Best Food for a Fantasy Adventurer?

today we're going to be talking about foods that should be brought on a fantasy medieval adventure greetings adventurers my name is kramer and i'm using the term fantasy to qualify medieval just because a lot of the foods that are in this video are not going to be exactly historically accurate to the medieval period the name of the channel is living anachronism but i just want to be very clear that this is on purpose and the reason for this is actually twofold the first is that um my goal with this is to get you outside having fun in your garb and eating food that is good that you enjoy i don't want newcomers into the hobby to feel trapped into thinking that they need to be 100 historically accurate down to the way that their wheat was harvested just in order to go outside and start so i'm not attempting to subvert any of the historical stuff i think it's all very important i find it fascinating there's lots of great channels uh tasting history town sends even chad has some videos on food preparation for uh fantasy medieval adventurers so i really think you should do your own research and check those out if that is if historical accuracy is something that you're interested in but this is really just a list to help you get the wheels turning and help you get started and the second reason is that potatoes exist and i want to eat them and even if i see a potato and i know that they aren't historically accurate to the medieval period they don't break my immersion i just look at them and think delicious i don't think that that's not that's not correct um and they were in lord of the rings we love potatoes we love potatoes and tomatoes so i am trying to develop sort of a survival system with food because i think a heavy amount of planning will need to go into all of your supplies and how you're carrying what you're carrying before you go on any length of an adventure whether that is for a week or for a month um if you're going on a solo trip i really think that you should plan to be self-sufficient for probably about three days and the plan being to go from settlement to settlement with an interim of three days so that you can stock up and replenish um anything longer than that if you're going solo you're gonna need to rely on foraging or you're probably just going to die and if you have companions that can help you carry your supplies those companions will also need to be fed if you have a pack animal it will also need to be fed if you have a cart you will need a pack animal to dry which will need to be fed or you will need to pull it yourself in which case you will need to bring more supplies because pulling a cart along is going to be sort of a taxing experience or you will need elvish waybread which um we don't know how to make because we're not elves so the three categories i have broken the food down into are perishable for about the first maybe two days worth of the journey things that are longer lasting they'll still go bad eventually but they might get you through an extra couple of days and then things that are rations completely non-perishable but you're probably not really going to enjoy eating them you might i enjoy eating some rations but i would i would say that you should probably try not to dip into those if you can possibly help it because they're just not going to be as good if you'd like to skip to just a list of foods then there's a time stamp down below but i'm going to go through a couple of tips that i think will be helpful especially for new people who are not used to camping without all of the modern conveniences all of these things are things that i have brought on medieval camping trips um generally three days two nights and i'm not going to give an exhaustive list of like all the different ingredients i'm not to name every type of meat possible i'm not going to name all of the root vegetables possible just pick something that you like and go with it and then later if you would like to be historically accurate with it you can do that research to see if it's historically accurate and maybe substitute a potato for a turnip or something like that but again i like potatoes so the first tip bring spices bring like a couple of little vials or something of spice even if it's just salt you will thank me because just a little bit of extra flavor can go a long way to improving your spirits at the end of the day and salt will help replenish electrolytes make just a simple linen cloth part of your packing routine because it can be used both to store certain items and it can also be used as a cooking implement if you've got journey cakes or johnny cakes which we will get to a little bit later in the video you can use that cloth wrap them up and and break them down without losing any of the pieces you can use the cloth as a water filtration system or you can use it to boil dumplings or puddings or something like that cloth is just a good thing to have you want to focus on bringing foods that are going to fill you up stuff that is high calorie is good but you don't want to bring something like chips because yeah those are high calorie but you can eat a whole bag of them and still be hungry and going on a medieval sort of camping adventure like this really any sort of camping adventure even if it's not medieval is a lot more taxing than i think probably if the average person is going to anticipate even if you are highly active in your day-to-day life to begin with and once you