Mealtimes plays a big part of the current campaign with quite a few memorable meals and the idea of having to stay away from base and miss the dinner hour as a tangible sacrifice. The beats through out day are more or less 'major meal' and 'time between after meal'.
I try to make meals a daily opportunity to gather info, so continually positively reinforce that. I also flag 'its cold, you are burning energy and getting hungry' as a soft timer to drive pace during activities. Lore to the setting is that spell slinging makes you hungry, so the sorcerer is always concious of when the next meal is.
The specific foods that have turned up are ways to showcase one of the fairy tale races of the setting. The atmosphere is Ankh-morpork crossed with the fairy-tale aspects of Arthur Rackhams work and food is a great way to drive that things are not quite the same.
Examples of food preferences becoming tags within the world have been:
Super large mushrooms served whole with baked topping being one for the mountain and cave folk with intact transport being tricky and a safe arrival being cause for a celebration.
Large juicy breadbugs for breakfast, lunch and dinner marked a winter festival being one for the animal-lings.
Pungent stews are a favourite for the weasel-lings and have become a marker for their presence.
When I working food into world-building, I usually derive it from other parts first; if the city generation indicates a couple of obvious food types and sources then those will feature prominently.
Thenya is a city in the interior, on a river but mostly fed by field and mountains nearby. The sea is too far away. So as a first pass, classic medieval fare is a good model.
Sholtipec is a city on a river but with extensive eel farming, large hives and a large part of the city being reclaimed by jungles. Much hotter and with lots of available food in the forest and a significantly higher proportion of insects in the diet as the population is largely reptilian.
Once the general ideas were in place, I pre-generated a couple of food carts using the Dungeonspoon tables from Famous Hippopotamus and also rolled up the stall holders using the appropriate city dweller tables (e.g. these for Sholtipec.)
For my games, lots of useful business has gotten done standing around food carts or sitting to high tables; why not let the food served also drive the atmosphere?
Edit to add: Box Full of Boxes has a great Local Cuisine Generator along the same general concept.
Are there any recipes or names? What was served at a Noble dinnner? What kind of pastries? Any links with resources? Thank you!
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