During the game I ran last night I had a nobleman offer the PCs a variety of beverages. Rather than make generic ones I came up with a few ideas on the fly (my preferred method of GMing) and thought I should write them down afterward and flesh them out more. The following are some of them. I had some dish ideas as well, but haven't written them up yet.

Feel free to add your own (using a similar style). It would be cool to have a collection of drinks and dishes to increase the versimilitude of the Imperium when GMing.

Kathoolian Sabre Wine
A rare and exotic beverage produced by the whisper seers of Kathoolia, sabre wine is popular amongst the more fanatical nobles of the Imperium, or simply those that like to explore all sensation. The wine is fermented in zero G where shortchain monofibres are added, impregnated with alcohol. A single sip of the wine will produce hundreds of very fine cuts throughout the mouth and throat as the monofibres slash tissues on their way to the stomach. In order to avoid terminal oesophageal exsanguination the monofibres are designed to dissolve in saliva.

Cost: 200 thrones per bottle (20 doses)

Availability: Rare

Serving: Sabre wine is most often accompanied by an ingestible coagulant combined with powdered citric acid to produce an exhilarating aftertaste. Those nobles in pursuit of sensation often leave a brass spittoon next to the serving for the removal of blood clots. The more fanatical will savour the taste as a tribute to the emperor.

Variations: Modifying the monofibre chains allows for a control of the size and quantity of the oral abrasion caused. Although sabre wine is the most common, several other popular variations exist such as axe wine, producing fewer but longer and deeper cuts, and needle wine a wine with such fine monfibres that they pass through the enamel of the teeth and stimulate the nerves within.

Seeds: There are some suspicious instances of noblemen dying of internal bleeding after attending a party where this wine was served. Some Imperial authorities wonder if perhaps the monfibres were replaced with non dissolving filaments in an attempt to assassinate rivals.

Therax Table Glory
The Imperium produces thousands of heroes, each dying gloriously in the name of the emperor. Many citizens wish to feel that greatness themselves and will accrue all sorts of relics and memorabilia to reach closer to their heroes. The brewmasters of Therax have taken this one step further and created potent spirits brewed in the name of an imperial hero. However it is not enough to name the vintage after a hero, it must be tangibly tied to them in some way. The most common method of this is the use of the hero’s desk, table or throne of office as the foundation for the cask the vintage will be aged in. The brewmasters send collectors around the Imperium to retrieve the state tables of Imperial heroes, reverentially breaking down the precious wood to form these casks. Often they will travel to warzones or even lead mercenary forces into enemy held territory to liberate stolen furniture. Each cask is matured for a length of time equal to the service record of the hero it represents, emulating the fire or aged wisdom of its chosen hero. Those that drink the potent spirit often claim that they feel the greatness of the hero flowing through them.

Cost: 5000 thrones per cask (200 doses)

Availability: Very Rare/GM discretion

Serving: So expensive and potent is this spirit that it is served in custom made shot glasses no larger than a thimble. They will often be hand made for the cask in question, each depicting the glories of the spirits’ namesake. It is customary to say a prayer to the emperor for the soul of the mighty hero before imbibing the alcohol.

Variations: The most common vintage in circulation currently in the Imperium is the Macharius. Lord Solar Macharius’ exploits were so legendary and his triumphs so numerous that hundreds of casks were created in his name, each from his different victories and each made from the precious woods of victory spoils. Even at the end of the 41st millennium dozens of these casks are in circulation, prized by collectors. Perhaps the rarest of all is the single cask of Valarina, saint of the Imperium. Her victories lasted less than one hour when she single-handedly stalled an ork invasion by killing the warboss with a homemade bomb vest. After she was sainted the Brewmasters had difficulty finding anything associated with her to use as the revered cask and instead opted to use the warbosses skull, the bone so thick and resilient it had survived the explosion.

Seeds: Commissar Yarrick, hero of Hades Hive, is dead. Or at least it appears so according to the Yarrick vintage moving through collector circles. The Brewmasters, having heard of Yarrick’s destruction on Golgotha retrieved his famous desk and prepared a cask in his name. However it was later discovered the hero of Hades had been captured by the foul orks. Realising their error the brewmasters set their Yarrick vintage aside, content for him to die permanently. Unfortunately someone has stolen it. If the cask becomes well known the blow to Imperial morale at the death of such a famous hero would be devastating.

Blood wine
Perhaps one of the most controversial of all Imperial beverages, bloodwine skirts the edges of heresy. The wine is brewed from fermented blood, although ostensibly never human. The thick metallic taste is widely praised across the noble palette of many sectors and it is said that many death cults use it in their rituals.