layer on carrying all of your gear um things can get things can get tiring very quickly so don't get overconfident and start planning the amount of food for proportions that you're normally used to eating because you will be more hungry than normal i promise you bring lots and lots of water dehydration has so many negative side effects in addition to just death i always bring a sort of hydration packet like liquid iv with me um it doesn't weigh anything it tastes good it sort of kills a sweet tooth yeah they didn't have anything like that really in the medieval period but it's good for everyday life too so i just bring it it even if it helps just the tiniest little bit i think it's worth it and there are some modern conveniences that i think it's just not worth it to uh to look over like a modern water purification system yes it's fun to know how to make one in a primitive way or know that you can boil your water and it's good to know that you can do that and have the ability to do that if you have absolutely no other option but when it comes down to it i'd rather be a little anachronistic than be 100 historically accurate down to my untimely death from dysentery if you know you're going to be able to cook over a fire make sure that you plan ahead and bring ingredients that can be used in various different dishes so that you aren't overloading yourself for example a soup or a stew can turn into a hash with the removal of the ingredient of water and all you have to do is bring the same ingredients soup is always my go-to even in the summer because it actually stretches a lot further especially with the addition of flour to thicken it up or adding in some some flour dumplings a few ingredients can go a long way to feeding more people i'd say it's probably smart to bring some items that don't need to be cooked just in case you run into an issue in an emergency and also make sure that you're planting your utensils ahead don't plan to make a soup and then only have a pan or have a pot but no stirring and serving spoon you'd think that you wouldn't forget something like that but people totally will make sure you know how you're going to clean your utensils whether or not you're going to bring soap make sure that that soap isn't going to melt if it's more of a natural sort of soap in a pinch you can use ash from your cooking fire and water because ash and water and fat from your food is going to make lie and this actually works very very well you mix that up you scrub it out with like a leaf or something and then you rinse it one final time with water to get all of the ash out it's not going to leave your utensils spotless but it is going to keep them from making the rest of your pack dirty when you put them back in this is just my opinion but i think that you should avoid bringing anything sweet in the hopes that it's going to help fill you up because in my experience if i'm getting a little bit peckish and then i'm like i guess i'll have a cookie or something like that i eat something sweet and then immediately i want something salty as well so you end up sort of wasting time just just bring foods that are going to fill you up and generally when i find myself craving sugar it's actually because i'm just dehydrated and what i really need to do is drink some water finally research some food preservation methods so that you know what it is that you need to prepare for and how you're going to carry it salted pork is great but it requires that you carry it in a barrel full of salt in order for it to be effective and then it requires hours worth of soaking in order to prepare so that it's edible which means that you need to have enough water in order to soak the meat properly i personally think that dried or smoked meats are just an easier thing to go with than carrying around salted pork now i could be wrong you might be able to just lightly dust a piece of meat with salt and call it a day i don't think that's how it works but maybe i'm wrong there are methods both anachronistic and historical i think to dry or otherwise dehydrate fruits or vegetables and while that is convenient and they'll keep for longer i personally don't really go for that because as you take all of the moisture out of a piece of fruit it loses a lot of its filling capability so yeah it's not going to go bad very quickly but it's also not going to go a long way towards making you feel full so it's not really worth it same thing sort of goes for nuts nuts are something that i have consistently brought and then consistently either never eaten or eaten and then immediately wanted to have something else too they're just not a very filling food you can look into pickling methods um or other preserving methods for fruit and and for eggs as well and my problem with that is on a shorter journey when you're pickling something it needs to be kept again in a container and the the the brine is going to add weight to your carrying capacity something that you're not actually going to be able to eat or use really so i think it's i think it's a kind of a big waste so my go-to with eggs is just to boil them rather than pickle them and while you're doing the research also make sure that you are figuring out what it is that you're comfortable with taking into the woods and then eating without refrigeration i'm not going to get into the statistics of how long bacon can theoretically sit in the sun before it goes bad that is a risk assessment that you're going to have to make