Greymarsh Menu

Welcome to Greymarsh

The people of Greymarsh are a well adapted community that live next to a marsh and at the edge of a forest. No one really travels to the town to visit, merchants and royal traders are some of the only people that ever stop, and even then they gather their wares and head on to the capital. The marsh is a vital source of pitch, and the forest provides several plants that are required to make medicinal tintures for the armies of Argentia. The people here are also renowned for their fletching prowess, and woodworking abilities.

The forest provides their main sources of income and so the people here don't hunt or disturb the local forest creatures. Instead they have turned to the swamps and marshlands for their food. This has led to some strange and unique recipes.

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Breakfast

Fried Swamtopus and Mudtatoes

A small creature with hundreds of tentacles are plucked from the mud, washed, and fried in seasoned marshhog fat. The ends get extra crispy and more than a few fights among families break out over these crunchy delights. The mudtatoes are grated and fried in the fat after the swamptopus to create crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside side dishes.

Swamptopus and Fresh Cream

A special treat and a real morning delicacy the swamptopus is boiled gently in a simple sweet fruity broth and placed on top of bowl of bayner cream.

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by RandoScorpio via MidJourney

I do not recommend eating any of their breakfast items, there's simply too many legs, too many eyes, and too many questions about how and why they think it's a good idea to eat these creatures in the morning. I've never been so grateful to see an egg as when I left Greymarsh.

— Merchant Traveling From Greymarsh

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Lunch

Marshhog Stew

Marshhogs are plentiful and aggressive, but also delicious. Any cut of the hog can be used to make this hearty stew, but avoid the meat near it's poison glands. Impressive cooks will display the poison glands intact on the table as a display of their butchering prowess. Any vegetables can be paired with the marshhog to make the stew but mudtatoes, carrots, and snakegrass roots (when in season) are popular choices.

Snakegrass Rollups

Using the leaves of mature snakeplants, wrap fried meats, sauces, and vegetables for a portable handheld lunch. Bayner cheese is a popular choice for filling as well.

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Dinner

Marshsakka

Made by layering slices of marsh root vegetables with a savoury brown sauce and bayner cheese the marshsakka is then baked on a low temperature all day. Many from Greymarsh consider this to be a childhood favourite, and no one will ever make it as well as their parents did.

Snakeroot Pie

A cousin to the marshhog stew, snakeroot pie contains the goodness of a thick stew within a pie shell made from ground snakeroot seeds and mudtato flour.

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Dessert

Spider Egg Custard

Contrary to the name this dessert does not contain spiders or their eggs. It is simply the common name for a local fruit plant that grows in the swamps. The berries are sweet and juicy with a soft and delicate flesh. They are boiled and then used to top custard made from bayner cream.

Bayner Cheesecake

A time consuming and difficult dessert to master. This cheesecake is made with a softer bayner cheese and precise mix of snakegrass and mudtato flour. Additionally this dessert requires one of the least common ingredients in all of Greymarsh: eggs. Chickens do not typically do well in the marshes, and song bird eggs are unsuitable for baking. Wealthy families may trade for eggs or order them from Rockrun, but less well off families will need aervine eggs.

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Snakegrass Tips

Be mindful of the poison cycles of snakegrass plants. In spring when new plants sprout their leaves have high concentrations of poison, they lose this poison as the roots develop. After the second full moon in summer the leaves can be harvested, but do not take more than half the leaves of a plant if you intend to use the roots later. In these summer months the toxins that were found in the leaves travel down into the root system. Through the fall as the leaves wilt the roots begin to lose their toxicity. Roots may be harvested one week following the first hard frost of winter. This plant thrives in areas of the marsh that have high concentrations of swamp gas, the leaves absorb the gas and turn it into their signature poison but the gas is harmless on its own, if a bit smelly.

Snakeroot blossoms in mid spring and produces large seed pods filled with tiny seeds. These seeds can be harvested and ground down into a nutritous powder. It is often added to mudtato flour to provide better consistency to doughs and breads, as well as aid in the binding process with the mudtato flour.

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Marshhogs

Marshhogs are a breed of pig that has adapted to the swamps and marshes. Their hooves have widened to provide better footing on mud and their two toes are connected by webbing to help them swim through the wetter parts of the swamp. Their mobility in the difficult terrain makes them a tricky species to hunt but their destructive nature makes it necessary to keep their numbers down. Many recipes that revolve around marshhogs have been developed to take advantage of the large amount of meat on the animals, but butchering them can be difficult and dangerous. Behind their large tusks is a venom gland that must be carefully cut around to prevent it from contaminating the surrounding meat. Even small amounts of this toxin can be deadly. Families guard their butchering techniques and hunters keep their methods secret. These specialty trades have provided steady and stable income for these families while others gain their wealth from trade with the capital.

