Food Thread

[Evil Bob]

There are two main food vendors in the village.  Ojisan Ramen and Chen Wen BBQ.  Since we have some new players we should develop a list of food one might find Rokugan and in Dragon Mountains (and some Unicorn food for Chen Wen).  Post your favorite dishes, desserts, teas, beers and sake.  This will help players know what is available to eat so they can make an informed order.   

[Seppun Shin]

I would suppose some Mountain Tuna might be the order of the day here, especially in winter time.

[Evil Bob]

Yes, although there are plenty of fish in the mountain streams and rivers in this part of Dragon Lands.

[Yoritomo Amano]

Is beer officially part of canon nowadays?

[Evil Bob]

The Kasuga in Camptown knows some guys.  They have the hook up.  But yes, it is an imported substance from beyond the Burning Sands.  I think a black ship was involved.

[Shinjo Shu]

I'll list some Unicorn foods once I get home and have access to my copies of Emerald Empire  and Great Clans

[Yoritomo Virendra]

Teas of Rokugan:

Ten Thousand Temples Blend- One of the rarest blends in the Empire. The finest tea raised on the Seppun estates is blended with spices including ginger and star anise.

Black Earth Tea- A rare tea grown in the Hida Lands, prized for its medicinal qualities. A rich tea that tastes slightly of iron.

Black Needle Tea- Grown in the Matsu lands, smoked with pine. Strong and bitter, a soldiers tea.

Dark Oaken Macha- A tea aged by the doji in oaken barrels, a rich and earthy flavour results.

Gyokuro-Genmai Blend- A Doji tea, the name means 'The Dew of Jewels,' it is made through a process that involves strategic shading right when the buds of the plant open. A delicate tea with a light and harmonious flavour.

Kitsuki Blend- A blend of strong dark teas, highly aromatic and sharp is both taste and smell.

Maiden Hair Tea- Grown in a very small area of the Bayushi lands. A highly prized tea both bitter in taste and smooth in body.

Monkey Tea- Not described, but let's call it a a strong, red tea. ^ ^

Phoenix Red Tea- A blend with herbs that provides a soothing, red tea good for colds as well casual drinking.

Silver Needle Tea- Famous for its crisp flavour and clean scent. A favourite among the Dragon Clan.

Soshi Herbal Blend- A herbal mixture, bitter but easily drinkable with honey. Aids focus and concentration.

Strawberry Blend- From the Mantis Isles, sweet with dried strawberries and strawberry leaves mixed with the tea.


Other Tea (Real world in Rokugan):

Jasmine Tea- Green or Oolong tea infused with Jasmine flower essence.


Other Tea (Rokugan):

Golden Needle-

Iron Benten-

Shiba's Sunset- An oolong with a rich reddish hue. The scent holds a hint of citrus.

Spring’s Smile- A tea from the Phoenix provinces, from bushes planted in cherry groves and picked at the height of the blooming season.


General Information on Tea:

White tea: first growth tips-the end buds and leaves. Pale and light flavored.

Green tea: Minimally processed, little oxidation. Thus the leaves stay green. There's a wide variety of quality and flavor. Matcha, used in the tea ceremony, is a green tea where the leaves have been dried flat and ground to powder

Oolong tea: Moderately processed. Leaves are bruised and oxidized. Color ranges from from light-almost green/yellow-through reds to almost as dark as a black tea. Huge variety and some very complex flavors.

Black tea: Leaves are oxidized and dark. Retains its flavor the longest. In fact Pu-erh teas (which are generally made of black teas) have been pressed into cakes and allowed to continue to ferment, very slowly, for years or even decades.

Red 'tea': What is usually seen on the shelves marketed as red tea is not made from the same plant as the above. In the strictest definition, that makes it an infusion of Rooibos or Honeybush, etc. rather than 'tea'. Common usage, however labels pretty much any plant matter infusion to be drunk as 'tea'.

Herbal 'teas' (technically 'tisanes'): Are also infusions made of all kinds of stuff. Common ones that are culturally appropriate--mugwort, ginsing, ginger, chrysanthemum and other flower teas, and a number of herbs I'm not remembering off the top of my head.

Stolen shamelessly from here.

[Kitsuki Masakaze]

Don't forget mountain whale aka boar

And the other tasty "fish" - mountain great fish aka mountain goat

Rice would likely be quite expensive in Dragon lands in relation to the lands of others. Expect other foods to be more readily available. Like barley products and bean paste

[Shinjo Shu]

Unicorn cuisine guidelines.  Unicorn cuisine can be seen as a fusion of several different influences, and meat is NOT of limits. On one hand due to their travels, they focus on easy to prepare foods like meat skewers and roasted vegetables and flat-breads. On the other hand, with the reintroduction of Rokugani ingredients, several more elaborate dishes have come about as well, an example would be marinated dishes using whit miso and the use of soup stocks.. Gyuniku no misozuke is a great example.  Essentially it is strips of beef marinated in white miso and then broiled.   Seasoning can vary from tangy to spicy.  