for yourself and we have to talk about the subject of foraging because in a book or a game or a movie yes if it were illegal in the adventuring you know world an adventurer would totally forge what they could in order to cut down on carry weight uh the problem is that we don't live in a fantasy world actually so we have to abide by a lot of modern laws and when it comes to hunting and fishing lots of times you need a license for that and that can take time if you already have one then you're already set but even once you get a license you know there's the question of do you have the skills to actually hunt something do you have the skills to cook it without you know making yourself sick there's a whole bunch of stuff that goes into it so if you're just starting out if you want to have fresh meat you need to bring it yourself and foraging i think this should go without saying but please make sure a leaf please make sure that you know what you're doing before you just start picking up forest growths off of the floor and then putting them into your mouth okay so let's get into the list of foods we'll start with the perishable items first day maybe two fresh meat obviously things like pork things like beef you could go for a chicken breast maybe but i prefer red meats especially on a camping trip stuff like bacon bacon is delicious but in my opinion it is actually a very poor traveling food because yeah it doesn't take up a lot of space but you're also rendering so much of that fat away by the time that it's cooked that you're carrying a lot more food than you're actually going to eat by the time you're done with it so i think it just isn't that good of an idea no matter how delicious it is i think that meat pies uh like a pasty are a very good traveling option that is what they are for it's self-contained it's easy to just stick in your bag wrap up to stick in your bag and then you can just take it out and you can eat it and they'll keep for a little bit without refrigeration and then you're not carrying around raw meat you're carrying around something that's already cooked sort of prolonging its life for just a little bit just remember if you're making your own and i do have a video of making pasties on the channel that the more butter you add to the crust the better it's going to taste but the more fragile the crust is going to be so it's not going to pack as well and then finally something perishable that i think a lot of people will want to bring it's medieval right a very nice sort of fluffy crusty hearty bread those are great and they will also mold very quickly in the right conditions and by the right conditions i of course mean the wrong conditions because we we don't want our bread molding but it has happened longer lasting foods these are things that are going to sustain you for a little bit longer after the other foods have gone bad things like fruit now i think it depends what kind of fruit we're talking about i think you should go for sort of a harder fruit like an apple or a pear or a plum or an apricot and definitely stay away from softer stuff like peaches or lots of citrus because yeah citrus has like a rind around it right but if it's jostling around in your pack you're still gonna pick it up go to peel and end up holding a cup full of juice so i like to stay away from citrus potatoes potatoes are good bring potatoes eat potatoes unless unless you are really going for a specific historical period where potatoes didn't exist i don't think there's any reason not to include them eggs eggs are a great source of protein and there are lots of ways that you can carry them and keep them my favorite way is to boil them because then the shells sort of protect the food but even if the shells break in transit it's not that big of a deal again you can pickle them and you can also just carry around raw eggs you can do this um especially farm fresh eggs because they haven't been cleaned they they will keep non-refrigerated for for a while longer than like eggs that you buy at the grocery store but you can carry raw eggs my last camping trip a friend of mine just walked in with a plastic bag filled with a dozen eggs not not in a carton or anything just a plastic bag of eggs and we didn't lose any of them it was amazing sausages are good but i think salami is slightly better because it doesn't actually need to be cooked because of the way that it's prepared there's a lot of salt in it i think in some cases it's smoked so it can just be eaten from room temperature it can stay at room temperature you can fry it over a campfire and it's very very good or you can just take a big bite out of it or cut it with a knife very good adventuring food salami tomatoes yeah i know the people in the medieval period and all the way up into the 18th century thought that tomatoes were evil because they come from the nightshade family um but i really like tomatoes tomato juice is really good for you it's good to hydrate you tastes really good um you know cures a hangover all of that good stuff you can do what i do and just buy a full bottle of v8 bloody mary mix and just carry that around with you and drink it and it it tastes great and it looks like a health potion and it's probably a lot better for you than some sort of sugary drink like gatorade or just food coloring and water i see no reason why health potions especially in larps shouldn't just be v8 all of the time it has a more medicinal taste to it make this happen make health