LE Nordic Cuisine - An idea I had in my mind

[Omeletter]

This is an idea I had in my mind for over half a year now. I'm now going to make it come true. This topic is just me throwing my ideas and taking notes, but your suggestions are welcome.

 

Nordic Cuisine

 

This is a mod that will add over a 100 of lore friendly recipes and ingredients. It will add fruit, vegetables, nuts, grain, fish, spices, etc. suitable for a Nordic climate and culture, which will allow you to create lots and lots of different dishes. I'm hoping to also implement two features that will set the mod apart from any other. They are - Butchering an animal and a food preparation menu.

 

Butchering an animal will allow you to, well, butcher an animal, allowing you to collect various cuts of meat. If it's an animal that you can normally eat - then you can butcher it, e.g. cows, deer, horkers (lots and lots of blubber), boars (Dragonborn DLC), wolves, rabbits, and horses. By butchering an animal, you will get cuts like these from it, and these cuts can be "refined" into smaller cuts, like the Chuck of a cow which can be turned into many different pieces as shown on the picture, which can be turned into many different recipes, or the whole chuck can be roasted, etc.

 

I'm hoping that I can get butchering to work like this, which I think is the best way.

 

1. You manage to kill a deer and snipe a rabbit dashing past.

 

2. You walk up to the killed animals and loot the hide and your arrows back.

 

3. You activate the "lesser power" butcher animal. Now, when you activate the deer, you will now be presented with a dialogue box asking you whether to loot or butcher it. You choose to butcher the deer. The screen fades to black for a few seconds, and when it restores, a couple of hours have passed, the deer is gone, and now you're overencumbered with over 200 units of deer cuts, offal, and bones. You limp up to the rabbit, activate it, and the dialogue box appears again. You choose to butcher it, and since it's quite small, the screen doesn't fade to black to pass the time, you simply grab the whole skinned rabbit with you, and you will also get offal like liver or heart. I might as well make a "Rabbit Hide" item, since it has its uses - you will be able to either turn it into 1 leather at the tanning rack or sell it.

 

4. You use the lesser power again to deactivate it, so the next animal you try to loot wouldn't present you with the dialogue box.

 

I think it's a good system. More realistic than simply looting massive pieces of meat immediately on the spot from the body in no time whatsoever. This also gets rid of the animal, because it's not there anymore. You've cut it up and grabbed it with you. I remember a mod for Fallout 3 called Amputate, where if you harvest something, that part of the body is removed. I wish this was implemented in Skyrim, so when you take some mudcrab legs, they get removed from the model. I don't think my system is going to be too hard to implement. It's essentially just a script that passes time, removes the animal, and adds a leveled list to your inventory, which contains the animal stuff.

 

You manage to get to your camp, although slowly, and now you're thinking of keeping the best cuts for yourself, and selling the rest, which will possibly give you about 150 or so gold - I'm hoping to make hunting a good way to earn money by rebalancing all existing, and food added by this mod to a realistic value. This is where the food preparation menu comes in. It will be activated by clicking a misc item or something. This menu is a dialogue box, similar to many configuration menus other mods have, e.g. Deadly Dragons, Dance of Death, or Frostfall. There will be categories for measuring out the ingredients, e.g. 1 sack of flour down to 4 bowls of flour, because you don't get 1 puny bread loaf from that much flour anymore, but you don't want to make 4, so you split it down, and use 1 bowl of flour to make 1 loaf.

 

In this case, however, you click the "Animal" category, click on "Deer", and choose the cut. The menu will show what you'll get and how much, and you click OK. You do that to the cuts you want to keep and cook for yourself, and put them away somewhere. You don't have to cut up the rabbit, you can if you want to get rabbit legs, etc.

 

I'm also going to change salmon fishing - you won't get a steak, you will get a salmon added to the inventory. It's up to you to use the preparation menu to carve it into pieces, or prepare it whole.

 

Another thing I'm thinking of is moving the recipes to their appropriate places. I will remove the ability to make "Roast X" from the cooking pot, for example, which will only allow you to make stews. However, I don't want to completely stop the player from using different cooking techniques, so 2 misc items will be implemented - Baking Stone and a Cast Iron Skillet. They will be found all over the world, and the baking stone will be craftable from 1 quarried stone at a smelter. These items will allow you to bake and fry/sauté things at the cooking pot. The idea behind this is that there's a source of heat that heats up the cooking pot, so you can use it to heat up the skillet. However, that doesn't mean you can make whatever you want anywhere. For example, the baking stone will only be useful for flatbread, hard tacks, or biscuits, but not for pies since they will need all around heat that the oven provides, not just the hot surface of the baking stone.