Cost: 50 thrones per bottle (20 doses)

Availability: Scarce

Serving: Part of the charm of bloodwine is the colour, a deep burgundy. As such it is commonly served in tall narrow transparent glasses so the colour can be admired. Etiquette requires it to be sipped slowly and savoured, allowing the metallic taste to fill every recess of the mouth.

Variations: Grox blood is the most common and most vulgar. It’s rich and robust flavour is scorned by most nobles who prefer the blood of more, refined creatures. The rarest and most sought after is Gyrinx bloodwine which is said to give the mind a sense of calm and tranquillity unmatched by any other substance.

Seeds: Humans have been turning up dead and drained of blood and a new, extremely popular, bloodwine has appeared on the market. In other sectors human bodies have been found pickled in alcohol, their tissues completely supersaturated in it and their blood missing.

Mist Spirit
On some planets with low air pressure alcoholic beverages evaporate extremely quickly so the brewers of those planets have developed special nebulisers for inhaling steamed alcohol. Mist Spirit uses an elaborate hookah to channel the alcoholic steam to the user. The gaseous form of the alcohol makes it particularly easy to absorb, especially as it travels past very permeable membranes in the lungs and upper olfactory areas. Mist spirit is said to be so effective it can inebriate a grox in one breath.

Cost: 60 thrones per bottle (20 doses) 150 thrones per Hookah with 4 attachments

Availability: Scarce (Hookah) Common (bottle)

Serving: It is customary to communally share Mist Spirit. It is the height of bad manners to draw on the Mist Spirit hookah without at least one other person present.

Variations: Given its gaseous quality, most spirits can be put through a hookah, although only those designed for one offer the best effects. At large soirées an extensive system of nebulisers can be used to deliver a heady alcoholic mist to the air, allowing the patrons to become collectively inebriated and set the pace for the festivities.

Seeds: Several noble parties have resulted in mass murder. It seems as though the patrons all spontaneously turned on one another and tore each other to pieces with their teeth and bare hands. Each party was provided with an extensive mist spirit nebuliser system and hookah apparatus for the guests benefit…

Joreph Knapper's Eggs
Despite its culinary name, these are not true eggs. The Joreph Knapper is a small reptilian creature whose metabolism cannot digest sugars. These are normally converted into another molecule but if there is an overabundance of it in the animal's system glucose will crystallise within what would be the equivalent of its gall bladder. Along with a few choice biliary secretions called Knappergris that forms around the crystalline sugars, these gall stones or Knapper eggs are a delicacy amongst the obscenely wealthy.

In order to produce them in quantity sufficient to meet demand, Knapper farmers keep them in battery cages in mega warehouses kilometres in length. Each Knapper is force fed liquid glucose in order ot form the egg, with each Knapper at full production producing one egg every two weeks. Each egg is the size of a pea. Because of the length of time taken to grow a Knapper to a point at which their eggs will be useable (9-13 years), most farmers do not kill them to extract the eggs, instead waiting for them to pass the egg and resuming forced sugar consumption. The keening wail of the Knapper is heard continuously throughout the battery facilities as the excruciating pain of passing the eggs and the sheer number of Knappers present ensures that at any one time tens of thousands of Knappers are in the throws of agony producing this sought after delicacy.

Cost: 450 Thrones per Serve (1 Serve equals 5 Knapper Eggs)

Availability: Rare

Serving: Knapper eggs are often served as part of a creme dish following the main course (or third main course depending on local custom). The Knapper Cracker is a specially designed device for breaking the egg into manageable pieces and is always brought out with the meal.

Variations: By feeding the Joreph Knapper different sugars a subtle flavour difference can be elicited. Fructose and Glucose are the most popular sugars, with Lactose less so. The Knappergris can be subtly altered in chemistry by depriving the Knapper of certain nutrients. These nutrient deprived Knappers make even more noise than the normal Knappers as these chemicals are also necessary for neurological control of the throat and larynx.

Seeds: Workers at a Joreph Knapper facility have been exhibiting strange behaviour. Some fall and scream in an uncanny resemblance to the Knappers, wailing that their insides are on fire. Others have been found dead with exploded gall bladders.