Common dishes would include the above examples as well as things like:

gamjatang: otherwise known as pork bone soup; a very spicy soup made with pork spine, vegetables, green onions, hot peppers and ground wild sesame seeds, and may or may not include potatoes.  (Sidenote: this stuff is amazing, there was a tiny restaurant near the school I taught in in Korea and this was always a treat.)

galbi:  Galbi is essentially meat that may or may not be marinated before grilling, usually at your table.  Typical meats include beef, and pork as well as poultry such as duck and chicken.  Marinades usually fall into two categories, soy sauce based (savory) and chili powder based (spicy).  Marinades based off of sesame oil are also not uncommon.  Common additions to these marinade bases would be ginger, garlic, black pepper, salt, and honey depending on the style and taste of the chef.  Miso, sake, olive oil or vinegar base marinades are also not unheard of.

Another common dish would be to grill meat on what would almost appear to be an upside-down, cast-iron wok and then to dip it into a sauce.

(IRL you can treat Unicorn cuisine as equal parts Korean, Mongolian and Japanese)

On a special note, Kumis (fermented mare's milk) is also a favorite. 

Due to the Unicorn's extensive contact with the lands outside of Rokugan, a number of foodstuffs not normally seen in the Empire are also available.
Nuts (almonds, cashews, peanuts, pecans, etc...)
Dried fruits (dates, figs, raisins, prunes....)
Olive oil
uncommon herbs and spices

[Yoritomo Virendra]

Emerald Empire (3rd edition) has a great section on this that goes into basic foodstuffs for each clan.

[Shinjo Shu]

Unfortunately EE 4th ed. doesn't cover a ton.  But it's easy to extrapolate based on what is presented.

[Kitsuki Yasuko]

Food in Rokugan
From Emerald Empire 3rd edition (parts relevant to Dragon or Unicorn highlighted, and I've not accounted for all the dining customs by the other clans).

When a wild duck flies straight through your kitchen door you shouldn't expect to find leeks on its back as well.
- Rokugani proverb

Custom is as important in food and dining as it is in all other areas of Rokugani life. Climate and geography are the determining factors for what food crops are available; but culture will influence how they are prepared - and perhaps more importantly - will decide what are the foods of the elite and what is the food of the lower orders.
As an example of this, consider wheat. Wheat is an adaptable grain that can be grown in much of the Empire, but unlike rice it is almost never eaten as the grain itself.
It gets milled into flour and formed, mostly, into noodles. Noodles come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, and here is where custom enters to arbitrate who eats what. The Imperial Families eat ver thing noodles made entirely by hand from the finest white flour. The higher ranks of the Crane Clan will eat noodles almost as thin as the Imperials do, but Crab of all levels favor thick, hearty udon noodles. In the Dragon provinces samurai and heimin alike eat noodles made of a blend of wheat and buckweat flours, buckwheat being even more tolerant of poor growing conditions than wheat.

Cereals
Samurai throughout the Empire eat rice as the main part of their diet. Peasants in farming villages are frequently required to turn over all of the rice they grow to their lords, and so they grow millet or barley for their own use.
In the towns matters are more complex. The poor of a town will eat millet or cheap noodles, but the wealthy merchants eat rice almost as often as samurai do. Townsmen falling in between those two extremes will eat mixtures of millet and rice; the higher the proportions of rice the wealthier the family (or the wealthier it wants to appear).
Wheat is also widely grown, and what doesn't get turned into noodles is made into bread. Breads fall into three basic types: steamed buns, pancake like breads made from battes, and flatbreads formed from stiff doughs that are rolled out and cooked on a hot, flat griddle.

Proteins
Seafood is heavily consumed in all coastal areas, and in inland areas river and lake fish are eaten whenever possible. Poultry is also widely used, both as meat and eggs.
Soybeans are another hugely popular source of protein. Most of the soybean crop is turned into tofu, though a significant fraction is used to make the salty, fragrant condiment know as miso. Mung beans and the small, red adzuki bean are also eaten: the adzuki is the main ingredient in the sweet red bean paste used in many confections.

Vegetables and fruit
A number of the Empire's important vegetables come from the sea: nori, wakame, and kombu are harvested in large quantities from coastal areas, dried, and sold all over Rokugan. The important land-grown vegetables are squash, cucumber, cabbage, kale, yam, burdock, carrot, radish, and onion. The most important fruits are the plum and apricot, though pears, cherries, and apples are also grown.