Marshhog gorings are a painful way to die in Greymarsh, it is often seen as a mercy to hasten the process rather than let the poor soul endure weeks of agony before death. There are no known cures for the marshhog's venom, and no methods to control the pain from a goring are available. Even mages have sometimes decided to specialize in studying the marshhog's venom, though these mages are usually consumed by the curiosity of the development of the venom rather than easing the suffering it causes.

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Bayner Plants

A large plant found in the heart of the marshes, bayners have thick stalks that produce a high fat cream. These stalks can be pulled up near the root to keep the cream contained until it is ready to be processed. Stalks are cut at the base and hung over barrels in bunches to allow the cream to drain from them. This cream is either used as is in it's raw state, cooked into custards and desserts, or used to make cheese. These versitile plants are also used for their fibre once the cream has been drained, the stalks are dried and pulled apart to reveal long thin fibres that are spun into thread and woven into fabric.

There are several species that look like the bayner plant and produce a similar looking cream substance but nearly all of these are poisonous and the ones that aren't have a bitter or sour taste to their creams.

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Mudtatoes

A relative of the common potato these plants have adapted to make the most of their muddy home. They are generally larger than a standard potato and are more resistant to pests and disease. They must be processed before being eaten. Raw mudtatoes might not kill you but you'll certainly be sorry you ever ate them. Undercooked or unprocessed mudtatoes cause a variety of unpleasant symptoms such as vomiting, nausea, bloating, diarrhea, rash, and ulcers in the mouth. Processing can include fermentation or pickling as this breaks down compounds in the mudtatoes that the body would otherwise convert to toxins. Additionally the mudtato can be mashed, dried and ground into a flour to be used in cooking. It is important to note that mudtato flour must be cooked before being eaten.

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Swamptopus

Swamptopus are plentiful, easy to catch, and easy to cook. The only precaution recommended is to not prepare them in salt. The salt may cause the tentacles' muscles to contract and pose a choking hazard, especially in young children. Most outsiders are usally put off by the overwhelming number of legs on the average swamptopus.

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Spider Egg Berries

A berry native to the marshes it grows plentifully and is one of the rare plants that is edible all through the growing season. It is a staple used to make dishes sweet. The berries grow in cluseters wrapped in a delicate transparent silk that protects the berries from birds and insects, but isn't usful for weaving or spinning due to it's flammability and difficulty to harvest. the silk is generally pushed aside, or torn off the berries to free them for collection. Greymarsh has developed a special type of basket that helps keep the berries from crushing each other under their own weight, the basket is woven to accomodate layers of specially woven dividers that allow the berries to be harvested in single layers but in greater numbers than with a traditional basket. Spider Egg baskets are a skill taught to all young children and the ones used for harvest are mostly produced by older children and adolesants.

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Aervine

The only bird that calls the marshes home. They nest high in sturdy trees scattered through the marsh and swamp. Their eggs are prized as a baking ingredient and a rare treat for anyone lucky enough to get their hands on them. Aside from being in nests high above the swamp, aervine are known for their agressive nature. Even without eggs and outside mating season these large birds have a mean streak and will swoop and claw at almost anything. Their diet consists of anything they are able to kill, and anything that's laying around dead. They have a large heavy bill with a hook on the end of their top beak, and square heavily muscled heads. Their feet don't have much gripping power but their claws are sharp and contain a mild venom that causes numbness and muscle weakness. They are able to crack hard shells and bones to get at anything edible and their beak is their main weapon of choice.

These large aggressive birds are mostly left alone and not hunted as a widowed bird will actively seek vengeance for its mate, but when they nest near town and become a safety issue for people the entire nest is hunted as the aervine will generally nest in the same location every time. When an aervine nest is hunted the birds and eggs are cooked up and a giant feast is held to take advantage of the delicacy and ensure none of the birds are wasted. The flesh of the aervine is tender with a deep and complex flavour.

Fermentation

The marshes provide more than just food, they are also used to preserve food. Families will use patches of the marsh that have consistant temperatures that encourage fermentation in their food. Sealing different foods in glass jars with spiced liquors and submerging them in warm mud helps keep foods edible and available when hunting is scarce, or when plants are in their toxic phases.

Liquor and spice blends are kept as family secrets and are tweaked and changed through the years. An annual Fermentation Fest encourages people to try new recipes by providing competition with a small sum of money as the prize for the best fermented dish.

Pickling

Some vegetables from the marshes are able to be pickled and some are not. Mudtatoes are a good choice to pickle as the process brings out a sweet flavour in them. Adding snakegrass roots is a popular choice as they take on a crsipy and juicy texture while soaking up flavours well. Snakegrass leaves on the other hand will leave your entire pickling liquid unbearably bitter. Most choose to use root vegetables and spices from their traditional gardens for pickling.