LE Nordic Cuisine - An idea I had in my mind

[Omeletter]

Ok, Half Life 2 wasn't as long as I expected, so I'm writing a part of what I wanted today.

 

Oh yeah, you're right about the taste. Boiled carrots with no salt. :sick: I guess boiling results in the most loss of vitamins, since they leech into the water. Raw ones taste pretty nice and sweet.

 

Overall, like you said, cooked food is the way to go, but like you said, it's not one sided, I mean I can't see myself cooking everything I eat. Some things are better off raw. Berries or fruit is an example, although pies and baked apples taste very good.

 

Pet food. No natural vitamins, most is just a bunch of crap mixed together, especially those dry ones. The cause of most health problems in pets, I'd wager. We try to feed our cat actual meat, but food cans once in a while aren't bad.

 

Ok, now the main part of this post. I'm going to update the food groups/lists I posted earlier, with some additions and changes.

 

Fruit

The majority of fruit recipes will be part of a pie, tartlet, etc. but some of them will be for the fruit as a whole. They are really simple, and will require few ingredients to make, e.g. baked apple.

 

Vegetables

First of all, courgette is another vegetable that will be added. Gourds will be treated as squash or marrow, and will have recipes as such, e.g. roasted gourd - 2 servings. Simply a gourd sliced in half and roasted with some salt.

 

Herbs and Spices

Here's a list of all herbs and spices that would be used as a seasoning for food. Some of them are technically not spices, e.g. lemons, but they are used as such.

 

Frost Mirriam = Parsley

Elves Ear = Bay Leaf

Dill

Lemon

Black Pepper

Cinnamon

Raisins - another one that I'll add, mostly for baked sweet cakes and breads.

Rosemary - I'm going to add this as it seems suitable for Skyrim. Very nice with roasts.

 

Garlic

Lavender

Juniper Berries

 

Cumin has been removed, as it doesn't seem that much suitable.

 

Thistle and Mountain Flowers are not used to flavour anything, but instead are used as an ingredient, e.g. mountain flower salad.

 

Beverages

In vanilla Skyrim, we have:

 

Ale, Argonian Ale, Argonian Bloodwine.

Cyrodilic Brandy, Colovian Brandy.

Nord Mead, Juniper Berry Mead, Ashfire Mead, Honningbrew Mead, Black Briar Mead, Black Briar Reserve, Dragon Breath Mead.

Wine, Alto Wine, Spiced Wine, Firebrand Wine, Surilie Brothers Wine.

Stros M'Kai Rum.

 

Items that are commonly found, not quest items, and can be bought are in bold.

 

As you can see, Skyrim has many (legal) alcohol beverages, but quite a lot of them are restricted to certain quests or locations. Some can be bought from merchants, e.g. Surilie Brothers Wine, but can't be found elsewhere in the world. I'm thinking of making some of them more available. I'm also thinking of adding the following beverages:

 

Beer

Cider

 

Yes, I know what you said about beer, how it doesn't travel well, especially when I said it will be imported from Cyrodiil, but there's a beer that can easily fit in Skyrim's world. Sahti. Sahti is a traditional beer from Finland made from rye, wheat, barley, or oats, and uses juniper berries instead of hops like most beer does.

 

Oh yeah, and the fact that there's rum in the game indicates that sugarcane is grown in Hammerfell, or parts of it. It would be sold in some places as well, primarily Solitude, where the only bottle of it is found. Also, according to some sources, there's a massive tariff on things coming in from Cyrodiil, which is why Colovian and Cyrodilic Brandy is so expensive and rare. So I'm guessing someone has tried smuggling a few bottles of the stuff. A few dozen. Shipwrecks, perhaps?

 

Other, non alcoholic beverages will be milk and various teas.

 

Black Tea - Tea imported from, say, Elsweyr by Khajiit caravans.

Green Tea - Tea imported from eastern parts of Morrowind. Will be rare, very rare, considering what's going on in Morrowind at the time.

Lavender Tea and Thistle Tea - Not technically teas, as they don't contain tea, the plant. Traditional recipes possibly came from Whiterun or Falkreath.