potions v8 not sponsored by the eight i wish it was carrots onions other root vegetables these are great because you can eat them raw or you can cook them in a various number of ways soup stews hashes whatever it is that you want to do you i actually like putting pieces of chopped up onion in my scrambled eggs if i'm making them i think that's very good so there's lots of things you can do with those and then finally some types of harder wearing cheese harder wearing it's a weird way to describe cheese but a cheese like a gouda a hard gouda or an aged cheddar those will keep in warmer weather room temperature for longer than a softer cheese will as much as i like goat cheese you got to go for the harder cheese if you're going to bring cheese make sure that that's the first snack that you have because it's not going to keep as long as some of the other things like the root vegetables and stuff like that finally we get to the rations and these are things that are going to keep you alive but maybe you'll enjoy eating them and maybe you won't i think you should bring some sort of porridge or cereal grain like oats or something like that and i think that they should be ground uh not into a flour necessarily but more finely than like a full steel cut oat because then it can be cooked in hot water or in cold water because it'll take less time for that water to absorb into the smaller pieces and then with those smaller pieces you can also use them to make oat cakes or something like that with the addition of salt bring salt or maybe some butter into the oats it can be rather tasty you know it'll be a little bit bland more bland than you're used to probably but it can be very good speaking of butter bring butter bring butter or lard or suet if you can get your hands on it tie in calories you can cook with it you can just eat it if you really want to you can put it on your bread there's lots of things you can do bring butter journey cakes or johnny cakes or cram sometimes called hardtack but that is a more later term it's pretty much just water flour and salt and then you can bake that or pan fry it to get all of the moisture out and those will keep not indefinitely but for a very very long time i like to pan fry mine and i leave a little bit of moisture in them so that they are still edible sometimes i like to add garlic into the dough they're quite good that way but the more moisture that is left in the cake the faster they're going to deteriorate if you've got journey cakes that are particularly hard you can break them up into pieces and then use them as dumplings in a soup that's why soup is my favorite it's just so versatile dried or smoked meat again this is my preferred method to something that is salted because you can just reach right into a bag and eat it if you're hungry or you can cut it up into smaller pieces and boil it it'll soften it up it'll make a nice broth i've done this it's actually very good but you really need to make sure that you are cutting that jerky up into smaller pieces because you don't want to be trying to eat a large piece of beef jerky with a spoon or you can make something like a portable soup there's a link to the townsend's video about that i haven't made portable soup yet but it seems like a brilliant idea and i really want to know how it tastes because it sounds really good bring honey honey never goes bad it's very good for you it'll kill a sweet tooth you can use it on journey cakes you can put it on your fruit there's lots of things you can do with honey you can make tea with honey you can just eat it by the spoonful if you're having sort of a sore throat you can preserve things like garlic or ginger in it if you're starting to have you know a little bit of a cough that might be good for your immune system and i've also made a honey and vinegar syrup here on the channel and that is a medieval recipe and the idea is that you would add that to water and the vinegar will help purify the water of any bacteria that might be in it it might do that i don't know if i would trust that but that is something that is historically accurate to the medieval period i think it's probably also smart to bring a ration of flour just a little bag of flour you can put raw meat in it if you're going to be making a soup to sort of thicken that up a little bit it's up to you if you're also bringing a finely ground porridge grain if if that is redundant but i think you should have either one or the other or both and finally bring salt please please bring salt don't don't go saltless you must have salt now that you have the basic set up for your camp kitchen you can go ahead and check out this video up here about how you can get more of a medieval aesthetic to your actual camp i actually have a whole playlist of some of my medieval camping experiences get an idea of where it is that i'm starting from and then start to build out your own kit from there as well but this is a place that you can get started but wherever the road takes you i'd like to wish you good luck on your adventures

Channel: Living Anachronism

Views: 37,902

Keywords: medieval, fantasy medieval, fantasy, fantasy adventure, medieval fantasy, lord of the rings, lotr, the witcher, witcher, tolkien, reenactment, fantasy reenactment, larp, how to, food, medieval food, adventuring food, fantasy food, rations, medieval camping, medieval camp cooking

Id: aX1d3ncrkLo

Length: 18min 26sec (1106 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 20 2022