Grox de Necris
Grox is the staple meat diet of the Imperium. That is to say, the staple meat diet of the wealthy of the Imperium. An underhiver would be lucky to see a grox spleen in his lifetime, let alone a proper grox steak. There are many ways to prepare grox, raw, salted, dried, pureed. One of the most difficult and most expensive ways to prepare Grox is de Necris. This utilises the maggot of the scale borer, a small parasitic insect from Doleph's equatorial jungles that burrows into the flesh of an animal and pupates there. The maggot's excrete a very strong toxic c ocktail that includes many acids. These are used to dissolve the tissues around the area they burrow in so they may drink it. The most skilled cooks can use these maggots to raw cook the grox, allowing their bilious coctail to tenderise the meat. There is a risk however that if left too long the meat will become toxic as the secretion levels increase. Along with Spear sheen, this is one of the more risky dishes served in Imperial noblehouses.

Cost: 1200 Thrones per serve (1 steak the size of a human palm)

Availability: Very Rare/GM discretion (requires esoteric ingredients and a cook that knows the recipe)

Serving: The steak is served with a side of various vegetables and wine. Optional pressed jup'ker berry sauce. Maggots can be left in their burrows as stuffing or plucked and served as a side dish. In the latter case the burrows are filled with a grox patee.

Variations: There are several ways to make this dish. The most common is to place 3 or 4 maggots on a steak and leave it to ripen for 18 hours. Other methods include milking the maggots for their juices and marinating the steak and serving it with maggot patee. The most difficult is the live slow cook method. Only a handful of Chefs have the skill to use this method. A Live grox is sedated and chained down and dozens of maggots are inserted at key locations along every muscle that will be used for the meal. Chefs claim that the live blood of the meat creates a richer, more full flavour and the maggots are much more stimulated. The steaks are cut from the animal at a time determined by the Chef. A skilled Chef can keep the animal alive for several days, slowly removing one steak after another. Some of the most remembered noble parties have feasted on a single live cooked grox for over a week.

Seeds: Highly placed officals have been found dead, their eyes dissolved in their sockets from some biotoxin. Others have been shot with some kind of organic bullet that poisoned them from the inside out.

Hellebore

Brilliant. Very 40k, and at the same time eerily realistic.

Sigh, and I thought I was being original.

I suppose it's true, nothing is original anymore.

Do you have any ideas? I'd love to see a compilation of the wierdest and best meal concepts for 40k.

Hellebore

Great stuff, Hellebore, love it!

Name: Markel Bush Nut

The Markel Nut is the rare seed of the Markel Bush, native to Doleph. The tree bush itself is semi-sentient, and goes to great lengths protecting its seeds by lashing out at would-be thieves of its nuts. As such, the collection of them can be very dangerous, especially as groups of the trees have been known to have an empathetic link with one another, and have worked together to dismember particularly persistent workers. The bush then proceeds to devour the worker

Cost: 13,750 Thrones per serving (5 Seeds per serving)

Availability: GM Dscretion

Serving: Markel nuts are often served as the penultimate course of a meal with a thick, sweet, vinegarette sauce. They are often savoured slowly, it being an accepted practice to carefully nibble on the thumbnail sized fruit.

Variations: The obscenely rich are known to serve entire bowls of these rare and expensive seeds as pre-dinner snacks to each of their guests. When served like this, they are often air-cooked with steam which often includes various mist spirits. When served in this manner, the particularly ostentatious and rich will serve this with Therax Table Glory. Those that are particularly daring and desiring of new sensations often eat their nuts with glasses of Kathoolian Sabre Wine. In these cases the salt or sugar crystals are ensured to be particularly large that the greatest response that can be elicited from the consumer.

Name: Bone Bread

Just as corpse starch bar are made from the recycled meat and organs of the dead, vermin, and whatever pitiful scraps of meat can be found and put into the grinder; bone bread is made from the usually inedible bones. The bones are powdered up, mixed with sugars, salt, and a small pinch of yeasted flour. It is baked and then served. The binding agents can range from water to blood, to almost any other conceivable fluid, giving the bread a any number of a variety of flavours. Blood mixed loaves, with their particular rosy coloured interior, are particularly sought after by the Underhiver as they contain the greated amount of nutrition. However, they are also the most expensive variety.

Cost: Varies between 2 (for an "other" binding agent) to 8 (for blood as a binder) Thrones per loaf (8-12 slices)

Availability: Plentiful ("other" and Water bound) Common (blood)

Serving: The bread can be sliced, toasted, sandwiched, or eaten in any way imaginable. Any number of spreads can be put on it. Often, the greyish-brown bread is eaten alone, but a corpse-starch bar smeared across its surface is a common Underhive meal. This meal is anything but edible, but it has nutrients that the poor require for their miserable lives, and despite its taste is surprisingly easy to keep down.

