While the series of Heroes' Feast cookbooks takes its name from the familiar D&D spell by the same name, the Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes' Feast - The Deck of Many Morsels obviously takes inspiration from the (in)famous Deck of Many Things, which has magically brought interesting fates (both boon and bane) to many an adventurer across the D&D Multiverse. And, while the tagline on the bottom of the front cover says, "50 Cards for Conjuring Snacks, Libations, and Sweets"... I've yet to be able to get any of them to activate, leaving them, apparently, non-magical, yet bearing the instructions for creating the pictured delicacies, if only by more mundane means. On the upside, unlike an actual magical deck of many things... you can use these cards more than once.
Not only does the non-magical nature of the cards allow for their re-use, their construction does, as well. Each recipe card is printed in full, photographic color on sturdy card stock and features a gloss coating that will help them weather the brunt of the occasional spill, splatter or dirty fingers and live to serve another day. But that does bring up one advantage of the recipe cards: the entirety of the recipe is printed on one side of the card. This means that once you've started working on a dish, you shouldn't have to touch it to turn a page, as you might in a cookbook. Also, each recipe is one card that's stiff enough to stand up on its own and thin enough to allow you to stick it to your refrigerator or other metal surface with a magnet or clip it with a binder-style clip and hang it from anywhere convenient and get it up off of the countertop and out of the way. When using a cookbook, we open to the desired page and slip it into a cookbook holder, but that takes up counter space and, for longer recipes, requires turning pages (sometimes back and forth for verifying things) and that can occur while your hands are covered in flour, egg, raw chicken, sticky sauces or other things that can generally wreak havoc on the printed pages of a book. Not to mention that, no matter how good the book holder is, a cookbook can be large, heavy and cumbersome. Combine that with trying desperately to change pages without getting food on them and, at some point, you're bound to fail an Agility savings throw, leading to the book falling to the floor and losing the desired page. And, if those aren't good enough reasons to consider the recipe card format, consider the possibility of holding potluck-styled catering for an upcoming gaming session... Simply flip through the cards and deal them to the players for the next week* and each player can take their assigned recipe with them, prepare it and bring it to the next session. Hmph! Try doing that with a cookbook...
So, obviously recipe cards are the way to go, right? Well... not necessarily as a replacement for cookbooks. While it's true, I've outlined some very real advantages to using these cards above... there are some downsides, as well. I, personally, love a well-indexed book - especially cookbooks. If I pick up a cookbook, I might know I want to make a chicken dish or have some mango I want to make use of... or I might know that I am looking to make a light snack, or instead be looking to make a non-alcoholic beverage. And, if the book is based on fantasy settings, I might want to quickly access recipes of any and all types that are associated with a certain realm or tavern or a favorite of certain fantasy races. I fully expect to be able to open an cookbook's index and search for recipes based on any of those approaches - and more. The Deck of Many Morsels, however, is absolutely unidexable. A card could be printed that has a list of all of the recipes contained within and, perhaps, where those recipes were taken from. This would have been a nice inclusion, as twenty recipes came from the D&D: Heroes' Feast, twenty came from D&D Heroes' Feast - Flavors of the Multiverse and an additional ten are new recipes specifically for this deck. Such a card wasn't included, however, leaving me to research the recipes to even provide that information to you. The biggest issue with an index for a deck of cards, however, is that a deck of cards has no enforced order or location. An index couldn't tell you where to find a particular recipe; it could only tell you that - when originally created - the deck had a particular recipe in it. During any given use, the recipe you're searching for could be the first card, the last card, anywhere in the middle of the deck, accidentally left somewhere in the kitchen, being used as a bookmark in one of your other fantasy cookbooks... once released into the wild. It's location simply cannot be guaranteed. Period.
So, the idea of recipe cards has its own boons and banes. They have the potential to allow for your recipes to be more accessible... or, ultimately, completely inaccessible. It's the age-old debate: the comfort of a single tome binding the instructions you need to create the effects you desire, versus the more transactional commodity-driven approach of scrolls. I will leave it to the reader to determine which format(s) they prefer their spells recipes in, other than to say this: sometimes, different tools fit different uses. A totalitarian approach might not be the best one. Consider your own likely uses and the likelihood that your players would have interest in separately crafting and bringing dishes to game sessions when weighing whether you would want to get the deck, the cookbooks or both.
