Food and drink tell you as much about a people as their banners and their gods. Humans, being humans, eat nearly everything that can be coaxed from field, forest, river, or sea. Wheat is their quiet tyrant: bread on nearly every table, from coarse black loaves in village hovels to airy white rounds in noble halls. Ale: thick, weak, or surprisingly potent, is their water’s safer cousin, consumed from dawn to dusk wherever wells are suspect. Stews of root vegetables, onions, and whatever meat is at hand are the default fare.
High-aelvar, perched along mountain ridges flanked by forest, rely less on broad fields and more on small, carefully tended terraces and orchards: hardy grains, root crops, herbs, and fruits that tolerate thinner soil and colder nights. We supplement this with animal husbandry and hunting of goats, mountain deer, and game birds, all prepared with a patience humans rarely match: slow-roasted meats glazed with herb wines, smoked cheeses, and soups so clear you can see the bottom of the bowl.
Wood-aelvar remain closest to the old hunter-gatherer pattern. Their villages and groves yield berries, nuts, wild greens, and mushrooms subtly encouraged rather than domesticated, while deer, boar, hare, birds, and even squirrels find their way into the cookpot when the season is right. Meals are often simple but fresh: spit-roasted meat over open fires, flatbreads of forest grains and ground nuts, fruit wines and lightly fermented berry drinks taken in communal gatherings.
Dverger diets resemble those of nearby humans at first glance: grains, root vegetables, meat; but the preparation differs. Living at the feet of mountains, they favor hardy crops and livestock that tolerate stony ground, then transform them with an exuberant use of spices and mineral salts from their own mines. Their stews are dense, their breads dark and heavy, and their famed stone-ovens yield smoked and baked dishes that can keep for weeks deep in their mines when excavating.
The pale-aelvar of the Vael’sarí, if Isha is to be believed, sit uneasily between human and aelvar habits. Nobles indulge in the regular hunting of great beasts such as stag, aurochs, even larger game when they can find it, all served with rich wheat breads and wines, while commoners make do with barley, lesser grains, and whatever meat trickles down from the high tables. Wheat, there, is not simply a staple but a marker of rank. Isha told me she grew up on coarse barley bread, thin ale, and occasional cuts of meat, with true wheat loaves appearing rarely enough to feel like holy days. In all of this, one sees how power decides not only who eats, but what counts as food.
