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airlock · 5 years ago

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so, folks, having put a great deal of time into staring at the dining hall menu on Fire Emblem: Three houses, I decided to attempt a fun little exercise: what if I set about putting together a list of what my dislikes, neutrals and likes from the list would be if I were attending Garreg Mach?

and see... due to my presently undiagnosed neurodivergence, I have a hypersensitive palate, as well as a hypersensitivity to textures. I have been described by sufficiently rude people as “difficult to feed”. if y’all have seen and remember that one post where you tally up everything you would eat and get a higher score the less of a picky eater you are, well, I scored like a two or a four on that. so, y’know... this is going to be fun y’all

The Wretched Food Sins (dislikes)

Beast Meat Teppanyaki, Pickled Rabbit Skewers, Gronder Meat Skewers, Garreg Mach Meat Pie

see, I’m just going to get this one out of the way immediately: I don’t like red meat. when I tell people that, their first assumption is usually that I’m a vegan or avoiding the shitload of growth hormones or whatever, but no, I still eat some other types of meat and health is obviously not a priority in my diet; I just find that red meat tastes and feels something awful. we clear? we clear.

Onion Gratin Soup

(Onions stewed with white trout and baked with a layer of cheese on top. Will warm you up from the inside out.)

onions I’m also not very fond of. when they’re used for flavor, they’re normally used in small enough amounts to be safely ignored, but here it seems that the idea is to eat whole baked onions off a soup, like... is that a thing that human people do with the single lives that they have??

Country-Style Red Turnip Plate

(A balanced meal including red turnip and verona stew, red turnip salad, and sautéed red turnip with garlic.)

just not sure about this one; I mean, it’s not that I actually recall ever eating a turnip, or that a “verona” is a real vegetable that I can compare to any extant thing... I just don’t think I’ve ever had a good time attempting to eat a plateful of vegetables and I don’t have much faith that the monastery cantina is breaking new ground there

Vegetable Stir-Fry

(A dish of dried tomatoes, cabbage, chickpeas and other vegetables, stir-fried with egg. Nutritious and very filling.)

I might just be mixing up terms, but if I understand correctly, I’ve never heard of stir-frying before. it sounds like a cool thing, though! I do love the the idea of using egg as a base for this, too! it’s a pity that they then proceed to pick nothing but ass ingredients for the entire rest of this particular recipe

Fish and Bean Soup

(A soup made by simmering white trout and chickpeas. A simple yet wholesome dish.)

sorry, head chef, beans are a horrific mouthfeel and you cannot and will not convince me that a dish featuring them is uwu wholesome

Pickled Seafood and Vegetables

(A Dagdan dish of raw fish and turns pickled in a vinegar-based seasoning liquid. Rarely eaten in Fódlan.)

so, I’ve actually had the idea for this post quite a ways ago, and one of the very first things I had in mind was the precise burn I was going to deliver unto the smell of vinegar. right? thing is, it’s been so long since then that the anedocte I was going to use as a delivery vector for that burn has since taken a dark turn. it won’t really be worth the while to unpack it at this point, so I’ll just skip to the punchline: the smell of vinegar is indistinguishable from the smell of dog piss

Cabbage and Herring Stew

(Cabbage and Albinean Herring stewed whole. The fish guts lend this hearty dish a superbly bitter kick.)

ew, what the hell? what sort of florida man recipe is this? “oh, let’s stew some fish, but make sure the entirety of its intestines are stewing in there so that the final product can punch you in the mouth with bitterness”. what? who’s that supposed to appeal to? I can understand this being one of Hubert’s favorite meals but why would absolutely anyone else do this to themselves? and it’s with this demon fodder here that we finish the hell section on an absolutely burning note and proceed to...

The Purgatory of Eh, I Guess, Maybe (neutral)

Pheasant Roast with Berry Sauce

(Well-roasted Fódlan pheasant drizzled with a berry reduction sauce.)

we’re getting somewhere; poultry is like, 80% of the protein in my diet, and sweetness is precisely the only flavor I can tolerate in major excess. alas, in gastronomy, one plus one doesn’t always make two; I’m not sure this combination here works or just clashes frontally

Vegetable Pasta Salad

(Pasta with a blend of fresh vegetables from various regions of Fódlan. This popular dish sells out almost instantly.)

we’re out of the hated food list, but that doesn’t mean you’re safe yet from listening to me maw about foods that are supposed to be super common!

