THE COOKBOOK TEST #0039: HEROES' FEAST: FLAVORS OF THE MULTIVERSE, AN OFFICIAL D&D COOKBOOK

INSTALLMENT #0039 (PAID) AN HEROIC QUEST... FOR NARRATIVE COHERENCE! / A NOTE ON SETTING / GREEN OR BLUE ICE RIME / AH, BEER BREAD / "GOLDENSTARS" / THRAKEL ME THIS, BATMAN

Dear Subscribers,

This week's book is pretty close to my heart. HEROES' FEAST: FLAVORS OF THE MULTIVERSE, AN OFFICIAL D&D COOKBOOK combines three things that I have incredibly strong feelings about: cooking, Dungeons and Dragons, and mercilessly roasting terrible writing.

The interstitial writing of Heroes' Feast is bad. It's real bad. It's worse than encountering a raiding party of githyanki while carrying a stolen vorpal sword. Worse than encountering a rust monster while wearing a brand new suit of neatly polished plate mail. Worse than talking to Demogorgon and dropping an unintentionally insulting remark ... well, you get the point. It's bad. 

Laden with exclamation points, nonsense words, and hammy outbursts, the writing of Heroes' Feast is meant to conjure up the excitement and fun of a great session of D&D, but what it mostly manages to do is make you wonder whether you ever actually had fun playing what is obviously the weakest-ass game in the history of extremely wack pastimes.

Here, I'll open the book at random and quote you some text:

Despite its reputation as a puritanical theocracy, Eberron's central Khorvaire nation of Thrane has a long and storied culinary tradition. Their culinary mastery is on no greater display than during the Feast of the Silver Flame, where one dish stands above the rest: Thrakel-Seared Beef in Red Sauce.

Oh my God. Who the hell cares. Even if I were DMing a campaign set in the central Khorvaire nation of Thrane, there is absolutely no way I could possibly begin to care about this mind-meltingly pointless tripe.

The whole book is like this. "Oooooooooooo The Corsairs of Megadoodoo are famous for their billowing crimson and vermillion mumus and also for their dining habits, which in keeping with the traditions of... let's see... uhm... OH YES! The Ancient Bloopian Acolytes of the Inner Blipblop Isles! That sounds good! Yes, in keeping with that, they tend to hew toward the preserved meats of wyverns, owlbears, and... basilisks!!” [THE RECIPE THAT FOLLOWS IS FOR A HAM SANDWICH]

Fortunately, the interstitial writing has absolutely no bearing on the book's actual content. The book's harebrained organizational scheme (recipes organized into menus sorted by D&D fantasy universes) has slightly more bearing, in that it's completely inscrutable and useless, but, again, you can pretty much forge past it and get to the food with enough grit and determination.

Except... wait, you can't just forge past it and get to the food, because the food has IMPENETRABLE NAMES that are also INCREDIBLY STUPID. It's very difficult to just guess that "Goldenstars" are leek-, sausage- and potato-stuffed appetizers and "Sornstag" is a venison roast and "Tears of Selune" is fish skewers and "Green Ice Rime" is minty, creamy jello. And how would you like a heaping helping of Undermountain Alurlyath? Well, it'll come in a glass, because it's a drink. Kind of? Cucumber? Honey? Sherry? Seltzer? OK, sort of a Pimm's Cup? 

Why would fish skewers be called the tears of anybody, anyway? That’s CLEARLY a drink! You drink tears! You cannot and do not drink skewers!

Nothing seems to emerge organically from a culinary landscape inhabited by people harvesting comprehensible produce and animals - the book is a chaotic jumble of absurdly named nonsense with only the loosest and most impenetrable of themes tying together its different menus. It is also therefore a powerful argument against writing a cookbook with five other people.

Despite all of that - nay, because of that - I enjoyed reading this book. Every recipe is initially bewildering, and you have to pick through the ingredients and method for minutes at a time before the actual point resolves itself. ("Ah, it's garlic bread for lizard men.") And, as you'll see below, although the recipe quality varies quite a bit, the actual execution is fairly straightforward, making it a good book for beginning cooks.

at your service,

James

HEROES' FEAST: FLAVORS OF THE MULTIVERSE, AN OFFICIAL D&D COOKBOOK
BY KYLE NEWMAN, JON PETERSON, MICHAEL WITWER, AND SAM WITWER
RECIPES BY ADAM RIED
PHOTOGRAPHS BY RAY KACHATORIAN
TEN SPEED PRESS | 2023 | $35    

I am a second generation Dungeons and Dragons player, since my dad and Uncle Phil started playing it not long after its popularization in the 1970s, within a short hop from the place it was invented (Lake Geneva, Wisconsin). I'm therefore pretty deeply steeped in the game. I'm not particularly proud of that, but I will say that D&D (beyond being highly entertaining), helped teach me to write, and it singlehandedly taught me how to run efficient meetings.