These were just what I could come up with off the top of my head just now if anyone wishes to use them.

Hellebore said:

Sigh, and I thought I was being original.

I suppose it's true, nothing is original anymore.

I'd actually chalk that one up as a positive result. Being realistic helps the verimisilitude and to honest, how many players are going to know about Casu marzu?

Bah, this quote system is terrible.

Well, the posh stuff has been done, so I think it's time for some boring stuff.

Gloom Algae

Not true algae, more a kind of bacteria, Gloom Algae was discovered on Strank, thriving in the warm, moist conditions of piles of decomposing vegetable matter. Edible, and needing little more than heat and water to grow, Gloom Algae has become popular as a staple food in many of the hive-worlds of the sector, where it can be grown using the excess heat from machinery.

Gloom Algae is a gelatinous and white, containing a high amount of starch. In mid-hive algae-farms the algae is grown in large paddy-fields and workers use long netted poles to scoop the algae from the surface and wear head-lamps to save energy. In the Underhive it is often grown in grimy oil drums and other water-tight containers left in dark, warm corners.

Cost: Negligible.

Availability: Plentiful

Serving: When cooked, it is usually squeezed in a porous bag to remove excess water and then baked or fried in fat (Synthetic or otherwise). It can also be used to brew a highly alcholic drink called Gloom-Wine. Much-prized by underhivers, Gloom-Wine is almost 100% ethanol.

Gloom Algae is also used in many industrial applications such as glue-making, vegetable-based parchments and in plastics (Plasteel?).

Seeds: Something is living in the stygian Gloom Algae tanks. Algae-Farmers have been going missing, dragged under the gelatinous white surface, their algae nets left floating in the ponds.

Many farmers have taken to worshipping these creatures out of fear, occasionally sacrificing one of their number and dumping the corpse into the deepest of the tanks.

I think Zero-G Veal has a certain ring to it too.

Suckling Ambull Kanakais

More of a dinner entertainment than a true dish, a young ambull is chained to a post in a pit, and injected with a cocktail of stimulants and rage-enhancers. A single chef enters the pit, carrying only a large, sharp cleaver and a meathook, and proceeds to fight and carve the ambull, slinging the cuts of meat up to the assembled diners. Final preparation is done by a sous-chef before serving. A particularly skilled chef can carve and joint an ambull completely before it dies.

It is not unknown for several ambull to be chained in the pit simultaneously during large banquets. As a result, it has been customary for diners to pay for the ambull led into the arena, rather than per serving, as well as a survival bonus to the chef.

Cost:500TG+2000TG per ambull

Availability: Scarce

Served: Blue, with a ploin coulis and a dusting of cracked pepper and basil. Occasionally also a small salad and fried root vegetables. Ketchup, mustard and tartare sauce are available upon request, but those who opt for them will be looked down upon

Variations: Occasionally, a particularly adventurous diner will volunteer to take the place of the chef in the pit, although this is looked upon with mixed reactions- on the one hand, a skilled chef will be able to produce finer (and larger) portions, but on the other hand, an enthusiastic amateur will most likely end up being ripped apart in an entertaining manner by the ambull, as even a juvenile is quite deadly.
Some variants of this dish include an ambull pit with servo-logis controlled gas flamers in the rim, allowing each steak, fillet and joint to be flash-cooked as it is slung to the waiting sous-chef.

Seeds: There is an up-hive restaurant which goes through a particularly large number of pit-chefs. Diners say the chefs seem hesitant upon entering the pit. Could this be connected to the recent increase in missing persons in the mid-hive?

Cake Root.
This boring and unassuming root looks much like something a feudal worlder would pull out of his garden as a weed, but to the mid hive people of Stacks on Lo it is the staple of their diet and a great balm from illness. Vast sections of the mid hive recycling plants are given over to his humble savior and gift from the God Emperor. The root happily grows under artificial light and is cultivated in large swampy fields of human excrement. The skin of this nostrum excreets an antibiotic which the Bio priest of the Machanicus call nothing more than proof of the Omnissiah's love for man.

Preparation
The root must be peeled of its skin which is an emetic if ingested and then boiled in water for 2 hours. At this point an amount of hydrochloric acid is added to brake down the fibrous flesh of the tuber and to give it its zingy taste. This is boiled for a further 1 hour and then served hot.

Cost 5 Thrones per 5kg raw 10 Thrones per 1kg cooked. 25 Thrones with Halo lizard meat.

