The Bardic Chef

I almost didn't write this post.  I originally felt that while in the modern era food can absolutely be an art form, Renaissance food probably was not.  Then I started researching.  And researching.  And so on.  A lot of what I found was surprising - food traditions (like marzipan sculptures) that I thought were part of the period proved to be hard to document, while others - like the cockentrice - were staples.

Unlike every form of art explored in this series of essays, the magical potential of food is rarely considered: while  there are magical spells that provide magical food (Heroes' Feast, for example), the only 'consumable' magic items we get are potions.  We have no Scones of Cure Light Wounds or Holy Croissants.  Food is at once a consumable item, good for one use only, and one completely lacking in magical consideration.

Due to the consumable nature of food, creating a list of static magical effects seems the wrong approach.  In fact, I rather like the idea of making food useful beyond mere sustenance.  I know that Alexis is looking at lodging, but quality food service comes along with better lodgings.

This whole thing comes down to interrogating the idea of 'rations'.  It would appear that rations come from Gygax and company's familiarity with war history, drawing the term 'iron rations' from early 20th century military food portions for soldiers in the field.  Contemporary inquiry by non-experts minds concludes that rations must have been dried meat, hard tack, and maybe some cheese.  I beg to differ.

Rations have to be a food item that does not go bad for a while and are carb-rich to support strenuous activity.  They will have to be culture-specific: we have oatcakes from the U.K, onigiri from Japan, and fruitcake for the Romans.  These are made from cheap, durable ingredients.  Scots would carry around a bag of oats and a metal plate (or the back of a shovel) and make a cake after bunking down and just after getting up.  Having made some, they can last for months without losing their flavor or molding, and if fruit or honey are available they can be incorporated into the mix to improve the flavor and add a little extra energy.  Onigiri, or rice balls, are rice rolled around some sort of filler - grilled fish, red bean paste, whatever.  Choosing dried fish, which would have been plentiful in coastal Japan, would have ensured that the finished rice balls would remain edible for at least a week (again, while I used lentils in my onigiri, they do last quite a while).  I haven't been willing to make fruitcake, but I think we can all agree that it lasts forever.  Given the generally high price of meat during the Renaissance, I doubt rations in that time (not that they would have used rations, really, but we'll get to that in a little bit), would have incorporated it.

In terms of grounding your game into your game world, abandoning the idea of rations is a fantastic place to start: oatcakes will feel different to your players than onigiri.  Hand-pies will feel even more different, and by differentiating the foods found in each region, the variety of your world will manifest in a very immediate, concrete way.  Hardtack is also an option - often twice-baked to ensure longevity.

You've probably noticed, though, that all four of the examples I provided as ration substitutes are not nutritionally balanced - they are almost entirely carbs (onigiri and hand-pies might have protein, depending upon the filling).  Most folk didn't travel because food was hard to take on the road - vegetables were harvested fresh from the garden or fields, or recovered from the cellar stores in winter (root vegetables, in particular).  Protein would come from beans, maybe lentils, and cheese, which would often be created by the local monastery, at least in rural areas.

For urban environments, we have a very different system - most folks needed to purchase their food ready-to-eat from food vendors, scrounging for ingredients wherever they could get them, and taverns, which offered both food and drink to those willing to wait (lots of stew, made early in the day and kept on the fire throughout it, topped up by the tavern's cook).

A  good cook could take poor ingredients and render a quality meal from them.  A good cook could stretch food supplies out for longer than expected.  Armies traveled with an army of cooks behind them to convert their food stores into meals, and the success of those cooks could determine the success of the army - hence armies so often pillaging for food.

This brings us to determining rules for food, from which we can start to pull out the use of a bardic chef.  This proposal is awesome, but requires more options for my players than I have just now.  In fact, Alexis has looked at this from a number of angles, and doesn't have a rule beyond this: eating 1lb./day for no activity, 2lbs/day for moderate, and 3lbs/day for battle.

For my 2 cents, there are two parts to any meal: the experience of eating and the nutritional value.  Since we are talking about a bardic chef, we'll focus on the experience of eating and use some very general rules for nutrition.

