Last week, at the local book store, my teenage daughter used some of her allowance to purchase a book called Heroes’ Feast: a cookbook of Dungeons and Dragons-inspired recipes. During lockdown, she has taken an interest in baking and cooking, and after years of playing Dungeons and Dragons with me (and now her little brother), it seemed like a fun project. Turns out, she loves the book.
Heroes’ Feast is a collection of recipes, divided mostly by character races: elves, humans, dwarves and halflings (hobbits) plus some more exotic options. Each of the different sections has a different style: elvish recipes tend to be light and vegetarian, dwarvish recipes hearty and meaty, while halfling recipes have a wholesome taste with lots of cheese or baked goods. The elvish salad has edible flowers (who knew that you could eat pansies?), while the drow (dark elf) recipe uses portabello mushrooms.
Obviously, the alcohol-based recipes are inappropriate for kids (we don’t even keep alcohol in the house anyway), but there’s plenty of other options. All in all, I’d guess there are roughly 40-50 recipes to choose from.
My daughter has little practical experience cooking, and many of these recipes were definitely for adults, particularly adults with cooking experience. The recipes do vary between easier recipes (soups and salads) and ones more suitable for serious cooks, but some recipes are definitely good starters.
For example, my daughter was able to get the tomato soup going after a couple tries (spoiler: it’s quite good), but struggled to cook the cream puffs several times. My wife, who’s an experienced cook, stepped in to try the same recipe and struggled with it too. We gave up and tried a similar recipe from her Japanese cookbook and had much better results. On the other hand, the Dwarvish potato and leek soup turned out great the first time.
One thing I haven’t covered yet is the artwork. Amazing. Every section has artwork devoted to the character race that it focuses on and there’s plenty there to admire. Recent publications by WotC, for example the Theros adventure and Candlekeep Mysteries have amazing artwork and Heroes Feast continues that tradition.
Seeing my wife and daughter baking together so much lately has been great, and this book has been inspiring my daughter to cook outside her comfort zone more and more. My wife, who has no interest in D&D, is just happy to be able to share a hobby with her.
For a fun, quirky purchase, I highly recommend Heroes’ Feast for any D&D fan, regardless of cooking level.
Gleanings in Buddha-Fields 