally been used as a cooking spice of sorts and are another one that feels right to me for some fantasy foods

Lastly, if you're interested in making some teas to drink while you play, I have found that ground ivy (also known as "Creeping Charlie," which is what most folks I know have called it) makes for a very forest-y brew. I don't like it as much on its own, but paired with mint or spruce flavors it starts to taste like the closest thing I've ever had to an Entdraught

Also, as the year goes on and we creep into fall/winter: Acorns take a fair bit of prep on the cooking end, but are obviously very beginner friendly in terms of IDing them, feel extremely fantasy, and have a fantastic flavor. My acorn birthday cake last year had almost a gingerbread-y flavor, entirely thanks to the nuts! You also find black walnuts by the dozens here in Minnesota (and nuts are one of the things that are almost always fair game to take in the public lands that allow foraging here). Black trumpets are also very distinctive, beginner friendly muchrooms that grow later in the season here, and make a fun, deep black broth with a sort of magic/witchy feel. And in fall and into the winter, I highly recommend looking for chaga -- it's a weird mushroom that grows on birch trees that is often ground up and prepped as a tea or a cocoa additive (and thus the most Caduceus Clay thing in existence).

Lastly, you also might consider having a look at The Wondersmith's blog! She's a favorite source of mine for fun foraged recipe inspiration, and leans extremely fantasy-oriented. Worth noting that she's in the PNW, not the Midwest, but there's still a fair bit of crossover when it comes to some of the foraged ingredients she uses, and her ideas are all inspired. I highly recommend scrolling through her blog sometime.