The difficulty with creating real recipes for fictional dishes lies in the world- building. Sometimes a world is not rich enough—not fully imagined enough—to provide adequate details about the foods. In those cases, a stew is just a stew, and bread is just plain old boring bread, no matter how sustaining.
But then there are fictional realms that are so inventive, so creative and unique, that they are instantly immersive. The world of Warcraft is just such a place, where fish both common and rare can be caught in countless bodies of water, where the farmers of Pandaria battle virmen that threaten their crops of enormous vegetables, and where an unusually high number of nonplayer characters need help collecting ingredients for recipes both delicious and dodgy.
And while a lack of details can prove problematic, so too can having such a wealth of them. Cooking mythological creatures is all well and good when sitting in front of a computer, but when it comes to bringing that recipe to life in the kitchen? Well . . . let’s just say it can get complicated.
In creating this cookbook, I’ve tried to keep things relatively simple while staying as true as possible to the dishes and recipes within the game. I hope you’ll find some of your old favorites-and perhaps discover a few new ones, too.
Here’s hoping you all stay Well Fed on your journey through this book!
—CHELSEA MONROE-CASSEL