WoW: Shadowlands Culinary Adventures

 "I'm not going anywhere. I hope. It's been an adventure. We took some casualties over the years. Things got broken. Things got lost. But I wouldn't have missed it for the world."

This is a weird thing to make a blog post about. Honestly, I once promised myself I'd never write a post about World of Warcraft too, but here we are. I've been having a blast with the world of Shadowlands and the expansion's gameplay, but I've noticed something about the world that's stuck with me enough that I want to talk about it. 

The food in the Shadowlands is fucking bizarre. Food in WoW has gotten steadily weirder over the years because it's hard to continually be unique. However, if every other expansion is a calm walk down a hill, Shadowlands is a leap off a cliff. I can't shake thoughts on how this stuff would taste. I'll go over the cuisine of all four zones then afterward the "meat" of the article, the player-crafted food. 

Thank god my home town Revendreth is relatively normal. I found things like "Fearstalker's Delight" which...let's face it, if the real world had Fearstalkers there'd probably be a dessert named after them here too. It had Cabbage Wrapped Minced Mite, Evernight Porridge(which I'd love to try), and various roasted local wild animals like Barbecued Dreadwing and Skullboar Chop. This is also the only place in all of Azeroth that they make Cottage Cheese. Imagine having to die then travel to a giant Transylvanian wasteland to have something to go with your sliced peaches. In the Sanctuary of the Mad you can try Batloaf, Mirecrawler Goulash, or whatever "Odorous" rice is. I have my own ideas on what they mean by odorous. None of them are good. If you're wistful for Wendy's after you die and your soul travels to a realm intended to torment you into reform, you can have a Muckfrosty, which apparently comes in five flavors: "Cold", "Chunky", "Slough", "Brown" and "Not sure which this is". This is one of the more obvious jokes in the expansion's cuisine, which makes me worry that the rest of what I've found is supposed to be serious. 

Ardenweald is like a place you'd put Republicans if you wanted to torture them. In addition to the usual fried or roasted local beasts this "twee nightmare" forest world has Wild Hunter's Stew which I'm sure is just a thing I've had in the real world, Poached Strider Eggs in a realm that has no Striders, and a wide selection of vegetarian hippy druid food like Grilled Slumbershrooms, Torchberry Bundles and Ripe Wintermelon, which again I think is just a real thing I've eaten. There's also Midnight Starpeppers. I don't care how star-shaped or beautiful your peppers are, eating a raw pepper for lunch is fucking weird. You can drink "Ardendew" which I'm a hundred percent convinced is the afterlife equivalent of Fiji water: regular water in a weird shaped bottle sold for five bucks. Desserts include "Candied Brightbark" and in this place I'm sure it's actual bark with candy coating on it. 

Bastion has the kind of food you'd expect out of the Elysian Fields since, y'know, it's just the Elysian Fields with blue people in it. Ciabatta, candied walnuts, pomegranates, fruit salad, et cetera. In fact, that's all you can eat in Bastion. Ciabatta, walnuts, pomegranates, fruit salad and spring water. I already didn't like these guys because the fridge logic of how their realm works is a little horrifying and this certainly isn't helping. At least I'd be able to have my favorite type of bread. 



Ah, Maldraxxus. I saved you for last on purpose. It has exactly what food you'd expect out of a blasted necrotic hellscape filled with undead. I found Finger Foods which are a clever play on words, and Yummy Toes which are fucking not. There's lukewarm milk from the weird skinned bisons which roam the area. Blood Oranges(GET IT?) and apparently they actually eat the weird hairlike fungus that grows out of the fleshy ground. We also have "Tea Bones" which are, disturbingly, a food. You can wash it down with a Corpini Slurry, which I'm going to assume is the rotten green stuff that comes out of a decomposing body, poured into a glass with a little crazy straw. You're welcome for that mental image. Maldraxxus also has an enormous amount of alcohol, more than any other realm. Because of course it does. 

On to the main event. The food on inkeepers and vendors is usually just world fluff and flavor. Nobody really needs it, it's just there if you need some out of combat healing in a pinch. Virtually nobody ever does, though. It also just looks nice and cute on the vendor when you're selling him all the junk you stole off dead bodies. Player-created food, on the other hand, even the average player interacts with constantly. It's cheap and provides big benefits, making it probably the most efficient consumable buffs in the game.