But what is a set of recipes without the recipes, yes? So, what of them?! Well, first, they are all grouped into three different categories: Snacks, Libations and Sweets. Almost half of them (twenty-four) are categorized as Snacks. Libations is the next most abundant, with nineteen drinks to choose from. That leaves just six Sweets recipes, so hopefully you're not looking at this primarily to satisfy your sweet tooth. Then again, sweets can often be sticky and messy, which might not fit overly well with a gaming session, while it seems like the recipes selected for The Deck of Many Morsels were, perhaps, considered more for their compatibility with playing D&D while consuming them and their general ease of creation. Some of the most amazing dishes that are in the Heroes' Feast cookbooks weren't included in this set, but they are also entrees, not "Snacks"... and they are some of the recipes that take a long time to make. Most of the recipes have preparation times that are 40 minutes or less. In fact, many of the recipes take only a few minutes. There are a few notable exceptions, such as: Salbread which bakes for forty minutes, then needs to cool for another forty before serving; Twice-Baked Cockatrice Wings, which roasts for forty minutes at one temperature, then another forty minutes at a higher temperature, then another ten minutes after sprinkling an additional topping; Neverwinter Nectar, which has a step where it should be refrigerated for at least four hours and up to twenty four hours; and Black Lotus Root, which includes a step where you soak a lotus root for one to five days. Still, there are more difficult recipes in the two Heroes' Feast cookbooks that weren't selected for this deck.
Among the included recipes, you'll find the refreshing Par-Salian's Tea and Feywild Eggs, one of the recipes that has become a frequent delicacy at my house. Cocoa Broth is another winner, having the feel of a premium hot chocolate and being a very warm and comforting drink for role-playing by the hearth when the weather is damp and cold. Honestly, I don't make this one often, but I'm highly likely to do so sometime around Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Year's. For more details on those three recipes, check out our review of D&D Hereos' Feast. (Link below)
Of the recipes making the Heroes' Feast premiere in The Deck of Many Morsels, ninety percent of them are Snacks, while the remaining ten percent are Sweets.** Most of these new additions seem to be very easy to make. One - Halfling Finger Sandwiches*** - is a cucumber sandwich recipe. Another - Spicy Brothers Honey-Glazed Hot Chips - appeared (based on the picture) to be a recipe for making potato chips coated in a hot glaze, but in actuality turned out to be a recipe for the glaze, to be used to coat ridged potato chips from a bag.*** Other easy-to-make recipes include Trail Mash'ums (a s'mores recipe) and Exploding Cheese Puffs*** (a cheesy popcorn recipe). Spicy Shredded Stirge Sliders*** are a take on Buffalo Chicken sliders, but starts with cooked chicken, so this one can be made by someone who might not yet feel comfortable cooking with raw meat. Three more easy new recipes are various "boards" of samplings of foods to snack on: Waterdeep Charcuterie*** (a meat board), Neverwinter Cheese Board*** (a cheese board), and Underdark Forage Board*** (a veggie board with cream cheese dip). These boards are simple to make, perfect for grazing on during a gaming session, probably healthier than a good number of other offerings in these cards ...and would not be out of place in a tavern, be it in Waterdeep or the Deep South.**** While we're on the boards, we didn't try making any of them, but Psibabe looked them over and pointed out that while they have descriptions that allow for quite a bit of variety in the final result, each of the ingredient descriptions are defining a specific type of component that work together to build a certain flavor profile.
For those who allotted more points into Profession (Cook), the new Moonwood Artichoke Spread requires forty-five minutes in an oven, about five minutes on a stove top and then an hour in the refrigerator, while the Night Hag's Delight needs only eleven minutes in an oven, less than a minute in a microwave oven and ninety minutes of cooling.
So, of course, I had to try out a couple of the recipes. The first one I tried was Spicy Brothers Honey-Glazed Hot Chips. This turned out pretty tasty. I reduced the portions to make a single serving and ended up doing that twice. The first time, I poured the mixture over some Onion and Chives flavored chips. Yup, not what it called for, but I figured it was what I had to work with. Even so, it was tasty. The second time, however, I used some plain salted ridged chips and it was even better. In both cases, I found the biggest issue to be trying to get the chips coated evenly. The recipe says to stir and/or toss them gently in the sauce, but I was concerned about breaking the chips into tiny pieces that way. I would recommend making this recipe as printed (instead of reduced yield) and would suggest either pouring the mixture into the bag of chips and turning them to coat or using a basting brush to evenly apply the sauce to the chips. Additionally, I would say that fans of spicy foods can feel free to add some extra oomph to the recipe. As printed, the chips will be flavorful, but tame on the heat index.