you know how I prefer to take my pasta? over water, butter or olive oil with absolutely no sauce. additional seasoning also needs not apply, although salt is welcome. fun fact: my ideal instant noodle is cooked with only a small amount of flavoring powder. so yeah, there you have it, that’s the “hey guys I eat bread with nothing in it and have a good time” moment of the jour

but back to the point -- how does this particular pasta measure up? well, I took a look at the in-game model of it and it appears to pass the most important bar: no sauce -- or, at least, if there was any, it was thick and yellow and it made a fool of me. anyways, I might not particularly dig some of the vegetables thrust into the pasta here, but the beauty of it is that I can probably pick and choose which ones I will actually eat, which makes this a solid ehhh it’s solvable

Fruit and Herring Tart

(A baked tart with stewed herring and Noa fruit mixed into the batter. Popular in Enbarr, the Imperial Capital.)

again, I don’t object to the components but I’m not sure about it all adds together. is that a real thing, like, putting a god damn fish into your fruit pie mix?

Fish Sandwich

(A simple dish. Airmid Cabbage is pickled in vinegar and served with cabbage between two slices of bread.)

a fish sandwich plain and simple, I would happily chow down; fish is the other one of my acceptable meats, after all. thing is, as non-domestic sandwiches usually do, this one comes with a bunch of add-ons that I absolutely do not want and it’s hard to tell how much can be salvaged. like, there’s old man vinegar/piss again, and besides, I swear I’ve eaten leaves off the ground that had better texture than cabbage. so, like, can we go even simpler, head chef? bread, fish, and no wicked ideas?

Spicy Fish and Turnip Stew

(Spicy stew made with Teutates loach and turnips. The monastery’s unique recipe features spices from Dagda.)

come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever eaten a stew. if it’s very much like a soup, then it might have as much of an annoying texture as one, but if it’s just a soggy filet, then that might work out. anyway, between that and the non-specification of what those spices from Dagda are intended to do with the recipe, I’d have to taste it to believe it

Super-Spicy Fish Dango

(A light snack, popular in the Empire. Small, spicy balls of fried dough packed with white trout and dried tomato.)

ugh, that was so close. fried dough and fish sounds AMAZING, it really does. but the first strike here is “super-spicy”; I did mention having a hypersensitive palate, yes? now add that to the fact that I’m white. the real crushing sin here, however, is the inclusion of fucking tomato. we were so close to greatness! we were this close! anyways, depending on how exactly the dried tomato is meant to be implemented here, it might be possible to just pull it out with a fork and accept the mouth-hurting substances in a bid to have a good time anyway

Sweet and Salty Whitefish Sauté

(Whitefish is coated in spices and sautéed with dried tomatoes to bring out an addictive salty-sweet flavor.)

tomatoes again! seriously, you creeps keep throwing that in with one of my sole acceptable approaches to meat! although fortunately, I gather that, with this one, the goal is not for the tomatoes to be eaten, just popped on the juice that this fish is jumping around in while it roasts, so maybe there’s salvation for it yet... I do want to find out whatever in the world an “addictive salty-sweet flavor” is supposed to mean, admittedly

Sautéed Pheasant and Eggs

(Thin slices of bird meat and shredded cabbage, mixed with scrambled eggs and sautéed with spices. Invention of a certain noble.)

again, we broke it right at the finish line. I like the idea of a pile of chicken strips and scrambled eggs; would have some fun digging through it and all. alas, Alfred von Certain Noble had to go and throw cabbage into the mix. at least, maybe, if it’s shredded, then the awful texture is eliminated and that makes it straight-up just eating some leaf? it might be sufficiently non-intrusive

Gautier Cheese Gratin

(A gratin of bird meat topped with heaps of Gautier cheese, which is famous for its low fat content. It has a unique flavor.)

I... do I want to know what “unique flavor” this is? because chicken gratined with cheese sounds good, but you could potentially go wrong with the type of cheese, and the fact that this apparently counts as a bitter dish doesn’t leave me particularly hopeful...

Small Fish Skewers

(Made by grilling skewered Airmid gobies. With a muddy flavor and dry texture, this dish is beloved by few.)

okay, yeah, “muddy flavor and dry texture” isn’t exactly the sales pitch of the year, but these sound like reasonably ignorable things in favor of what would just be grilled fish on a skewer with no more of those terrible nonsense ideas like adding some fucking tomato

Fried Crayfish

(Fried and breaded Caledonian crayfish. Looks much tastier than it actually is.)

looks are all we have to go by here, but besides that, intsys, you’ll have a lot of labor to do if you want to convince me that a fried and breaded anything isn’t good if it’s not, like, inherently ass as an ingredient. what keeps this one from reaching the heavens is most likely not the taste or the feel itself, but mostly just the fact that I’m probably allergic to shrimp

The Blessed And Divine (likes)

Saghert and Cream

(A baked confection coated with Noa fruit cream and a currant reduction, often enjoyed as a dessert at family gatherings.)

first, I have to get this much out of the way: does anyone know what the hell a saghert even is? cursory searching has only led me to results about Fire Emblem, so it might be a made-up word altogether...

