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

[Tonguez]

More seriously: the kind of historical accuracy that castigates Sam Gamgee for talking about poe-tae-toes is not something I think us 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.

personally, I think its sad that potatoes are so ubiquitous as I absolutely love Turnips! and make a point of putting turnips, parsnips and beets in all the stews that the PCs come across in their European analogue worlds.

Of course I mainly play in a Eastern European/Balkans inspired setting so the food choices are broader with noodles and dumplings being enjoyed, as well as Krapfen 'donuts', pita breads, calzones, casata, nougat, sorbets and lots of spices

 

[Tonguez]

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.

thats one of those foreign Panini things, not a real two slabs of white bread and slice of roast beef Sandwich

 

[Committed Hero]

The Earl invented his sandwich for the reason best understandable to gamers - not wanting to leave the table to eat!

 

[Aldarc]

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

I tend to agree though I do appreciate when authors/designers take note of these little details. Likewise, I sometimes think that it is good to remove that sense of familiarity from players. Not everything grows everywhere, and some lands simply don't have these foods that we take for granted as a byproduct of international trade and refrigeration.

 

[GrimCo]

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

That one is British special.

Of course I mainly play in a Eastern European/Balkans inspired setting so the food choices are broader with noodles and dumplings being enjoyed, as well as Krapfen 'donuts', pita breads, calzones, casata, nougat, sorbets and lots of spices

And burek. Strong black coffee, burek and cigarette and you have balanced, nutritional full balkan breakfast

Balkan is interesting cause it's cultural mix and it reflects on it's cuisine. It's east, west and Mediterranean mix with local twist.

 

[Fenris-77]

No one needs to poke their sticky armchair history finger into my elf game buffets.

 

[djotaku]

We gamers sure are silly. Yeah, this world can have dragons and genies and humanoid cat-people, but get out of here with your modern food!

I know this tone doesn't fit every game, but I love that The Vast (Starfinder actual play) makes fun of this by either adding the word "space" or the prefix- "sp" to foods. Like "space pizza" or "spoodles and space broth"

But SPECIFICALLY when it comes to sandwiches - pretty much every culture on Earth has some kind of - "put stuff on bread" food whether it's pizza, tacos, Euro-style sandwiches, eating food with naan, eating food inside pita, etc. So it's not a stretch to imagine your fantasy world has some kind of sandwich situation going on.

Also, like others have mentioned - our ideas of what is realistic are completely out of whack with reality. There were African-descended folks in medieval Europe, some societies (the Eastern Roman empire) kinda never had a middle ages, while most people didn't travel a lot - some traveled QUITE a bit. This is older than medieval, but recent scholarship shows that the Cartheginian empire (Rome's foes) traded all the way up to Ireland for slaves (hundreds of years before the Roman Empire had expanded up into Britain). And, unless you're doing a historical TTRPG, real-life history doesn't matter anyway.

 

[GrimCo]

When i watched Delicious in dungeon it resonated cause we have been doing things like that in our games for years. It's make pretend game with fantastic critters. I wanna see some fried Kraken rings, dragon steak tartare made with roc eggs, gelatinous cube turkish delight. Things like that. Real dishes re imagined with fantasy ingredients.

 

[MGibster]

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

I'm pretty sure the proprietor wasn't Chaotic Evil, so obviously it wasn't mustard based.

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.

That the Earl of Sandwich invented the sandwich is one of those historical "facts" many of us were taught that just isn't quite the truth.

 

[overgeeked]

I tend to agree

Good.

though I do appreciate when authors/designers take note of these little details. Likewise, I sometimes think that it is good to remove that sense of familiarity from players. Not everything grows everywhere, and some lands simply don't have these foods that we take for granted as a byproduct of international trade and refrigeration.

Unless the game, story, etc is specifically about cooking and that lack of availability, I couldn’t care less about those details.