Dangerous Food

(This is a follow up post to Le Restaurant Tranquille. Read that first.)

So, what does all of that nonsense food in the last post taste like? And more importantly, what happens if you sabotage the cooking process? I think I'll take a shenanigans-first approach to Le Restaurant Tranquille.

Like this, but they all die if the dwarf didn't get enough sleep
and cooked the mushrooms without dispelling evil.

For all entries, assume a Save vs. Poison for 'If it ain't cooked right...'

1. Aboleth Soup

The real question is: who thought cooking and eating an aboleth was a good idea in the first place? The vegetables must be brined and de-brined or the aboleth meat will corrode it.

It tastes like... being welcomed home after a year-long voyage at sea. Like the home-cooked stew you never knew you missed.

If it ain't cooked right... skin starts to turn to goop, flesh dissolves into an promethean mess. In the brief moments before you turn into a puddle you start cursing the gods and Everything.

2. Silenced Black Truffle

Shrieking mushrooms are surprisingly tasty once you quiet them down a little. Typically sliced expertly thin and sauted. Any noise during the cooking process initiates screaming.

It tastes like... the peace of autumn - the final stretches of the forest before it rests, the cool breeze on smoking wood, the ecstasy of the snail.

If it ain't cooked right... unsilenced it shall become. Flesh becomes tough and rubbery. That cooked truffle will grow a mouth and start screaming on the plate. Save vs. paralysis or get paralyzed for 10 minutes.

3. Flail Snail with Garlic Butter

A delicacy, even among those places without arcano-gastronomy. A fully grown snail is a feast for a village. A provincial recipe.

It tastes like... the garlic butter really brings out the eternal sadness. But, like, the tasty kind of depression, not the depressing kind. The fleeting pretty kind you see advertised on TV.

If it ain't cooked right... a vile dish which'll make you puke and cry at the same time.

4. Phoenix Omlette

Stealing a phoenix egg, let along eating it, is considered a heinous act universally... except in Wizard City, of course!

It tastes like... being born again, without all the screaming, pain, and cold. Like entering a new world with new eyes, taking in everything with nothing for granted.

If it ain't cooked right... you will catch right on fire. Go up in an immolation. Vaporize right in front of your date. And you won't come back.

5. Quince Fruit in Gelatinous Cube

Getting the gelatinous cube to not digest the eater is a chemical challenge. It turns out quince fruit is instrumental in the formula.

It tastes like... Quince! And a primordial fullness, like being a snake digesting a months-long meal.

If it ain't cooked right... make your save and you vomit it out. Don't, and the acid will eat you from the inside out.

6. Unicorn Flank with Pegasus Sauce

We don't talk about where the Unicorn meat comes from...

It tastes like... an innocence shielded with strength, like a mythical hero stripped of all callousness, as one would find Heracles in a children's book.

If it ain't cooked right... Madness and mutation. Unicorn meat is ravenously addictive, and only a master chef can dispel these traps. The lost innocence becomes a taint on one's soul permanently.

7. Fat Liver from Cockatrice with Shallots and Figs

The hard part is force-feeding the Cockatrice for several days on hearty grains.

It tastes like... strolling through the meadows of Elysium, holding a loved-one's hand.

If it ain't cooked right... 50% chance the eater can now digest stone for a week. 50% chance small rock shards grow in the intestines and eventually cause severe lacerations. Shit blood for days and days before death.

8. Froghemoth Legs

Wizards, so often denying themselves such frivolous pleasures, will clamor head-over-heels for this stuff. Fetches a high price for fresh kills.

It tastes like... falling into meaty marbled love. The married-for-50-years kind.

If it ain't cooked right... try to eat the weakest person around. Whole preferably. Let nothing stop you.

9. Deep One Bisque

Another provincial dish. Best eat in small amounts. Even correctly-prepared it can cause ill effects when eaten in excess.

It tastes like... starring at the sky on a clear warm night and watching the stars, naively and ignorantly thinking about the optimistic wonders of the universe.

If it ain't cooked right... visions of uncaring and unknowable great things. Gain a madness.

10. Cheese from Catoblepas Milk

You need righteous paladins to churn the evil from the milk and curds! Those who perform this elaborately blessed task really like doing it, for some bizarre reason.