... that said, the aforementioned cursory searching has also brought me to this blog where I got to see someone’s idea of what the thing would be in real life, and the result is definitely something I’d want in my mouth, stomach, and soul, so there we go!

Sweet Bun Trio

(Traditional pastries from Faerghus, known for their subtle sweetness. The dough is made with eggs and sugar.)

is this supposed to be like sweetbread or like, dumplings, which might actually be made with eggs and sugar...? oh, who am I kidding, I’d scarf the hell out of either one. and hey, no need to be subtle with the sweetness, either!

Peach Sorbet

(A sorbet made with thin slides of magically frozen peach, dusted with bean flour.)

o, ice cream... I have a rather layered relationship with that one. I’m never one to turn down plain desserts, least of all when tradition also permits me to dump six layers of whatever the hell else to (sweetly) spice it up, but the hypersensitivity in my mouth also extends to temperatures, and ice cream is normally and understandably served in very low ones. I usually try eating when it’s, like, nearly melting or already melting... but is that even on the table if we’re talking about pre-refrigeration ice cream made with very strangely applied magic? thoughts to mull over. but I won’t let them get in the way of yum, ice cream

Daphnel Stew

(Minced poultry and onions boiled with salt. The simple recipe lets high-quality ingredients speak for themselves.)

simplicity goes a long way, as usual! again, I have no idea how a stew tastes, but again, poultry is pretty much the backbone of my diet, and I suppose it doesn’t sound objectionable to take it soaked in saltwater. at least, if I’m presuming that the onions are there for flavoring the stock and not once more for the absurd suggestion that I should be eating them whole

Deirdriu-Style Fried Pheasant

(Pheasant meat pounded flat and fried. Can be served as a sort of sandwich, with cheese between two strips of meat.)

holy shit this sounds great. like, I want this in real life, especially the whole pseudo-sandwich arrangement. I’m optimistically assuming that we’re picking a decent type of cheese and not, like, cheddar, but that's really the only possible stumbling block

Grilled Herring

(Herring caught off the coast of Albinea, shredded and grilled in an earthenware pot with sliced turnips.)

I’ve expressed not being familiar with the taste of turnips, but even if I hate those too, it sounds like it’s pretty easy to ignore them here in favor of what’s just some shredded and grilled fish, which hits the spot

Fisherman’s Bounty

(Freshly-caught fish are cut into chunks and stewed together to make this hearty dish.)

right, so I’m not actually 100% sure about this one, if only because the model of the dish appears to contain some unidentifiable bits of disgusting red whatever, but if the description alone covers it, this just seems to be plain and nice

Two-Fish Sauté

(Two types of fish are cut into strips and sautéed in butter. This lavish meal hails from Enbarr, the Imperial Capital.)

and this sounds similarly plain and nice, but also even better, because the sautéeing in butter sounds like a great addition. now we’re finally on the right track with regards to fish meals! keep the red devil testicle fruits away from those!

Bourgeois Pike

(A gourmet dish with Airmid Pike, vegetables, and a sprinkle of expensive spices. Popular among nobles.)

the punchline writes itself, doesn’t it? but don’t get me wrong -- while I haven’t grown up wanting for money, being bourgeoisie is just what my family wishes were the case.

as for the meal itself: the in-game model appears to be just fish filet, served without any gross sauce, so I’ll happily take it, as long as this “sprinkle of expensive spices” isn’t doing anything too janky in there. ... but hey, most expensive things exist primarily for the purpose of being janky, so maybe I’m being too optimistic

Sautéed Jerky

(Jerky aged in the monastery and sautéed for a delightfully salty flavor. A perfect snack to go with your favorite drink.)

my first instinct was to throw this right onto the undesirable meat section because it’s jerky, but apparently, this is poultry jerky? I’ve never heard of such a thing existing, but I need to try it sometime. for now, I’ll just assume it’s as good as it sounds

so, there you have it! it seems that quite a bit more of this menu is edible than I would have expected? or perhaps I’m just being very optimistic, since I’m not face-to-face with whatever offputting smells and textures I could potentially be dealing with here

#my stupid text posts #Fire Emblem is tagged in this post #Fódlan FE is tagged in this post

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