The second recipe we tried was Greenspear Bundles in Bacon. We had this bacon-wrapped asparagus as a side dish and it stole the show. Mind you, we used Jalepeño bacon***** (as it was what we had on hand)... and I highly recommend you do the same, if you can get some. Of course, I'm sure Maple bacon, Peppered bacon or Applewood smoked bacon would each add their own flair to the dish. I guess what I'm saying here is that this recipe was really good... and that you should always be open to tweaking a recipe that includes bacon by using an exciting flavored bacon in the recipe.
As a surprise "fancy" lunch, I made Halfling Finger Sandwiches to share with Psibabe and my Mother-in-Law. As is suggested, I lightly toasted the bread, which, I think, helped the bread to hold up to smearing the cream cheese mixture. Also, the recipe calls for mixing the cream cheese, chives and a bit of salt and pepper in a bowl, but I used a food processer to mix them, which might have been a bit more destructive to the chives than was intended; most of the chives were blended to the point of simply coloring (and flavoring) the cream cheese. Although I don't think that was intended (based on the recipe's photo), it turned the cream cheese a pleasing, bright pastel-ish shade of green*****. I did find cutting the crust off of the bread after the fact to be a bit difficult and I got a bit of the insides on the outside of the bread. However, the long and short of it is that it was delicious, got rave reviews and compliments all around and there were no leftovers, so I think it's safe to call this one a winner.
I had a plan. A grand plan, at that. A veritable feast from The Deck of Many Morsels. The meal would start with a Lluirwood Salad, followed by Spicy Shredded Stirge Sliders and Cloaks, and finished off with Meal's End. The plan was that I would make the entire meal by myself, to serve Psibabe and her mother. That was the plan. However, I got a late start on making dinner (after hunting for some ingredients about town) and, so Psibabe helped out by making the Cloaks and the Spicy Shredded Stirge Sliders.
As time was running short, Psibabe rolled up her sleeves and threw on her +2 Apron of Baking and made the Cloaks****** while I was making a Lluirwood Salad. It's a good thing, too, as she's much more proficient in cooking than I am and there were a couple of skill checks to pass in making this one. First of all, the instructions for cooking the potatoes in the microwave, while expedited... resulted in potatoes that were a bit gummy and hard around some edges. Then, after they cool, you're supposed to pull out your trusty potato ricer. You know... your, um... wait... What's a potato ricer, again? Yeah, so Psibabe used a fine sized grater while I was suggesting we could use the Dash blender to make them into so much wallpaper paste. Well, we didn't go the blend-to-nothingness approach I was suggesting, but I wonder if piping might have gone better if we had. Although she does have a piping bag with various tips for decorating cupcakes, the potato mixture was not thin enough for such delicate tips, so they simply got stopped up almost immediately. Next, we threw the potato mixture into a sandwich bag, cut the tip off and I used that to make something not completely unlike a floret-ish shape. Despite having every bit as much precision and artistry as your average blind, one-armed ogre might be able to accomplish (if they weren't interested in the outcome), I got the taters onto the cookie sheets. When they came out of the oven, however, the browning on the tops actually made them look kind of nice, they could be picked up like a cookie and they had a delicious, creamy, potato-y taste that was tasty enough to eat without condiments. Were I an actual adventurer in some fantasy realm, I would seriously think about popping a few of these into a leather bag (or a pocket, in a pinch)... to serve as a tasty, portable treat. If you're a DM and you work that into an adventure, you could bake up a batch for your players when they embark on their journey. Just sayin', it could be done. No pressure.
While Psibabe was working on the cloaks, I was diligently slaving away at crafting the Lluirwood Salad. We don't stock sherry vinegar, so I had to approximate it by using 4 parts actual (old) sherry, 1 part white wine vinegar and 1 part apple cider vinegar. Of course, when I went to grab the goat cheese, I realized that I needed to get some from the freezer, so it had to be defrosted with the microwave (you know, just like the wood elves would do it). Finally, I replaced the dried cranberries with red raspberries, which was the closest thing I had on hand. For Psibabe and her mother, I also added a bit of tomato, as they like those things and it wasn't already in the recipe. At any rate, the salad had a bit of sweetness (due to the fact that the nuts I used were candied; going with spiced would change the flavor profile), but we all three enjoyed the salad and would have it again. Note: This recipe is a serve-at-once sort of dish and the longer it sits prior to eating, the smaller the salads will be, as the spinach will get limp as it sits in the dressing for a while.
