People can stop complaining about "historically inaccurate foods" in their RPGs now

[MGibster]

In 2024, someone complained on Twitter (shocking!) about that image of a Heroes Feast spell conjuring dishes that would plausibly appear in a fantasy planet with a decent amount of travel, trade, and emigration. “No! Europe only!” Really, they meant their idea of a Europe-analogous fantasy world.

Way back in the 1980s, Greyhawk had a restaurant that specialized in spicy BBQ pork ribs. It's hard for me to get upset about what might appear in a Hero's Feast.

 

[Tea Cozy]

Way back in the 1980s, Greyhawk had a restaurant that specialized in spicy BBQ pork ribs. It's hard for me to get upset about what might appear in a Hero's Feast.

Was the meat sauce at least mustard-based—with none of those “love apples”?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

In 2024, someone complained on Twitter (shocking!) about that image of a Heroes Feast spell conjuring dishes that would plausibly appear in a fantasy planet with a decent amount of travel, trade, and emigration. “No! Europe only!” Really, they meant their idea of a Europe-analogous fantasy world.

Especially since the play style of D&D is actually very much United States Manifest Destiny.

A "Europe Only" D&D would be a lot of people killing each other over their nearly identical takes on the same religion, hiding from the local nobility, or occasionally following said nobility on a bloody invasion of another region.

Running around in dungeons, stealing treasure from tombs, it would not be.

 

[overgeeked]

Amen. Unless a game is based on real-world history and harps on how historically accurate it is, then historical accuracy is irrelevant.

 

[Autumnal]

More seriously: the kind of historical accuracy that castigates Sam Gamgee for talking about poe-tae-toes is not something I think is worth worrying about. So much about our conceptions of Medieval Fantasy is just plain wrong that I can't be bothered to worry about when potatoes, tomatoes or sandwiches entered the European lexicon.

Numenoreans brought potatoes and tomatoes to the mainland of Middle Earth. Any phule kno.

 

[Clint_L]

I my home campaign the party just celebrated their last night in the city of Nicodranas with nachos and margaritas at a pirate-themed restaurant called Coconuts.

 

[Koloth]

Considering that the whole point of the real history spice trade was so folks could enjoy tastes from 'not here', hard to argue that any food is historically not accurate for anyone wealthy enough to afford the transport costs. Also, any PCs that are not the game's equivalent of first level are almost always at least upper middle class if not outright wealthy and can afford exotic foods once in a while. What often gets forgotten in the debate over what happened after Columbus blundered into the 'New World' is his original quest was to find a cheaper spice trade route. Trading in food from 'not here' was and still is a fairly lucrative thing. Modern example, coffee.

 

[Tea Cozy]

Considering that the whole point of the real history spice trade was so folks could enjoy tastes from 'not here', hard to argue that any food is historically not accurate for anyone wealthy enough to afford the transport costs. Also, any PCs that are not the game's equivalent of first level are almost always at least upper middle class if not outright wealthy and can afford exotic foods once in a while. What often gets forgotten in the debate over what happened after Columbus blundered into the 'New World' is his original quest was to find a cheaper spice trade route. Trading in food from 'not here' was and still is a fairly lucrative thing. Modern example, coffee.

Another thing is that the particular image people got all bent out of shape over doesn’t depict adventurers at their local tavern or in someone’s home. They’re in a dungeon eating magically-conjured food. There’s a goblin in the background observing them.

Maybe the conjuring mage took requests from other party members. Maybe they remember dishes from their travels.

Still, these foods are probably available one way or another in a cosmopolitan hub like Waterdeep. Toril has airships and magic portals, after all. They’re not super common, but they exist. And let’s not forget good old sailing ships. Those are common.

 

[GMMichael]

I prefer carrot

View attachment 431736

Thanks to a thoroughly non-medieval grocery chain, I prefer broccoli on mine. I'm not a gnome, but I'm not fully human, either.

Also, I'm pretty sure that as long as there have been soldiers, there have been innovations like sandwiches.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Also, this 2,000 year old sandwich looks delicious.

The world’s oldest sandwich?? 🤔🤔🤔

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Nice, but the video maker DID make one error- the Ronans were making sandwiches in the 1st century AD, thousands of years before the Earl of Sandwich.