The Best Concrete Thing the OSR Did?

The Butcher · November 22, 2015, 07:41:28 AM

Quote from: Opaopajr;865645And you'd think with all the cultural details for Tékumel they'd have a cookbook by now. There's plenty of strange fruit from our Earth jungles to approximate at least a few dishes, no? Ooh, did'j'all see that, brought it all back on topic, I did!)

Barker was a well-travelled man. I'd reckon most of the foodstuffs mentioned the Tékumel books and games have real-world analogues. Aren't Hmá or Hmélu (I forget which) pretty much llamas?

Probably a good topic to ask chirine and Gronan about.

Gronan of Simmerya · November 22, 2015, 05:13:51 PM

Quote from: The Butcher;865648Barker was a well-travelled man. I'd reckon most of the foodstuffs mentioned the Tékumel books and games have real-world analogues. Aren't Hmá or Hmélu (I forget which) pretty much llamas?

Probably a good topic to ask chirine and Gronan about.

Tsolyani cooking is pretty much Pakistani with the names scratched out. The spicier the better. (Holy SHIT Phil liked his food hot.)

Teazia · November 23, 2015, 02:04:28 AM

As someone who was a C&C forum regular back when the OSRIC vs C&C was still simmering down (and I recall the Pathfinder Beta being a real headscratcher to many), I approve of this thread. (My Paizo.com TSR pdfs seem to gone forever as well).

The good words on ACK make me interested. I think I qualified for free set of pdfs due to my backing of Dwimmermount; however, I could never figure out how to download them. I may need to contact directly.

Its a shame Gygax didn't really get to enjoy the full bounty of the OSR. Perhaps people were afraid of /not interested on stepping on Gygax's legacy while he was still with us?

Cheers!

Bobloblah · November 24, 2015, 10:05:09 PM

Quote from: Teazia;865728The good words on ACK make me interested. I think I qualified for free set of pdfs due to my backing of Dwimmermount; however, I could never figure out how to download them. I may need to contact directly.

Email support at Autarch dot com. My experience is that they're a friendly bunch, and I'm sure they'll hook you up.

Tod13 · November 25, 2015, 08:24:51 AM

Quote from: The Butcher;865611Use red chillies or jalapeños if you must but at least try and track down some Peruvian ají amarillo. The nuts OTOH, actually are optional).

Man, I wish we had a food subforum.

Serranos are good too. Our favorite restaurant (we got married there) is owned by a Sindhi. (This means the food is Indian and Pakistani--when you see the stories of people having to leave Pakistan, most of them were Sindhi.) When she can't get regional peppers, she uses serranos, as they add heat and freshness without changing the flavor like jalapenos.

Ulairi · November 25, 2015, 06:04:23 PM

Quote from: Teazia;865728As someone who was a C&C forum regular back when the OSRIC vs C&C was still simmering down (and I recall the Pathfinder Beta being a real headscratcher to many), I approve of this thread. (My Paizo.com TSR pdfs seem to gone forever as well).

The good words on ACK make me interested. I think I qualified for free set of pdfs due to my backing of Dwimmermount; however, I could never figure out how to download them. I may need to contact directly.

Its a shame Gygax didn't really get to enjoy the full bounty of the OSR. Perhaps people were afraid of /not interested on stepping on Gygax's legacy while he was still with us?

Cheers!

Hack Master 4E you could argue did and Gary Gygax loved it.

The Butcher · November 25, 2015, 06:36:09 PM

Quote from: Tod13;865924Serranos are good too. Our favorite restaurant (we got married there) is owned by a Sindhi. (This means the food is Indian and Pakistani--when you see the stories of people having to leave Pakistan, most of them were Sindhi.) When she can't get regional peppers, she uses serranos, as they add heat and freshness without changing the flavor like jalapenos.

I love serranos but I'm not 100% persuaded they'd work for ají. Anyone wanna experiment and report on the results?

Opaopajr · November 26, 2015, 01:50:04 AM

They're not the same, they hit the mouth differently and often don't linger the same way. And there is absolutely zero substitute for rocoto, no other pepper in my world travels has been like it. My family has had extensive practice in this field, trying to substitute with more available ingredients.

Thankfully living in the SF Bay Area meant that finding the right food import store was quite easy. But it took awhile even here. We've had family here from all over the world and from the 1950s until around the 1980s the import food ingredient deserts were HUGE.
----------------

What I'm interested in is what would be a typical Tsolyani "roast beast" dish, and how it would be served, and with what sides. Is pork haram? What utensils are used (fork, spoon, sticks, bread, hand, etc.)? What is paired with what? That level of detail may seem silly, but people when to great lengths to not be bored with their food.

Tod13 · November 26, 2015, 10:13:13 AM

Quote from: The Butcher;865970I love serranos but I'm not 100% persuaded they'd work for ají. Anyone wanna experiment and report on the results?

Post the recipe and I'll make it and report. ;-) We'll create a food forum. I suspect I can get the other kind of peppers too. Recent surveys show Houston has the most varied cuisines of any city--we even passed NYC I heard. :idunno:

The Butcher · November 26, 2015, 03:51:26 PM

Quote from: Tod13;866034We'll create a food forum.

That would make me very happy, but I don't think it's happening anytime soon...