And this time, they're all really fucking weird. I'm going to go over them one at a time and give them a score from zero to five. Zero means I wouldn't ever even try it. For no amount of money. One is least likely to eat(but willing), and five is most likely.

Pickled Meat Smoothie. Dear diary: Today God looked the other way. This stuff is made with Aethereal meat, which I'm assuming is some kind of cheap, bad cut of meat. You also need vinegar, vegetables, a blender, and a complete lack of self respect. 
Tastiness Score: Zero.


Biscuits and Caviar. This is just something you could have in the real world if you were rich and stupid. It's one of those pregnant woman craving jokes played straight.
Tastiness Score: One.

Sweet Silvergill Sausages. Is fish sausage a thing? Is sweet fish sausage a thing? It seems like it is. Silvergill are caught in Bastion so, out of any of the fish in the Shadowlands, these ones are the most likely to taste good. It's one of the few basic, normal dishes in this entire afterlife.
Tastiness Score: Four.


Butterscotch Marinated Ribs. This is one of the things that keeps me up at night. Logically, I think "this would be disgusting" but then, when I'm in my bed, when everything's quiet...I wonder. 

Tastiness Score: Five.


Meaty Apple Dumplings. Okay so this sounded weird at first, but I did find plenty of recipes with apples and meat, usually pork. It's made with "Shadowy Shank" which sure, I can believe tastes like pork. What I can't forgive is making dumplings with shank, which is historically a tough cut of meat only suitable for stews. 
Tastiness Score: Three.


Cinnamon Bonefish Stew. Listen, I can't imagine something fished up in a necrotic wasteland called a Bonefish tastes good or has much meat on it, let alone goes with cinnamon. 
Tastiness Score: One.


Candied Amberjack Cakes. Mmmm, candied fish, doesn't that sound great? Sure is a lot of sugar in these recipes. These are made with Amberjacks which are fished up in Ardenweald and I'm sure they taste deliciously gay. It's also made with Bonefish, which means this recipe strikes me as a way to use up all your spare Bonefish without having to eat something that tastes like Bonefish. 
Tastiness Score: Two.


Banana Beef Putting. Once again this complete mistake is made with Aethereal meat. I'm sure the implication is supposed to be that it goes well with sweet things, but personally I'm taking this to mean that Aethereal meat is already kind of gross and cheap and makes chefs desperately cast about for ways to make it taste good. A valiant effort. But the answer's still no. 
Tastiness Score: Zero.

Tenebrous Crown Roast Aspic. Y'know, I'm sure Tenebrous Ribs taste at least as good as beef ribs. Taking the best meat in Shadowlands(probably) and making an aspic out of it is a crime on the level of putting ketchup on wagyu steak. I'm not normally that person when it comes to food but aspic is where I draw the line. For those of you who don't know, aspics are the second worst thing to come out of 1950s America, right after the Cold War. It's a savory gelatin suspension with bits of meat or vegetable floating inside. Yeah. If that doesn't already disgust you, I urge you to watch a few videos on classic American 1950s dining. The worst part? This stuff buffs haste. My character has to eat it. 
Tastiness Score: Zero.

Steak A La Mode. The picture implies this is some sort of steak pie, but still. WHY?! It's made with shank again but also with seraphic wings. I'm sure that's for the basket of fried wings that comes on the "side" and serves as the actual meal. 
Tastiness Score: Zero.(Fried Seraphic Wings: Four)

Iridescent Ravioli with Apple Sauce. Made with Lost Sole and Amberjacks, both fish that sound fine. Y'know what? We've been through hell. I'm giving a pass to the fish ravioli with sweet apple sauce. It's vaguely normal. Fuck it, it even sounds nice. 
Tastiness Score: Four.

Spinefin Souffle and Fries. Spinefin probably taste like crap. I'm putting that out there right now, there's no way a piranha from Soul Tormenting Vampire Translyvania is a good tasting fish. Still, it might be okay, and if nothing else? I can fill up on fries like I always do. 
Tastiness Score: Two. 

There's also Smothered Shank which is an actually decent way to cook shank, Seraph Tenders which I'm sure is what I'd be ordering ninety percent of the time, and Fried Bonefish which is probably the worst possible way to cook bonefish.

If the World of Warcraft cookbook is any indication, loads of Azeroth's meals are pretty good when you get down to it. They sound weird and exotic because Azeroth's wildlife is strange, exotic and overly large. Does that mean I'm going to make some butterscotch sauce for my next rack of ribs, though? 

Erh...you first.