Halo lizard

Halo lizards are a not two uncommon site on the Under Hive of Stacks on low. These 1m long lizards like dark places and are skittish around humans running at the first site or small of them. Rust Brown in colour with deeper brown blotches the Bio Adepts of Machanicus have determined that the Devine Plan of the Omnissiah known as evolution has given these creatures this pattern as it is the optimal camouflage in the under hive. The most striking feature of this lizard is the brown ring on its head that it uses to attract a mate, from where the lizard receives its name. The beast is a carrion and can mostly be found around the death shoots of the under hive. Many under hive gangs hunt these creatures for their meat and teeth that when resinned to a simple piece of wood or plastic makes a most deadly weapon. There is also a trade upward in the meet of this beast that supplements the diet of the mid hive tenants. Halo traders buy lift passes and go down to the under hive to trade for the best of these beast using knives bullets and guns instead of Thrones. The rarest of all the Halo Lizards is the Emperors Lizard or the Gold Halo Lizard, an albino derivative of the species. The white and speckled skin of these reptiles is crowned by a Golden Halo on its head. The under hive hunter gangs will always try to capture the lizard alive which is no mean feet as the creatures extremely vicious when cornered. The same teeth that are prized for their weapon making qualities are also deadly in the mouth of this animal and many a hunter has been bitten in the neck while trying to subdue one. Once captured though the Emperor’s lizard can be traded for many guns, nets and ammo and is considered well worth the death of a number of hunters. From the mid hive it is then traded up to the Spires where a mid hive trader my hope to make as much as a years salary for a single beast. All the best houses have traders at the lift market looking for Emperor’s Lizards and when one is found and bought then a party is set for as soon as possible to consume the delicacy. Many houses have tried to breed the lizards in captivity but no have been successful.

Perpetration.

Halo Lizard can be fried, boiled, poached or roasted. When roasted this is done whole with the skin still on, the skin being the most delicate piece of the meal. Halo Lizard heart poached is thought to be a curative by the human waste workers of the mid hive and is epically prized. The Emeror Lizard is roasted very slowly so as not to damage the skin and is presented on a bed of off world vegetables and placed in the centre of the table. Many courses are eaten before it and it is not caved until cold. The same belief about the beast heart the mid hivers have is also believe in the upper hive, although they also believe that the heart of the animal can cure any sexually transmitted decease by first being kissed and prepared by a virgin.

Whole Halo Lizard (minus the hart) 40 Thrones. Meat from a street vender 25 Thrones and served with Cake Root. A whole Emperor’s Lizard 6000-8000 Thrones. Halo Lizard’s Heart, 60 Thrones.

Hook

Lord Rasna Ben-Lorwy has had 4 Emperor’s Lizard Parties withing the Spires of Stacks in the last month. No one has seen his servant buying the lizards and it is thought that he has a successful breeding program going on. The acolytes are sent to see if there is any heresy involved techno or other wise.

Hazerothian Gloom-Bat Membraine

This item is from the Fulminarex Dynastic Cooking-Tome, passed down since the days of Imperial-Trader Gastog Fuminarex explored parts of Calixis during the Angevin Crusade.

The Hazerothian Gloom-Bat is a deep space entity drawn to the energy signatures of ships. The resemble an outspread octopus, with millions of sucker-attachments spread across its 10 tentacles. The membraine stretches between each tentacle. The Gloom-Bat attaches itself to a heat source and feeds off residual heat. The damage they do to a vessel is usually through overloading radiators, and sometimes grabbing crew members working externally. The Gloom-Bat produces its own oxygen source, and can store large amount of energy in special organs. Some Gloom-Bats reach 60 meters across, but its the smaller variety that are eaten. The larger Gloom-Bats can deliver an energy blast which will kill a man.

The mebraine is usually served raw, in bit sized slivers, to maintain its unique flavor, which is like scallop, with the added tingle of licking a battery. The Gloom-Bat can be kept in captivity, feeding from an energy conduit, and the membraines can be harvested. They typically grow back in several years.

There is one serious problem with the Gloom-Bat. They can also feed off of psychic energy, and prefer this to other forms of energy. Once a Gloom-Bat latches onto a psycher, it would have to be killed to free the psycher. The info on what one does to a psycher has dissappeared.

However, a Gloom-Bat which has fed from a pscher might provide certain psi benefits if consumed.

Kelevar Cricket.