At its roots, D&D had a pretty gnarly core. It's Ren Fest, sure, but it's also Tolkien, and Beowulf, and H.P. Lovecraft, and it's also black metal - you got your twee elves and Thrakel-Seared beefs, sure, but you also have half-orc assassins with a lovingly detailed hierarchy of different poisons that they use, and cults sacrificing the innocent to specific demonic powers from the lower planes, and the in-game worship of real, historically grounded gods and goddesses. 

The thing that makes it actually fun, I think, is that you get to dip into a slice of human history and culture with a veneer that is equal parts fantasy and horror. I set my first campaign in a generic swords-and-sorcery world, but my second (DMed as an adult) was set around the shores of Lake Superior and the third was set in feudal Japan. Dipping into fictionalized slices of the real world gave these campaigns a real look and feel and tangible depth. 

All of modern, Wizards of the Coast, mass-marketed, Hollywood-ready D&D, by contrast, is a lot closer to Disney/Pixar than anything having to do with the game's origins. It's the proud Oomphalump Empire sailing their MickaMack Transport Galleons across the PuffPuff Sea to fight the fearsome Blorgh UnderRealm (orcs with better skincare.) 

By divesting the game from anything controversial (demons, gods, actual human history and culture) D&D became sanitized and easier to market. It also got extremely boring, and that comes through strongly in Heroes' Feast, a witches' brew of nonsense words and places with nothing behind them save for a long series of indifferently written trade paperbacks and campaign modules.

All that said: Do the recipes work? Yes. And sort of. And not at all. 

THE RECIPE SO BAD MY KIDS ARE SAVING IT FOR APRIL FOOL'S DAY 2025

Green Ice Rime caught my eye because it was homemade Jell-O (I've never made jell-o the hard way before), made with milk (ooh, creamy!), and flavored with mint extract (which I've never tried before in this setting.) If it succeeded, it could be, at worst, an entertaining dessert for the 12-and-under set, a group I have to cook for quite frequently.

I didn't have green food coloring handy, so I used blue. The final result looked pretty entertaining nevertheless, and my kids were excited to jiggle it and give it a taste:

But! Does "2 tsp mint extract" sound like a lot to you for 4 1/2 cups of jell-o? It sounded like a lot to me, but I followed the instructions as written like a good halfling paladin, or whatever. The result was gelatinized mint toothpaste, minus the cavity-fighting fluoride.

The kids had a really giddy love-hate relationship with the Ice Rime, and they want to make it again to prank their mom on April Fool’s Day next year. Please don't warn her.

Ultimately though: Very, very bad. Would not make again. Went directly into the compost.

BEER BREAD: EVEN A DRUNKEN KOBOLD COULDN'T MESS THIS UP

Every once in a while, I crave a hot piece of bread slathered in honey and butter. (Yes, I have hobbit-like taste at times, and yes, I would have said bread with a nice big mug of tea on the side.) 

Historically beer bread has been my go-to for all "it's just gotta be bread" needs - it takes about five minutes to throw the dough together, there's no proofing or kneading or fussing, and it comes out a little bit beer-y, quite a bit buttery, and very much ready for honey and additional butter as it emerges from the oven steaming hot.

The Heroes' Feast beer bread (from Fortune's Wheel, "an upscale canteen in Sigil's aristocratic Lady's Ward" [1]) gets the job done. It's beer bread! It's identical to every other beer bread I've made or tasted, "as middling as the common brew," to quote the recipe's flavor text describing other, supposedly lesser beer breads.

My only complaint is the final line of the recipe: "Serve barely warm or at room temperature." To hell with that, eat this right out of the oven in big hot gooey chunks.

ORDINARY BEER BREAD
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
|1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
One 12-oz. bottle of ale
3 Tbsp butter, melted

Preheat oven to 375 and hit a 9x5" loaf pan with cooking spray.

Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and pepper in a bowl and whisk to incorporate. Add the beer and use a spatula to make a lumpy batter. Don't overmix. Pour the batter into the pan and spread it to the corners. Pour 2 Tbsp of melted butter over the batter.

Bake for about 30 minutes, take loaf out of oven, brush with remaining tablespoon of butter, rotate pan and return to oven for about 25 more minutes. A skewer should emerge from the center of the loaf quite clean. Immediately start slicing it up and spreading it with butter and honey. Have a cup of tea. Smoke your hobbit pipe if you've got one.

"GOLDENSTARS"

What are Goldenstars? Well, let's see what the header text has to say...

As you step onto the docks of Berdusk, the Jewel of the Vale - perhaps fresh off one of the many boats that ply the River Chionthar - 

Oh Christ. Never mind. They're savory hamantaschen, OK? Stuffed with bits of sausage, potatoes, and a leek gravy.

Two thoughts on these things: First, the pastry that the book calls for you to make is not very good. It's oil-based, claggy, clumsy, heavy, and unpleasant. It also had a tendency to unfold while being baked, despite egg-washing and pinch-folding.

