Redwall Cooking in Detail

[Keldor]

So I made the terrible, terrible mistake of trying to understand Redwall cooking.  However, there is no backing out now!

Currently, the Redwall Wiki's food section is sadly lacking, but I did come across this: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7416280

Seeing this, it's apparent that there aren't so much a number of specific dishes (classics like Deeper'N'Ever Pie and Shrimp 'n Hotroot Soup excluded) as a selection of ingredients that the creatures in Redwall have ready access to, from which they choose some to make a dish.  In general, these should be assumed to come from plants native to England, or which at the very least would have been brought in and grown there well before the discovery of the Americas.

The problem is that many of these edible fruits, vegetables, and herbs are next to unknown in modern cuisine.  There are any number of reasons for this, ranging from such and such a plant being difficult to farm and harvest on a large scale to many edible plants simply not being particularly tasty compared to the wide variety of "foreign" crops the modern world has given England access to.  But this knowledge doesn't help us very much.

There are even cases where the crop, as cultivated in the modern world, comes from something completely inaccessible to Medieval England, but where there WAS something very similar they could have used instead.  A good example is maple syrup.  The species of maple tree used today to make syrup are native to the new world, and so at a glance, one would not believe Redwallers would have maple syrup at all.  However, the field maple IS native to England, and does in fact produce sap from which maple syrup could be made.  Modern agriculture may use the American species, whether because they have sweeter sap or simply produce more of it, but it would be wrong to assume the old world did not have access to it before the Americas were discovered.  (Whether anyone actually thought of USING it before the native Americans showed the colonists how they extracted and processed the sap is a whole other question)

Anyway, it would be very useful to compile a list of the fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains and herbs used in Redwall cooking.  Beyond this, some description of each one would be very useful, particularly for ones most of us aren't familiar with.  What do they taste like?  When are they harvested?  Are there any special steps that have to be done to make them palatable?  Which ones are sometimes used medicinally?  Some Redwall beasts, in particular the older ones, might drink teas made with specific herbs for a reason.

Also, are there any reasonably tasty edible plants growing in England that BJ simply missed?

A couple of other things which would be helpful to compile information about are what various pastries and dishes actually are.  Some of us pore unedicated vermin types don't know the difference between a scone, a tart and a flan!  Same with drinks.  For instance, what's the difference between a cordial, a cider, and a wine?

[The Grey Coincidence]

Alas, I am one of the pore unedicated vermin types that doesn't know er- much about food.
I  can't help much I'm afraid but something I like to do (besides taking recipes from random places) is take an ingredient and er- make it sound tasty/like a food?
Hazelnut wrap for example. What is it? Is it nice? Is it *edible*? Noone knows but it doesn't sound half-bad, right?

[The Skarzs]

Just as a point of reference, some common vegetables we find worldwide today were originally found in the new world, namely things like: Vanilla, potatoes, tomatoes, squash, a number of legumes (beans), blueberries, cranberries, and the modern strawberry. Most other things found in the book seem to be of Old World origin, things like leeks, onions, watercress, mushrooms, cherries, apples, fennel, garlic, beets, turnips, carrots, pears, damsons, blackberries, raspberries, and more. (Frankly, the most shocking thing to me is that potatoes are New World plants.)
Most plants we know and love today are not the original plants they started out as. The nice big strawberries we have are a crossbreeds between several species, both new and old world types. Same with apples, pears, blackberries, etc. Broccoli is even a manmade vegetable, originating from the brussel sprouts if I'm not wrong.
Another thing to know is that several of the "native" fruits and vegetables were not found in the same parts of the Old World, like apples, raspberries, and turnips coming from Asia, garlic from the Middle-East, and so on.

I may be wrong with some of these things, but they're still interesting.

[The Grey Coincidence]

Fun random fact  while I think of something more productive to share with the conversation er- beavers excrete a er- mucus of some kind that is used in vanilla flavourings.

[The Skarzs]

Some vanilla flavorings. The chemical is called castoreum. There are lots of others that are probably easier to get than squeezing beavers- Coal tar, synthetic vanillin, lignin, clove oil, etc.

[Keldor]

Turns out blueberries fall into that catagory where species cultivated today are usually new world, but there is also an old world species.

The European Blueberry is often called the bilberry or the whortleberry.  This is particularly confusing in Redwall since all three names show up separately.

[LordTBT]

Currently, the Redwall Wiki's food section is sadly lacking

The Redwall Food and Beverage articles:

https://redwall.fandom.com/wiki/Redwall_Food

https://redwall.fandom.com/wiki/Redwall_Beverages

Readily accept additions.

[Keldor]

Fun random fact  while I think of something more productive to share with the conversation er- beavers excrete a er- mucus of some kind that is used in vanilla flavourings.

This can only mean one thing.  If beavers were vermin, they'd spit in their food to flavor it.

[Jetthebinturong]

Uh... the flavouring doesn't come from their spit.

[Keldor]

Uh... the flavouring doesn't come from their spit.

...It figures.

[The Grey Coincidence]

*Awkward pause* Er- it doesn't?

[Jack the Quick]

That's how they stick their logs together

[Kolman]

I was actually wondering about the Redwall Abbey cooking playing the game has made me start thinking about the recipes again. some of theme sound delicious but I dunno how they would actually taste in real life

[Tungro]

I have only ever had,
October Ale (super good)
Shrimp n' Hotroot Soup (don't remember )
Dibbun's Delight (didn't turn out like it was supposed to)

[Steelinghades]

Fun random fact  while I think of something more productive to share with the conversation er- beavers excrete a er- mucus of some kind that is used in vanilla flavourings.

It's also used in cigarette's, among other things, and medieval beekeepers used it to increase hive productivity.