The only non-mineral export from the mining colony Luggnum. This insect gets shipped out to Hiveworlds to cheaply feed Mid and Lower hive citizens because of its miraculous capacity to keep them feeling full for days. This is actually an illusion. The Cricket is quite heat and acid resistant. They are baked in large vats so they fall into a stupor. Once dazed, the only way they can be consumed is whole. After a period of time, the cricket wakes up and weakly attempts to escape. They normally do not have ability to escape and their struggles and hard to digest exoskeletons can simulate the sensation of a full stomach for days. This can be prolonged by eating more on top of the insect. Seeing as the insect normally dies of hunger and thirst rather than stomach acid, eating more food can keep it alive for a while. This is great for those underhivers desperate to keep away the hunger pangs, thouh it isn't unknown for nobles to consume them because they enjoy the kick.

The current record for the longest time spent prolonging the life of an ingested Cricket is 6 days and 17 hours and is held by Nobleman Bruchit Silvani. A man of significant girth, Master Sivani had servants with food available to him at all times. He ate the Cricket as a culinary adventure and after it spent a long period of time gorging on Master Sivani's stomach contents, it managed to successfully begin an ascent ou of his stomach. It reached his windpipe before becoming stuck. Neither the nobleman nor the insect survived.

Cost: 5 thrones per serving (1 baked Criket)

Availability: Common

Heimburger: This is a near-legendary delicacy, far superior to Grox. It is only affordable by the very rich, who will expend vast amounts of money on "heimburger barbeques" on occasions of great importance, such as the marriage of a first son or daughter. It is made from the flesh of an exotic beast known as the "cow" that, it is sometimes claimed in hushed voices, hails from Ancient Terra itself.

bogi_khaosa said:

I almost fell of my chair laughing reading this one. But i can totally see it happening as Cow is a holy beast.

Hook: On some world the killing of a cow is completely elligal as the animal is seen as Sacred as it come from Terra, but some have turned up butchered and the planetry govenor has asked for help to find out what is doing it.

I like what you've put, food is something I never think of when preparing games, yet its always something the players ask about. I may have to use some of these ideas in my own games.

One thing I've done from time to time is change the nature of the world's local Caffiene (Coffee) or Recaf (Tea) equivalent - important beverages for any Acolyte cell working undercover. On a particularly damp and cold Hive World I created for the early playtest, the local hot-stimulant-drink was a green-grey colour, having been refined from algae that grew in certain flooded mine tunnels across the planet. For all intents and purposes, it was a coffee-like drink... but it added another little quirk to the world.

This is a really great thread. I am enjoying reading it and will definitely be using some of this in future games.

Geredis, you might want to consider making the bush nut from Kenov III instead? This new Death World from Creatures Anathema is full of sentient plants.

Just a thought.

Kenov III has got to have some incredible delicacies. Heres one=

Kenovian Zephyr Praws: These rather large flying creatures, half a meter in length, travel in swarms of hundreds. As a swarm they can render a full grown man into a skeleton in 2 minutes. After having fed, bloated Prawns return to their subterranean nests to rest and feed their young. This is when they are best captured, then beheaded. The body will live for weeks on the food it has in its gut. They are then boiled in salted water, peeled, and eaten. More decadent Nobles prefer Prawns fed entirely from "Sinophian Swine", and declare the flavor excellent and the after-taste euphoric.

Here's not so much a recipe as an entire cuisine...

Cheshian cuisine

The planet of Chesh in the Drepana sector is famous throughout the segmentum for two things: its population of ratling abhumans, and the fantastic cuisine they produce.

Chesh is a low gravity agri world blessed with long summers, short mild winters and a vast temperate equatorial belt were virtually every foodstuff edible by man thrives. Isolated from the Imperium by warp storms for over three thousand years, Cheshian culture evolved into peaceful and mildly self indulgent indolence. The creation of utterly delicious meals became the population's highest ambition, the focus of both their spiritual and artistic development.

As the slightly inbred and overfed Cheshians physically became rotund and diminutive, their mastery of the simple art of cooking exceeded anything else in the galaxy. Upon being reintroduced to the Imperium in M39 587, the Cheshians wasted no time in spreading their art across the wider human civilisation.

Now virtually every major sector has at least one Cheshian restaurant, and the richest sectors in the Segmentum Solar have dozens each. Each restaurant is a combination of cultural embassy, spiritual centre for the food-centric Cheshian version of the Imperial cult and dining experience. The most delicious food is served, with ingredients sourced from a thousand worlds, and served by experts schooled in the 758 classic dishes of Cheshian Cuisine. Each meal involves as much showmanship as sustenance, with gastronomic visual puns played on diners, subtle perfumes and intricate food presentation that borders on the obsessive.