Food comes in four categories: dangerous, poor, average, and excellent.  Dangerous food requires a saving throw or poisons the character (eating moldy bread, spoiled meat, poisonous mushrooms, etc.).  Poor food is a meal that doesn't draw from all three nutritional groups (carbs, proteins, and vitamins [vegetables and fruit]), like oatcakes, onigiri, fruitcake, and hand-pies.  Average food does draw from all three, while excellent food delights the palate as well as provides nutrition.  Any nonperishable meal, since cooked vegetables and fruits don't travel well, will fall into the poor category.

Poor food reduces all hit point gains from resting by 1 - the malnutrition means that the body can't work at top efficiency.  Excellent food, due to its delectable nature, improves hit point gains from resting by two.
The numbers here assume characters recover 1hp/day/level.  Excellent food is only available in towns or cities - they require not only good ingredients but also a proper kitchen, not just a pot over a campfire.

Bardic chefs can play with these categories a little.  An Apprentice bard (level 1+) can prepare an excellent meal, given access to a kitchen and ingredients.  Journeyman bards (level 3+) can take dangerous food and make them merely poor.  Specialist bardic chefs (level 7+) can take the ingredients that would normally make an average meal and make them excellent, given access to the kitchen.  Master bardic chefs (level 12+) can prepare excellent meals from average food without a kitchen and they can take poor food and make them average.  Grandmaster bardic chefs can procure average food from dangerous ingredients as well as turn poor ingredients into excellent food.

Now we can get to the heart of the matter: bardic chefs are all about the experience of eating food.  This can only manifest when eating Excellent food and is most often employed when preparing a proper feast (like the one that spawned the cockentrice).  This is where we need our table of magical effects, for grand meals orchestrated by the bardic chef.

Roll	Feast Effect
1	The spices in the dish trick the body into creating an immune response, which provides a resistance to disease for the next 24 hours.
2	The dish harbors a poison made entirely undetectable.
3	The food is heartening, increasing morale.
4	The food is laced with alcohol, making all who consume it tipsy, with twice the usual benefits.  A local drug (cannabis, shrooms) could be used instead.
5	The food must be eaten in an intimate fashion.  Those who sit next to each other while eating it must save or develop a deep-seated trust between each other.
6	The feast features a massive centerpiece, whose immensity inspires loyalty towards the host.
7	The main course is that of an animal flayed open, so that all can see the animal's complex physiology.  This insight leads to a slight increase in damage against animals.
8	A few magical reagents found their way into the food, providing a small defense against magical effects.
9	A portion of the food was offered to a divine spirit, who casts a protective barrier around the eating place for the duration of the meal.
10	The meal heightens comradeship between all partakers.  Damage taken over the next 24 hours is psychically divided amongst all of them.
11	The meal sensitizes the palate and awakens the senses.  Checks to notice things receive a small bonus.
12	A spiritual purgative was snuck into one of the dishes.  Those under another's magical influence receive a saving throw with a +2 bonus.
13	The banquet features clever ingredient substitutions and food puns.  Those who eat it find themselves remarkably jovial and good-natured for the next 24 hours.
14	The food causes a massive endorphin rush, granting a small Strength bonus.
15	The food contains several chemicals which, after metabolizing, improve neuron firing rates, which provides a slight Dexterity bonus.
16	The food produced is highly portable and can be consumed with full benefits up to 3 days after being prepared.
17	The heaviness of the meal creates a strong sense of lethargy among those who ate it.  Save or fall asleep at the conclusion of the meal.
18	The meal is zesty and motivating.  After eating it, peoples' productivity increases by 25%.
19	The meal's leftovers create an especially potent compost.  If used as fertilizer, crop yield will increase by 50%.  Enough to cover 1 acre per 20 guests.
20	Filled with vigor, those who eat the meal receive 1 temporary hit point per level.

After finishing this list, and after looking at the previous two tables, the NPCs of my world now have three incredibly compelling reasons to hire bards.

I'd also recommend that bardic chefs not only receive additional benefits from wielding a knife or dagger, but that they receive additional knowledge about both the animal and plant kingdoms.  There is an excellent manga named Dungeon Meshi that provides a different take on a bardic chef - one who uses monsters as ingredients using nothing more than a mastercrafted wok and a thorough knowledge of monster anatomy.