 

Dairy

Skyrim has milk, butter, and two kinds of cheeses. Dairy requires a lot more expansion. I'm thinking of adding the following:

 

Buttermilk - a byproduct of making butter. Although, what would it be used for if not drinking?

Yogurt - No, not the sugary one you can find in the store, the real sour one. The best kind. The only real kind. Nordic countries have their own yogurt called Filmjolk, which is "similar to yogurt, but using different bacteria which give a different taste and texture."

 

Cheese - When I was looking up different cheeses, I was presented with lots of different kinds with obscure names. That's not what I wanted, I wanted simply categories of cheese. Skyrim has an everyday, simple mild goat cheese, and a blue(is it blue?) Eidar cheese. Looks like Stilton cheese. I want to add a few cheeses, but ones that are different from those we have now. I was thinking a soft, Brie like cheese, but name it appropriately after a High Rock city, e.g. Wayrest Cheese. Another cheese I was thinking of was Wensleydale. It is crumbly, slightly moist, and typically made with cranberries, which could be replaced with snowberries in this case. If you have any cheese ideas, let me know.

Edited January 28, 2013 by Omeletter

[Eckss]

Gotta have Milk. How can you be a Milk Drinker if there's no Milk?

 

How about fruit juice? Snowberry Akvavit?

 

Eidar cheese is definitely blue, but not stilton; stilton'd be too strong flavoured for Elsweyr fondue. It must be milder like a Gorgonzola.

On the subject of cheese, basic cow's milk cheese is Cheddar. Basic sheep's milk cheese is Feta

There's dialogue in-game mentioning aged Breton cheese as a luxury brought in by the East Empire Company.

With all the horses around, there'd be Mare's milk available for use also.

With all the chickens, how about egg-nog?

Although of course you could go too far with extra alcoholic beverages if you listen to me too much on the subject. I'm well aware that bored people will always make alcohol and it can be made out of anything.

[Omeletter]

Wow, if I don't get homework one week, I'm bound to get 6 pieces the other. Been doing homework. Lots of it. Playing Skyrim as well, of course.

 

There's milk in the Hearthfire DLC. I guess you were referring to the fact that it is in a jug. I was thinking of making things like honey pots, sacks of flour/grain, and jugs of milk to be able to be split up into 4 bowls of milk, for example. This is to balance the servings, so you don't waste all the milk making one thing.

 

Fruit juice. I was actually thinking of that, but more... useful in Skyrim I guess. Lots of fruit would have to be processed to yield a bottle of juice, and Skyrim isn't exactly overflowing with it. This is why I have thought about Kompot - an Eastern European and Russian drink made by cooking fruit, simmering it, in large amounts of water. It was originally used to preserve fruit for the winter. Might be useful in Skyrim.

 

Akvavit - A spirit made with grains and spices, traditionally from Norway. Sounds good.

 

You know your cheeses, haha. I decided to look past Cheddar in favour of older, much more "historical" cheeses. I found that Edam "ages and travels well, and does not spoil; it only hardens. These qualities (among others) made it the world's most popular cheese between the 14th and 18th centuries, both at sea and in remote colonies." I also found out about Gouda that "the first mention of Gouda cheese dates from 1184, making it one of the oldest recorded cheeses in the world still made today." Perhaps the generic "Cow's Milk Cheese" should have a resemblance similar to these two, but obviously, not encased in red paraffin. Maybe some mold around it like Oblivion's cheese had.

 

There is a lot of dialogue about the East Empire Trading Company. One quest in Solitude requires you to pay off the tariffs for the woman who makes Spiced Wine. I was thinking the main imported cheese to be something like Brie or Camembert, sold in small cheese wheels. The vanilla Eidar cheese might be the aged Breton cheese they are referring to, although it might also be produced in Skyrim.

 

I was thinking of leaving the milk alone with no varieties. I'm not sure how I can implement goat and mare milk and make enough separate recipes for them. Goat milk, for example, is used to make cheese, but the player can't make cheese, not even with this mod.

 

Egg nog, yes! Thanks for mentioning that. I'm thinking of using Stros M'Kai rum as one of the ingredients for it. More expensive varieties will be made with Brandy.

[Loshirai14]

time to be a master chef >_<