Dining Customs by Clan (Dragon & Unicorn only)
If it's got four legs and isn't a table, if it swims in the water and isn't a boat, if it flies and isn't a kite - the Unicorn will eat it.
- Scorpion proverb

The Dragon
The samurai caste follows the standard set by the Crane, though it takes effort. The Dragon provinces are almost completely unsuitable for rice culture: cool, rocky, mountainous, and dry. The peasants grow millet and wheat in the lowlands, and barley and buckwheat in the upper reaches: the rice the samurai eat is gotten in trade. They also import a lot of dried fish, but these are used more as seasonings for stocks and soups than as a protein source.
The main source of protein in Dragon cuisine is the soybean, quietly supplemented by goat meat when absolutely nescessary. Goats are robust creatures well-suited to the mountains, and they make use of pastures too rocky to be of any other use. To avoid making too much of a scandal of their eating habits, Dragon samurai tend to refer to goat as "mountain tuna". Due to their long winters, the cooks of the Dragon have developed many methods of pickling vegetable for later use, many of which have spread to the rest of the Empire.

The Unicorn
The Unicorn returned to the Empire with a cooking style developed over 800 years of wandering, one that featured foods that could be prepared quickly with a minimum of fuel and equipment. Small bits of meat threaded on skewers, flatbreads, and vegetables roasted in ashes are all specialities of this nomadic cuisine.
The Unicorn didn't give this up when they returned to a more settled country; they just added the elements of standard Rokugani cuisine that they liked and then started combining the two. Like the Dragon, they raise livestock for food, unlike them, the Unicorn aren't afraid to call a cow a cow. An example of Unicorn fusion cooking is gyuniku no misozuke, a dish where thin strips of beed are marinated several days in sweet white miso and then broiled.

[Kitsuki Yasuko]

Rokugani Dining Customs

Chopsticks

Everyone from the Emperor and down to the lowliest eta eats with chopsticks. Even Moto warriors fresh from the Burning Sands are given crash courses by their Rokugani kin on how to use them, because nothing signals that you are an outsider faster than not being able to eat properly. Everything but soup is eaten with them, and even then it is considered acceptable behaviour to plucl out the solid parts of the soup with chopsticks before drinking the liquid. Almost any kind of wood can be made into chopsticks, but what actually gets used varies by social strata and Clan.

Eta and Heimin will use whatever wood is common and cheap, which usually mean bamboo. Bamboo grows quickly and the wood is tough and durable.

Crab chopsticks are also usually made of bamboo. Most non-Crab assume that this is because the Crab don't care what they are made of, but the truth is that bamboo is a symbol of perseverance and this is a virtue they readily admire. The fact that the wood is tough enough to be shapened into an emergency weapon is just a bonus.

The Crane favor very simple chopsticks made of beautiful woods, and it isn't uncommon for a Crane household to have several different sets to coordinate with the passing seasons: plum for winter, cherry for spring, kaya (a hard, golden-tinged wood) for summer and maple for fall are popular choices. Kaya is used both because of its sunshiny color and because it is the favored wood for Go boards - a subtle reminder that summer is the season of war. The Imperial Families somewhat unsurprisingly follow the Crane's lead in chopsticks.

The monks of the Dragon clan use whatever the local peasantry uses. Dragon samurai usually don't have much of a preference, though a set of plum wood chopsticks is considered a thoughtful and gracious gift.

Lion samurai have their reputation for being uninterested in frivolities, but they do not object to having nescessary objects also beautiful. Kaya, white oak, and plum wood are favorites.

The Families of the Mantis diverge sharply in their inclinations. The Moshi prefer chopsticks made from light, warm-colored woods, especially maples. The Tsuruchi tend not to care. The Yoritomo, on the other hand, like chopsticks made from rare woods like ebony, mother-of-pearl or coral. The Crane tend to be horrified by the gross ostentation of Yoritomo chopsticks, though most will admit they they show excellent workmanship.

The Phoenix also favor ornamented chopsticks, but their taste runs to fine wood and woodwork. Chopsticks with inlays of a contrasting color wood are quite common.

Scorpion think that light-colored chopsticks clash with their Clan colors, and so prefer chopsticks that are lacquered black or red, or ones made of dark woods.

Unicorn have no set preferences, though exotic woods from the Burning Sands are very popular. Some Unicorn like chopsticks made from purple-tinged woods, though others consider this to be disrespectful of the Clan's colors.

[Kakita Hoseki]

Is beer officially part of canon nowadays?

If it exists it is a peasant drink.  After all its malted barley and a samurai doesn't eat (or drink) barley.