The main course, Spicy Shredded Stirge Sliders was, perhaps, a medium-difficulty recipe. It started with a roasted chicken from Walmart. I removed the needed meat and shredded it by hand (since the ingredients list: shredded, skinned, cooked chicken). Then Psibabe did all of the recipe's instruction bits. We actually didn't stray from this recipe at all, to my knowledge. While it suggests Frank's Red Hot, we instead used Cholula's MexiWing sauce. But, again, it just said "hot sauce", so that part was left to the chef's discretion. These were, indeed, spicy. However, they were also way better tasting than they had any right to be. When we review a fantasy cookbook (or recipe collection?), we do typically end up with at least one or two great recipes that get worked into our regular rotation at some level, whether it be something we make weekly or monthly or simply during the holidays. I can definitely see Spicy Shredded Stirge Sliders getting added into frequent rotation.
And, as we reach the end of what I've tested out for this review, we also arrive at Meal's End. This recipe is one of the Sweets and, as the name suggests, is intended to be a sweet, delightful and fitting end to a good meal. There are just six ingredients, and most of the preparation involves mixing the ingredients in with an electric hand mixer. It couldn't be a much simpler recipe; that is, assuming you have vanilla or cocoa meringues available. Of course, the recipe does offer - in passing - that you could make these. Literally, this is suggested in the phrase "homemade or store-bought"... in the listing of the meringues in the ingredients. There are several things that can go wrong in trying to make homemade meringues. If you've done this successfully before, I'm impressed. If you do it all the time, brava! If you don't see the need for the recipe to provide a recipe or at least warn that meringues are an advanced level of difficulty, go start your own bakery and send me a box, why don't you? For me, personally, Meal's End's need for meringues led to a city-wide online search for anything from grocery stores to bakeries to big box stores that might carry them. Trader Joe's has some, but not in the local store. Walmart claims to have Trader Joe's brand, but that's through their marketplace, so I can't go pick them up, I'd have to order them and know that I'm paying a premium for old food. Eventually, I found out about a company named "Krunchy Melts," which makes them and found that Publix and Big Lots both carry their products. Luckily for me, there's a Publix and a Big Lots near each other in town. Also, lucky is the fact that Big Lots' website will show store inventory and said they had them in stock and, lo and behold... they did. As I said, the recipe, itself, isn't that difficult, given you can source the meringues. With them in hand, I was able to whip this one together pretty quickly after dinner and share it with my mother-in-law and give Psibabe a taste. She didn't want her own serving, because she has a deep-seated aversion to Greek yogurt. However, I ate my serving and then gladly scraped the mixing bowl clean. Somewhere between the Spicy Shredded Stirge Sliders, the Lluirwood Salad, the Cloaks (the ones I was served and the ones I ate in addition while moving about the kitchen working on dessert****) and the Meal's End, I fear I may have over eaten a tad, making myself more than a little bit uncomfortable.****
So, in the end, do I recommend the Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes' Feast - The Deck of Many Morsels - and if so, to whom? Well, that depends. As I pointed out above, there are advantages and disadvantages to the recipe card format. As of this writing, I have yet to lose any of the cards, but I have retrieved them from stuck to the fridge with a magnet, clipped to a pot hanging from the pot rack and sticking out of a recipe book, serving as a bookmark for something else I was making at the time. If you feel more comfortable with a bound book, I would recommend Heroes' Feast or Heroes' Feast - Flavors of the Multiverse. If you get both, you will have most of the recipes found in The Deck of Many Morsels. All but the ten new recipes I identified above. The recipes are good and the production quality is high. The only question is whether the card format is appealing to you. As for keeping track of the cards, the box that they come in is sturdy and provides a safe way to store them, tote them around, or display them next to your other D&D collectibles.
If you like the idea of the recipe card format, I definitely recommend Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes' Feast - The Deck of Many Morsels; even if you already have the Hereos' Feast cookbooks. There are a few new recipes and the card format gives you some flexibility to share them, take them with you more easily and use them without taking up counter space. If you're wary of the cards and you don't have the cookbooks, you may want to pick them up instead.
* ...or whenever your next scheduled gaming session is, of course.
** There are ten new recipes. One is a "Sweet" and the rest are Snacks. So, you know. Math.
*** So, not real hard to make. A perfect recipe for the person who usually offers to bring plates, napkins or drinks.
**** ...and by "Deep South", I'm referring to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I've had similar charcuterie boards and cheese boards at various restaurants, even as a meal at times.
***** I regret nothing. This was delicious.
****** For a minute, let's just talk frankly, shall we? Cloaks are pretty mashed potato florets, essentially. If I had to describe them to someone based on the picture from the recipe card, using in-game objects as comparisons, I would describe them as shields, maybe. But cloaks? Nah, I don't see it.
