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What Kings Ate and Wizards Drank: A Fantasy Lover's Food Guide Kindle Edition
Equal parts writer’s guide, comedy, and historical cookbook, fantasy author Krista D. Ball takes readers on a journey into the depths of epic fantasy’s obsession with rabbit stew and teaches them how to catch the blasted creatures, how to move armies across enemy territories without anyone starving to death, and what a medieval pantry should look like when your heroine is seducing the hero.
Learn how long to cook a salted cow tongue, how best to serve salt fish, what a “brewis” is (hint: it isn’t beer), how an airship captain would make breakfast, how to preserve just about anything, and why those dairy maids all have ample hips.
What Kings Ate will give writers of historical and fantastical genres the tools to create new conflicts in their stories, as well as add authenticity to their worlds, all the while giving food history lovers a taste of the past with original recipes and historical notes.
Don't forget to pick up the companion volume, Hustlers, Harlots, & Heroes: A Steampunk & Regency Field Guide! http://amzn.com/B00K1PDUP6
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateOctober 31, 2012
- File size5163 KB
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Editorial Reviews
Review
What Kings Ate and Wizards Drank is not only a phenomenal research tool for writers, but one terrifically fun read. I not only couldn't put it down, I didn't want to. One of the best reads I've had this year.-Diana Pharaoh Francis, author The Crosspointe Chronicles and Horngate Witches.
Product details
- ASIN : B009ZX8W3K
- Publisher : Tyche Books Ltd. (October 31, 2012)
- Publication date : October 31, 2012
- Language : English
- File size : 5163 KB
- Simultaneous device usage : Unlimited
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 252 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,460,784 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #1,799 in Writing Skill Reference (Kindle Store)
- #4,435 in Writing Skill Reference (Books)
- #7,008 in Fiction Writing Reference (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Krista D. Ball is a Canadian science fiction and fantasy author. She was born and raised in Newfoundland, Canada where she learned how to use a chainsaw, chop wood,and make raspberry jam. After obtaining a B.A. in British History from Mount Allison University, Krista moved to Alberta, Canada where she currently lives.
Like any good writer, Krista has had an eclectic array of jobs throughout her life, including strawberry picker, pub bathroom cleaner, oil spill cleaner upper, and soup kitchen coordinator. These days, when Krista isn't software testing, she writes in her messy office.
She loves company! Come visit at http://kristadball.com or follow her on Twitter (www.twitter.com/kristadb1).
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We love food. So why not make learning about it fun too? Krista does that here.
For those writing, Krista gets you thinking more in depth of what you are creating. For those loving history, this shares in fun foods at different centuries along with recipes.
This book opened my eyes to how food can reflect and create a world. Food is touched on in different aspects of living. From the poor to the rich. On the move or city living. Even sailors/pirates out at sea. So many aspects and all live very differently. This book of information helped me thinking on the foods in stories, even worlds I've created. Krista tells you how things work and suggestions for the heroes on the run in the woods. How to survive with or without food. Some references are given to help match the food in your land, culture, stature in society, and along with taxes.
Even specific diets. Some of us can think out the diets from what we know of history, but this pins it down for us. There are reasons why there may not be many children born in a time frame. The woman may have been missing certain items from their diet that could result in miscarriages.
Krista presented this book in a fashion that reading about food and history felt like sitting down and talking with an old friend. This book was NOT like reading a history book. Krista made the topic fun. She shares recipes and her experiences. Yes, she's tried making some of the foods and drinks and shares how it was to make it or even taste it. Some good, some not so good. lol. There are myths that surround foods and the times, Krista talks about that and if they are true, false, or a touch of both and why.
But the neat thing with food, it touches different aspects of world and people. Krista talked about health in the middle ages and further back. There are herbs for all things from health to sick to in foods and drinks. Then on to who healers are, even a few thoughts to get you thinking as to a history to your healer choice.
This book was fun to read and learn. I will be using it as a reference guide to help me along. It can be used for anyone wanting to write fantasy, historical, steampunk or Victorian era.
There were also a few things I wondered about – like were "chocolate-dipped beef jerky protein bars" really "passed around at the Battle of Hastings"? (The author's note was "(I'm not even making that up)", but chocolate hadn't made it to Europe by 1066, or even close, so… Er?) And did travelers really have to convince innkeepers of their worthiness? I thought they just took their money up front if they were worried and sent knee-breakers after you if you crossed them.
There was also a sort of odd section on "The Midwife and the Nurse", in which the author indulges in a bit of ranting (like how she was stunned that people she informally polled all (or almost all) thought abortion was purely a modern phenomenon (I'm stunned too)), but never really discusses maternity-related food. It would have been a great place to put things like what food and drink and herbs and concoctions past cultures believed improved fertility or the chances of carrying to term, or helped a new mother "let down" milk, or how babies were weaned, or … etc.
But there were two reasons I persevered. One was the basic intelligence – which can be taken two ways:
And the other was the humor, like the note at the end of the mead recipe to "drink until your mood improves", and the tales of the author's experimentation for research purposes, both pleasant (chocolate for breakfast!) and un (self-ground flour).
Actually, there were three reasons – the third being Newfoundland. The author is – unless my memory is fritzing out – from Newfoundland, Canada – and so is my mother. I've been to visit family several times – and we still have kinfolk on the rock. So when she talks about "gooseberries, partridgeberries, cloudberries, plus blueberries. Oh and screech", I have a big grin on my face; every chance I get I order partridgeberry and cloudberry jam from The Dark Tickle Company and anywhere else I can find it. And screech? Yes, b'y. (Well, no, neither Mom nor I have a screech habit, and I've never been screeched in, but I surely know of it.) The only thing here is that Mom's from Doyles on the west coast, which is apparently much more sheltered than other areas. "Every Canadian reading this book is going to groan and complain that I just perpetuated the frozen tundra myth", she says, and with statements like "People did live in this desolate and harsh region" I suppose she does; I know my grandfather farmed a decent plot of land for decades, and Codroy Valley is lovely. It can actually get quite hot and humid there. (And I never saw fried cod tongues there. When I was a kid the weirdest thing I met with was fries eaten with vinegar instead of ketchup.)
And now, as promised – the Best. Typo. Ever.
"Pemmican is perhaps one of the best-known preserved food stuffs in North America. It's often in the form of beef, bison, or elf jerky, often with BBQ sauce or peppercorns."
Well, the dwarves have cram; perhaps the orcs have elf jerky.
If you aren’t planning on writing a book but, just want to “fact check” the book you ARE reading…..you need this book!
This book is interesting, has quite a bit of humor, has recipes, and source references. I’m not a writer (I’m a reader) and I found it to be quite fascinating.
Top reviews from other countries
You need information regarding what your medieval or indeed fantasy characters might actually EAT in your story? What might have been available? This book would be delighted to help you with that. :)
My only quibble is that the author appears to have a problem (perhaps an editing problem?) with drink. She often talks about what people would have drank; for instance "the people would have drank beer, wine and tea". This error appears so often that it couldn't be a typo unless it's an editing error where someone replaced the word 'drunk' with 'drank' throughout the book instead of in one place where it was appropriate. A very weird and distracting peculiarity. I was also a little taken aback to learn that "the seal hunt was an important source of food for eons of people...."
But apart from this minor irritation, I enjoyed the book a lot and I'm sure it would be a brilliant and stimulating resource for anyone needing ideas for solid world building and it is a very readable and informative book for non-writers.