It tastes like... delightfully creamy and airy. Sensations of flying over a clear sky.

If it ain't cooked right... petrification and extreme abdominal pain.

11. Hydra Steak

Eating a properly cooked medium-rare hydra steak (any less cooked and you'll get a whole hydra growing) will keep the eater full for weeks on end as it slowly digests and regenerates in the stomach.

It tastes like... chewy, complex, and calm. Like taking pain relief after an extraordinary amount of pain.

If it ain't cooked right... you will have a hydra head growing right up your esophagus and out of your mouth. Pretty bad way to go.

12. Mortuary Songbird

They carry the souls of the departed to visit loved ones at memorials and funerals. Eating them is considered a capital sin. Preparation involves drowning them in brandy.

It tastes like... shame. Scrumptious, naughty gleeful shame. It's like breaking into the cosmic cookie jar without any consequences.

If it ain't cooked right... There aren't any repercussions for cooking it incorrectly - the dish will just taste bad. The real danger is in the eating. Failure to hide yourself from heaven while eating will open a portal directly and immediately to hell, taking you (no save) and everyone nearby (save vs. petrification).

13. Kraken Calamari
Best used with young Kraken, as older members of the species will typically be infested with parasites, not to mention the difficulty of acquiring fresh older Kraken.

It tastes like... triumphantly conquering fear. Best with lemon!
If it ain't cooked right... gain an intense phobia of deep water (any water in which you can't see the bottom).

The guts are in the cooking pan!

14. Mimic Souffle
It's a real mimic. The top portion, the "souffle", can be safely eaten provided the mimic remains tricked into thinking that it's actually food.

It tastes like... cheese and mushrooms, or whatever else you can trick it into thinking it should taste like. It feels like getting away clean-handed with a white lie.
If it ain't cooked right... in Wizard City, souffle eat you!

15. Stewed Gibber Eyes
It turns out there are enough spices to make a gibbering horrors edible. The eyes are typically sliced thin enough to be indistinguishable. Nobody wants to eat whole gawping eyes.

It tastes like... eating a calm heartfelt conversation of intense understanding and mutual respect.
If it ain't cooked right... you'll quickly find out if the soup starts babbling.

16. Were-Wolf Tart
Take some were-wolves, constrict them into smaller and smaller concentric magic circles, distill their essence with cream cheese and sugar, and slather it on a tart.

It tastes like... a very good tart, but with a little something extra indescribable, un-quantifiable. You'll be thinking about that tart for days and weeks. What was in that tart?
If it ain't cooked right... were-wolf in your tart. Not a fun day.

17. Dragon Milk
A bit of a misnomer, as dragons don't produce milk; however, they do produce tears. Deliciously salty tears. Many a dragon have been slain to collect their precious eye fluid. A far more sustainable and profitable approach, though, is to make non-hostile dragons laugh or cry hard enough to siphon off that liquid gold. The tears are then mixed with cow's milk and sugar to make a kind of thick milkshake.

It tastes like... depending on color, like an artist completing their magnum opus, a conquering general returning home to a triumph, or holding a newborn baby.
If it ain't cooked right... the salts produce an acute salinity in the blood. Acquire gout.

18. Peryton Tongue ("Perytongue")
Served on a blessed bed of rice in a very bright-lit room. Must be bitten off by the peryton's own jaws in acquisition, else it will turn to ash when cooked.

It tastes like... salvation. Redemption. Like ecstatic deliverance to a benevolent deity, if but for a second.
If it ain't cooked right... it writhes and spews curses, calling for its shadow. The shadow of an evil man will stalk and murder your own within a week.

19. Wisp Spongecake
Goes well with basil soups. Requires a wisp to be baked live into the cake.

It tastes like... being tucked in a warm blanket by a fireplace on a cold night, while cuddling someone cute.
If it ain't cooked right... the wisp is normally supposed to die in the mouth. It doesn't. Wisp will suck the life right out of the eater.

20. Ghoul Sausage
Is eating a ghoul cannibalism? Wizards say: no. Traditionally only the sausage casing is from ghoul.

It tastes like... how you kinda think people would taste like, if it tasted good. Pork, maybe?
If it ain't cooked right... if you're lucky, you just become a zombie... Unlucky and you'll ghoul-ify in 48 hours.