 

This is as far as I managed to develop the ideas in my mind. Right now I'm going to compile a list of foods that will make sense in Skyrim, look at Scandinavian cuisine, and then start to write an in-game book "Cuisine of Skyrim" that will have to be read before the player gets to use the food preparation or butchering abilities.

 

EDIT - Found something that will help me. Another thread about more lore friendly foods in Skyrim.

Edited December 28, 2012 by Omeletter

[Eckss]

I've had some thoughts on this topic, but I've only implemented them for myself as I'm not an artist and I think that such a Mod would need proper textures and meshes before publishing; Since I'm unlikely to unravel the mysteries of Nifscope or Blender any time soon, perhaps you’d be interested in some Ideas I’ve had, or, if you’re more of an artist and find the programming side of Modding difficult, some help?

 

Anyway, here are just a few ideas.

 

Beef stew: It’d be just as good with Horse or Venison for example. To this end, I thought of adding a generic ‘Fresh Meat’ ingredient that can come from almost any source and becomes an ingredient in generic meat recipes. This prevents the cooking menu and inventory being clogged up with 20 different versions of every meat dish.

 

Mudcrabs: All of Tamriel would eat these and there’d be multiple recipes for cooking them.

 

Spiders: These are just like Crabs and the only reason they’re not commonly eaten on earth is their lack of size – not a problem in Skyrim. Their meat would probably be interchangeable with crabmeat for recipes.

 

Nords are not the only people native to Skyrim, Orcs have been there forever and others like the forsworn Bretons and refugee Dunmer would definitely have added some of their recipes to the Nord diet. As a simple example, pizza is commonly consumed in scandanavia and is an Italian dish that evolved into it’s present form in America. In light of this, I thought to add a few racial speciality dishes.

 

Altmer coq au vin. Made with any bird meat.

Forsworn cheese-steak. Made with Horsemeat and juniper.

Cyrodilian Souffle. Made with three different kinds of egg.

Orcish chilli. Made with Human flesh of course (Remember all the Orcs in earlier games referring to you as meat).

Argonian Chowder. Made from clam and crabmeat.

Khajiit cous cous. Made from dog/wolfmeat.

 

What do you think?

 

Merry Yuletide.

Eck. :D

[Omeletter]

Some good ideas there. I wish I knew how to tackle nifskope. I can use blender as there are some good tutorials out there, but what do I do with nifskope?

 

Instead of having fresh meat, I'm going to allow the player to create same foods with different animals or cooking fat. Yes, horse is a good alternative according to wikipedia, just much leaner.

 

haha, you'd think I'd forget the mud crabs? I've read on wiki that some nordic country, I think Norway, has crab parties. Basically a seafood feast with crab being the main element - boiled and served with a couple of wedges of lemon, salt, pepper, some dill or parsley, and a drink like mead.

 

Thanks for the idea of spiders, never thought about them, but I did think of chaurus. This is a book in Skyrim.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Chaurus_Pie:_A_Recipe

 

You can create multiple dishes before even getting to the final product, the pie. You have raw chaurus, if you call that a dish, then you roast it, which sounds pretty good and edible. Meanwhile you got a sauce going. You can leave it at this and you got a pretty tasty meal. Or you can go on and make it into a pie, 2 variations, with turnips and without.

 

Yes, they certainly had to influence, and I will have to reflect that in the mod. I will add a few Breton dishes and put more emphasis on horse meat in places like Solitude, which will also enjoy a lot of various exports of foreign food and drink - many wines, cider, and different types of mead (dry, sweet, etc.) Will be added to the game in general. I also miss how in oblivion there was distinction - cheap wine vs expensive. Yes, argonian ale is going to be available. I will also have to make food reflect the status of people and the culture - Winterhold will have barely no fresh fruit or veg, perhaps having a lot of goods that doesn't spoil and tolerates the cold, maybe some fermented vegetables, Dawnstar will have lots of salmon and horker, Windhelm, in particularly the grey quarter, will have lots of salt rice and other things the Dunmer could have grabbed with them. You get the idea.

 

That, however, doesn't mean you won't be able to get horse in Whiterun or saltrice in Riften. I'm simply going to make more of said foods show up where they will make sense.