Twenty years ago, Gadran Umblepey, Cheshian Magister Chef, opened his first restaurant in the Calixis Sector, the Cheshian Princess. Located conveniently close to Lord Hax's palace, and within a short maglev ride of the other major power groups in the sector, it was an instant success, and is consistently voted the best restaurant in the entire sector. Umblepey spends his time creating utterly ravishing dishes that delight his obscenely rich customers, schmoozing with the sector's elite and attempting to perfect his signature dish, griddled Rethian nautiline flukes served in honeywine sauce. He hopes one day that this delicious seafood dish will be approved by the Cheshian Food Standards Agency (the planet's ruling body) as the 759th classic Cheshian dish.

Adventure hooks:

-the players are briefed by their Inquisitor in Umblepey's restaurant, with the horrific implications of their meeting a stark contrast to the luxurious and calm setting of the heart of Imperial civilisation.

-The players are following a suspect, and he goes into Umblepey's restaurant. They follow him in and observe him meeting with a high Administratum official. They are forced to order food while they wait. What do they do when presented with a bill for 40,000 thrones which they have no way of paying? What will the official and their suspect do when he notices them kicking up a fuss? What will the players do when people start pulling guns out in the sector's most expensive restaurant?

-The players are approached by an ex-prime agent of a missing Inquisitor. He appears paranoid and afraid. He tells the players that he has discovered that Chesh is in fact a Slaaneshi cult world, and that each Cheshian restaurant is a cult centre designed to spread its evil creed and subvert planetary elites. He then claims that a number of influential patrons have been subverted, including his own Inquisitor. He then vanishes. The players are then approached by the accused Inquisitor who is hunting his ex-acolyte on the grounds that he has become corrupted by chaos. Who do the players believe? How do they check the facts?

Once again your ideas spark even more varied inspirations. Very refreshing ideas in there!

Investigator Spleen said:

That would be the accursed Ronal Mac'Donal, foul Cult Magus of Nurgle, and his hideous Heimburglar minions.

I thought I'd kickstart this thread again. I'm planning on organising a document to collect these dishes and beverages together.

Womb-Pickled Groxling
One of the more unusual preperatorry methods, this is often combined with grox de necris in a single 'dish'. Pickling agents are introduced into gravid grox to start the pickling process during foetal development. Different agents are used to produce specific tastes. Over time the amniotic sac becomes a natural pickling reservoir and the soft delicate foetal tissues are preserved in exquisite detail. The removal of the dish for consumption can be performed through induction or artificial means.

Cost: 3000 thrones per course (10 courses per groxling)

Availability: Very Rare

Serving: Given the size of a groxling the servings are rather generous and often come as a main course proceeding a vegetable dish. Seasonings are offered to taste.

Variations: The time of pickling can be set higher or lower in development to produce different course types. The later in development the harder the meat and so time of pickling becomes a dish all its own. The grox used in a grox de necris dish may also be prepared to produce a womb-pickled groxling before hand. Thus after the feast has subsided the groxling is removed as a final course. Generally such groxlings are pickled in a sweetened agent to act as a sweetmeat dessert.

Seeds: When a humanoid mutant is extracted from a grox as a course of womb-pickled groxling dark magicks are suspected. Suspicion is rife amongst patrons and staff as the mystery is unravelled.

Aeon Egg

Banned on all Imperial planets the Aeon egg is a forbidden pleasure. A fertilised egg from the highly psychic but non sentient xenos species known as the Het is wrapped in visceral integument, quicklime, and other more exotic spices and chemicals. It is left to mature for a decade before its quickening. This involves taking it onboard a warp capable craft and releasing it in a pressure container into the empyrean itself. It is left to drift within the warp for a time determined by diviner before being reclaimed. Not all are found again, but those whose becons still ring forth are collected and sold on the blackest of culenary markets for exhorbidant prices. It is said that the psychic tissues of the Het after being preserved and modified by the arcane preparatory methods come to absorb fleeting emotions from the warp itself. The consumption of an aeon egg is supposed to grant the eater a sense of being indescribably wondrous and horrifying at the same time.

Cost: 1,000,000 Thrones (or something more sinister)

Availability: GM discretion

Serving: The egg is approximately 15 centimetres in length but the act of consuming one is a highly ritualised affair where only it is eaten.

Variations: Some dealers have starting using different eggs due to the difficulty in acquiring Het eggs in the first place. These have met with limited success and excessive disaster.

Seeds: An aeon egg is rumoured to be going on auction in a hive den known for its shady dealings. However there is a suggestion that it may not be a Het egg at all...