Were I to do this again, I'd try a more conventional pie crust and see how it worked out - it might lack some of the structural integrity, but it probably wouldn't taste like plaster, and that would be a real plus.

Second, the filling is actually quite delicious. I make a leek gravy chicken pot pie (thanks, Epicurious) and this filling takes some hints from that wonderful method.

PRETTY TASTY LEEK AND SAUSAGE FILLING
1 1/2 tsp neutral oil
One 4-ounce mild-flavored fresh sausage, casing removed
3/4 cup diced peeled Yukon Gold potato
1/4 cup water
Kosher salt
1 Tbsp butter
1 1/4 cups loosely packed very thinly sliced leeks, white and light green parts cleaned and halved lengthwise before slicing
1 1/2 tsp fresh thyme, chopped
1 1/2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
3/4 cup chicken broth
Black pepper
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

Line a plate with a paper towel.

Add oil to a nonstick skillet on medium heat. Add the sausage and cook, stirring and breaking it up, about 3 minutes. With a slotted spoon, transfer sausage to plate.

Add potato, water, 1 pinch of salt to skillet and cook, stirring to prevent sticking, for about 6 minutes until potato starts to soften. Add the butter, swirling to coat pan. Add leek, thyme, 1 pinch salt, and cook, until softened, 2 minutes. Add flour and cooking, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes. Add broth, stirring constantly and scraping skillet bottom, until thickened, about a minute. Add reserved sausage, and stir to incorporate. Remove skillet from heat, cool for 10-15 minutes, and stir in parsley, adjusting seasoning if needed.

THRAKEL ME THIS, BATMAN

The Thrakel-Seared Beef Recipe does not describe what "thrakel" is, nor does it describe how it sears the beef. It does describe the dish as an "explosion of flavor renowned through Eberron." Great. Love to eat stuff that's popular in Eberron.

All you really need to know about this dish is that it's a pretty good beef stir fry. Possibly an excellent beef stir fry? My kids absolutely loved it, and I had to admit that the dish provided a lot of balanced flavor by marinating the beef, hitting the pan with a concentrated BAM!-style glop of ginger, garlic, and scallions, and then blasting everything with a pretty decent ketchup-based sauce.

Of the four recipes from this book that I tried, this is the one I'd go back for.

PRETTY GOOD BEEF STIR FRY

1 pound flank steak, trimmed of fat, cut across grain into 1/2-inch thick slices, each strip cut crosswise into thirds

Marinade
1 Tbsp rice wine or dry sherry
1 Tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp sugar

Sauce
1 Tbsp rice wine or dry sherry
1/2 tsp cornstarch
2 Tbsp chicken broth
2 tsp rice vinegar
2 tsp toasted sesame oil
3 Tbsp ketchup
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper

Ginger-Garlic Paste
1 Tbsp grated fresh ginger
1 Tbsp pressed or grated garlic
6 scallions, trimmed, white parts minced (reserve green parts cut into 1/2-inch pieces)
2 tsp neutral oil

1 pound plum tomatoes, cored and cut into 1/2" pieces
1 medium onion, halved from pole to pole and sliced lengthwise

Combine marinade ingredients in medium bowl and whisk to blend. Immerse beef, stir to coat, and rest at room temperature for 15-30 minutes.

In small bowl, combine sauce ingredients and stir to blend well.

In another small bowl, combine paste ingredients, stir to mix, and set aside.

In large nonstick skillet over high heat, warm 1 Tbsp of neutral oil to shimmering. Swirl to coat skillet, and add half the beef in a single layer. Cook for about a minute on each side, and transfer to a large bowl when finished. Repeat with other half of the beef.

Adjust heat to medium-high, add 1 tsp of neutral oil to skillet, and warm until shimmering. Add tomatoes, toss to coat, and arrange in a single layer. Cook undisturbed until brown on bottom, about 3 minutes. Remove half the tomatoes to the bowl with the beef. 

Add the onion to the skillet and cook for about 1 1/2 minutes. Add the scallion greens and cook until they wilt, about 1 1/2 minutes. Clear the center of the pan and cook the ginger-garlic paste, stirring and mashing, until fragrant, about 30-60 seconds. Whisk the ketchup mixture to recombine, add to the skillet, and stir until thickened, about 30-60 seconds. Return the beef and cooked tomatoes to the pan, and stir constantly until heated through and combined with sauce, about a minute.

Serve immediately with white or brown rice.

THE VERDICT ON HEROES' FEAST
(BUY IT / ***BORROW IT*** / SKIP IT / SCRAP IT)

While I wish I hand't paid full retail for this aggressively weird turkey of a cookbook, I did in fact enjoy it for all its B-movie nuttiness and general eccentricity. If you're the kind of person who likes bad art and/or have a D&D background, the book's well worth a look or a check out from the library; I'd caution you against buying it, but, as they say at the Hundred-Year Market in Haverford's Landing, "a firmly locked treasure chest is a Mind Flayer's bargain!"

[1] NOTE: OH MY GOD THIS ABSOLUTELY BLOWS