 

I've been thinking a lot about barrels and sacks you commonly see around. I'm planning to make the contents of them depend on the size, e.g. you wouldn't be able to find 3 sacks of flour in a sack the same size. Also, barrels will contain foods that undergo the process of fermentation, and beverages. Perhaps a 5 percent chance of a beverage barrel - mead, wine, etc. and a 5 percent chance of fermented food. Sacks will also contain long lasting foods like hard tacks - also called a sea biscuit, which can last months in proper conditions and is only edible when soaked, as it is nothing more than a rock hard piece of dough. Amount of salt will be increased. Seriously, how much salt is actually there in the sack if it lasts for 5 dishes? 1 kg of salt can last a long, long time. One sack will have to contain at least 16 salt piles. Maybe even more than 30.

 

Also I have thought about smoked salmon and such. Smoking will be done in an oven. That's the easiest, and most logical solution.

Edited December 28, 2012 by Omeletter

[Eckss]

Don’t forget the Nords should have lots of festivals to counteract the Seasonal Affected Disorder so prevalent in northern climes. I’ve been celebrating Yuletide vigorously and I think I’m in for the mother of all hangovers tomorrow. I’ll get back with any ideas when I feel human again. ;D

[Omeletter]

Hmm... In the creation kit, I can set a condition in a recipe to only show up at a certain day of the week. If there is one for a certain day of the year, then we can have festivals, celebrations, etc. Something like a recipe for a Christmas cake, only at Christmas... or should I say Saturalia? Edited December 30, 2012 by Omeletter

[ArronDominion]

I found this in the Creation Kit Wiki: http://www.creationkit.com/GetCurrentGameTime_-_Utility and http://www.creationkit.com/GameTimeToString_-_Utility could you use one of these to splice into the game month?

[Eckss]

Nice. :)

 

Some more Ideas:

 

Scandanavians eat a lot of wild mushrooms and I reckon several of the mushrooms in-game should be edible along with lots of other ingredients.

Beyond the obvious, (Honeycomb makes Honey) there are a few alchemy ingredients that can have a function in cuisine.

 

Namira’s Rot could take the place of Chillies.

White Cap could be a generic edible mushroom.

Thistles are edible and tasty – good for salads or stuffing.

 

Also, Leeks can be the Nord onion, a very important ingredient in most cultures.

 

As for sacks & barrels, remember that unpreserved or poorly preserved food rots and mushrooms are rot. Also insects often infest rotten food and are themselves edible and/or an ingredient.

 

Venison probably goes well with Snowberry sauce.

 

Don't forget sandwiches and handheld sweet or savory pastries

 

[Omeletter]

Yes, I've had some thoughts on fungi and wild herbs. Many of edible looking in-game mushrooms have negative first effects, but I can say that through cooking with Mountain Flowers, e.g. White Cap Mushrooms with Red Mountain Flowers remove the first negative effect (Weakness to Frost) and increase the potency of the Restore Magicka effect.

 

Mountain flowers will also have their use as salads that have weak restorative properties and are easy to make - no cooking pot needed. They will be made in the the Food Preparation menu.

 

Thistles will have a few recipes, thanks for the idea. I'm thinking of boiling, sauteing, or grilling the branches.

 

Like you said, it's an important ingredient in many cultures, so onions will be added by the mod, and leeks won't replace them, haha. The climate in some parts of Skyrim doesn't seem bad - onions can be grown.

 

Snowberry is going to become Skyrim's lingonberry. Watch out for sauces and jams.

 

I'm not so sure about sandwiches, however flatbread could be used as a vessel for more nutritious food such as meat or snowberry jam - which was the original purpose of the first "sandwiches", to deliver food to your mouth while keeping the fingers clean.

 

I've been thinking - Frost Mirriam looks like Parsley, and Elves Ear like Bay Leaves. I think that they should be used as such. I mean, you do see them drying in people's houses and they were commonly used herbs. The only herb left to add is Dill.

Edited December 31, 2012 by Omeletter

[Eckss]

Small quantities of ingredients that have negative first effects could be a good indication of flavour; Chillies are actually poisonous, as are onions and even chocolate.

EDIT: Oh, I agree with you on Frost Miriam and Elves Ear. Lavender is used in Horker Stew, so is probably Dill-like.

Edited December 31, 2012 by Eckss

[Omeletter]

I guess you're right. It does indicate flavour, and it's not like the effects of the ingredients are significant. They are something like 3% weakness to frost for 5 seconds. Nobody is going to notice them, especially after the ingredients have been cooked.

 

Lavender adds a "floral and slightly sweet flavor to most dishes, and is sometimes paired with sheep's-milk and goat's-milk cheeses." according to Wikipedia. Here's a picture of some amazing lavender cupcakes. Dill has a flavour of, well, dill. I'm not looking to cut corners by using some in-game alternative, so it's definitely going to be added.

Edited January 1, 2013 by Omeletter