Hellebore

Musheen meat

The Musheen are an obscure and highly endangered xenos race. They are known for their beautiful (if primitive) figurative art, the haunting, lilting sounds they make as they call to each other in the dense jungles of their homeworld, and their open and friendly, accepting nature.

Sadly for them, they are also completely delicious to the human palate.

Initial contact with the Musheen was made by Rogue Trader Eskabadus Jones in 212 M39 in the Cruxus Sector, Segmentum Obscurus. An open, fair minded man, upon discovering the peaceful Musheen culture (which had been locked at the equivalent of the human stone age for millions of years) he instituted trading links with the aliens. In exchange for steel knives and beads, the Musheen provided amber, gold from their rivers and exotic xenobeasts for the Imperial circuses.

This mutually beneficial arrangement was shattered within only a handful of years by the arrival of Silvena Kassa da Nuir, a pyscopathically xenocidal monodominant Inquisitor from the Ordos Cruxus. Pausing only to burn Eskabadus Jones at the stake, she instituted a vicious Xenocide campaign against the (entirely harmless) Musheen. In a single week, their ancient culture was irrevocably destroyed.
Assorted colonies were transported to the Musheen homeworld, which had now been renamed Silvena. The scum of a hundred hive worlds were displaced to populate the planet, and statues of da Nuir were erected on dozens of unlovely concrete cities that erupted like boils from the world’s jungles.

The remaining Musheen fled deep into the forests, eventually becoming prey for the Silvenan ruling class, who hunted them like beasts for sport. Musheen hunts rapidly degenerated into Musheen roasts, the aliens’ non-humanoid physiology ensuring that the ruthless Silvenan nobles had no qualms whatsoever about eating the freshly slain xenos, who they now regarded as mere tool-using animals.
Gradually, the delicious Musheen meat caught on off-world, as cosmopolitan Silvenans exported it across the sector. The Musheen became a staple part of the diet of Silvenan humans: the remaining xenos were rounded up, penned, and bred like animals to feed the insatiable hunger of the rapidly expanding Silvenan hives.

Now the Musheen exist only as livestock, their gentle culture shattered, their history and languages wiped from the galaxy forever. Only a few Inquisitors are aware of their history, or that the Musheen (who resemble furred, ten-legged stingless scorpions with tiny opposable manipulator pads instead of claws) are actually sentient. Psykers, however, instinctively sense the distress and fear of these poor creatures, and their presence – and indeed their meat - makes them feel uneasy and peculiarly guilty…

Musheen meat is an expensive delicacy that is widespread (if not common) across the more cosmopolitan worlds of the Imperium. A typical Musheen dish would involve bisected cuts from the thorax, the inner leg segments, and some of the Musheen roe, usually served grilled with a piquant dipping sauce. The meat is rich and utterly delicious, with a unique, lingering flavour.

Adventure Hooks
-A radical Inquisitor has discovered the tragic history of the Musheen race, and has embarked upon a secret crusade to free the benighted race from its bonds. The acolytes are called in to investigate a series of mysterious attacks on Musheen ranches on backwoods agri-worlds where the entire livestock has been spirited away, and the Musheen herders killed. The attacks show a level of skill and violence that is bizarrely disproportionate to the value of the livestock stolen. The players, in the course of investigating these crimes, discover the tragic history of the Musheen people, and are faced with a stark choice: free the Musheen, or do their duty to the Emperor in hunting down a xeno-harbouring heretic…

-The players, in the course of an undercover operation, are approached by a mysterious, hooded individual, who mistakenly views them as ordinary hive scum. This individual is looking to find muscle to hijack a shipment of Musheen due to arrive at the stardocks the following week. Inbetween completing their mission, the acolytes must investigate this individual – who is, in fact, a Musheen himself, bought and raised by sympathetic humans. This Musheen – named Drusus, after the merciful Saint – has a messianic dream of leading his people to freedom and founding a new Musheen homeworld in the Koronus expanse.

-During a delicious meal, a psyker in the service of the Inquisition picks up the strong sense of intelligent life in horrific agony from the kitchen….

Wow. Sounds a bit like district 9. Humanity is an unwholesome and perfidious species, isn't it? Another lovely post. Keep it up, lightbringer.

Just to let people know, I'm putting together an article on food and drink in the Imperium and would like to include everything in this thread not just mine. it would be credited to your screen names (unless you want to give me your real name) but I would like permission first.

It will go into a document in the same fashion I made my Age and Experience document:

www.darkreign40k.com/downloads/dark-reign-supplements/age-and-experience-color-/details-2.html

Hellebore

I just made a funny, but you're welcome to use it iff you want.