Quote from: Tod13;866034Post the recipe and I'll make it and report. ;-)

If you read Spanish, I think Gastón Acurio's recipe is authoritative.

Otherwise, well, the one on the BBC web site actually looks decent.

Eric Diaz · November 26, 2015, 08:56:16 PM

I think this is a great question, but hard to answer.

I must agree with all the folks that mentioned DCC (character funnel, warriors, etc), SN Tekumel, and ACKS - and I don't even play those games.

For me, I think I wouldn't play D&D if I hadn't known the OSR. I had pretty much given up after 3e and 4e. A lot of things I thought was wrong with WotC-era D&D (Skills, fighter-versus-MU, etc), seemed to work again when I went back to OS games.

The best thing was, maybe, helping people take a new look at early gaming methods and strengths. There were many people who thought newer games were really "better", like a 2015 cellphone is better than a 1995 cellphone. But the OSR brought a new focus and appreciation of the earlier games. For example, I always thought wizards not being able to use swords was stupid, but in OD&D is quite clear (IMO) that this is because of magic swords. So LotFP ignores the limitation. And so on.

Also, it has shown me the versatility of early D&D. Want empire building? ACKS. Some low-level horror? LotFP. Gonzo appendix-N mayhem? DCC RPG. And so on. All sharing a similar source.

Opaopajr · November 27, 2015, 10:07:22 AM

Quote from: The Butcher;866059If you read Spanish, I think Gastón Acurio's recipe is authoritative.

I second this.

Purple/red onions are also essential. I mean you *can* make it with other onions (I would strongly advise against strong white onions, please), but it's really noticeable. So yes, subbing white onions, serrano peppers, and the like is very doable, and it will taste good, but... my inner food snob cries.

If I were to choose which were more mission critical, the purple onions, no contest.

The Butcher · November 27, 2015, 11:33:23 AM

Quote from: Opaopajr;866130If I were to choose which were more mission critical, the purple onions, no contest.

Red onions are to white onions as ACKS is to LL: both are great, but the former has more of everything I love about the latter.

But really, I'd be OK with white onions. I think the one "mission-critical" ingredient is the ají amarillo. I'm looking forward to Tod13's results with serranos, but you just can't have ají de gallina without ají, anymore than you can have chili without chilies.

Tod13 · November 27, 2015, 09:31:00 PM

Ok. I do English, Japanese, a little German, less Chinese, and a bunch of programming languages. But not Spanish. Google seems to have done a good job there though:

Spoiler

Author: Gaston Acurio (writing based on the post CocineroPeru.com Acurio)
Recipe type: Main dish
Cuisines: Peruvian
Servings: 6
Ingredients

2 chicken breasts (skinless)
Chicken broth
2 red onions
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 cup yellow pepper or aji mirasol liquefied
Slices of bread without crust
Ground walnuts or pecans
A stream of evaporated milk
A handful of grated Parmesan cheese
Salt
White pepper
Cooked potatoes
Boiled eggs
Olives
White rice

preparation

Boil two skinless chicken breasts in two cups of water with a pinch of salt. Once cooked reserve the chicken broth and removed the breasts.
Deshilachamos the chicken and set aside. Gaston preferred that the rags are not too thin, that are somewhat plump, as elongated pieces of chicken.
If we have not managed to buy fresh yellow pepper or aji mirasol liquefied, we can get dry mirasol chili and rehydrate with a little water to finally liquefy. We have a cup of liquid pepper.
Chop the two red onions into small cubes.
We put a little oil in a pan and sweat the chopped over low heat for 10 minutes onion.
Add to skillet teaspoon minced garlic and let sweat for 2 minutes.
Add a cup or liquefied yellow aji mirasol and let sweat 10 minutes.
While the mixture sweat we go apart, put some chicken broth in blender, add the slices of bread without crust and liquefy.
We returned to the mixture and add a handful of crushed pecans or walnuts.
Immediately add to bread mixture and beat liquefied.
Then we incorporate the shredded chicken and move about two minutes or until thickened.
Add a splash of evaporated milk and a handful of grated Parmesan cheese, mix.
Add a pinch of white pepper and salt rectify. That's it.

Notes
Serve with white rice, cooked potato slices, half boiled egg and olives.

I'm going to look at recipes for aji mirasol too, and substitute serrano in that. Do I really need to seed the serrano? If I use 4 or so heavily curved (very hot) serranos in a big pot, vindaloo is usually too hot for most. I use 2 non-curved for normal people.

Red onions are easy. I will have my wife chop them. I am actually allergic to onions when slicing. My wife came into the kitchen while I was chopping some and made me take antihistamines. I thought that's just how onions were. My face was red, puffy, streaming tears, and my eyes were burning red.

One recipe for aji amarillo paste I found compares their taste to tabasco peppers. I really need to find the original. I wonder how well the Tabasco Habanero Sauce would substitute. Can anyone who has had both comment?

Tod13 · November 27, 2015, 11:40:00 PM

ETA: I found paste on Amazon. So I might make it with serranos this weekend and real paste next weekend. http://www.amazon.com/Goya-Yellow-Hot-Pepper-Paste/dp/B005F5KBAO Although, our Kroger may carry this...