All cultures have dishes and cooking styles that are common to them, and the Human cultures are no exception. Since Humans are more spread out, and have several very distinct variations within their overall racial culture, their food is best split up into the styles that match these variations.

The first entry in this series will cover foods found within Human communities outside of the Clan-held areas, and owes a great debt to the previous work of the scholar Arthimur.

=== Zoluren ===

Pasta
Pasta remains the most vital staple food of Zoluren's Human population. It is usually made just before serving, but can be dried for storage in winter when fresh eggs are harder to obtain.

Boar/Pig Sausages
Widely eaten throughout Zoluren's Human population, these are normally rather spicy (both in heat and in savory content), and are served fresh, not dried. Boar sausages are usually grilled instead of steamed, and are often served with pasta.

Red Fish Sauce
This is a spicy, sauce-heavy fish dish found in many pubs around the Oxwaithe waterfront, and is served on top of pasta. It contains tomatoes, garlic, clam oil, butter, dried hot pepper, sea salt, filet of grek, clams, and anchovies.

Meat Sauce
This is served most often on top of pasta, but sometimes rice is used instead (perhaps showing a lingering Therengian influence), and is very common in Zoluren peasant homes. The sauce contains ground beef and pork, salt, black pepper, parsley, basil, onion, garlic, and marjoram.

Pebble Soup
This is considered a staple peasant food in many Human communities in Zoluren. Basic leftover pasta is rolled into pebble-shaped pieces and dried. The pasta, if cooked correctly to just underdone, creates a pleasant texture in the otherwise plain broth. The name seems to have originated during a long-ago wartime when food was scarce, and it was said that peasants were made to eat pebble and stone to survive. Apparently this was a bit of an exaggeration, and they really lived on plain broths containing a small spoon of the pebbled pasta. In modern times, pebbeled pasta is the main ingredient of the soup, which also includes onion, carrot, fresh peppers, celery, meat broth, salt and black pepper. It is often served with toasted bread on top, which is smothered in butter or melted Zoluren White cheese.

Sausage Pie
These hand pies are very popular amongst the working class Humans of Zoluren, as they both keep and travel well. They generally consist of sliced boar sausage, potato, carrot, garlic, salt, black pepper, and Zoluren White cheese baked in an encompassing wheat flour crust.

Angisaen
Translating to ‘snakes’ in Common, this is a thick, cylindrical pasta cut in to long strands and served with long, thin strips of grilled zucchini, carrot, and onion in a chicken broth flavored with citrus, red peppers, and fish oil.


=== Therengia ===

Rice
Rice remains the main staple component of the Therengian Human diet. Often called 'river rice' due to its growing location, the most common rice variety found in Therengia is a short but versatile grain. To enhance its natural nutty flavor, it is often fried gently in butter before boiling or steaming.

Saffron Rice
Venison, pheasant, leucro, and bear are the most common types of meat used in this dish, though any can serve in a pinch. The dish consists of the chosen meat, dried apples, dried pine nuts, and rice cooked together in a meat broth flavored with saffron, salt, and thyme. The mixture, though slightly sweet because of the apple, is strong in flavor, to offset the sometimes unpredictable taste discrepancies that come with hunted game. This meal is especially popular in the mid-autumn to early winter when the animals are in prime condition.

Therengian Apple Pie
A mixture of Therengian golden apples, lemon, sugar, Therengian white wine and butter makes this a uniquely-Therengian spin on apple pie filling, and it is topped with a simple sugar-sprinkled crust. This pie is nearly ubiquitous in Therengian Human homes, and is commonly served with coffee.

Apple Dumplings
Served both for breakfast (warm) and dessert (cold), this dish consists of sweetened, dough-wrapped apples baked in a sauce containing apple juice, nutmeg, cinnamon and cream.

Roasted Ram
Thunder Ram lamb is the preferred meat for this dish. The crown of meat is stuffed with chopped turnips, parsley, onion, garlic, rosemary, salt, and thyme, then rubbed with butter and roasted.

Riverhaven Fish Dinner
Almost certainly related to the Zoluren dish ‘red fish sauce’, Riverhaven fish dinner is sauce-heavy fish and rice dish. It contains Therengian wine, onion, garlic, clam juice, butter, cream, sea salt, fillet of whatever fresh fish is available, steamed mussels still in the shell, and tender scallops.

Haggis
A variety of savory pudding somewhat similar to the 'alydaith feast' of the Shadow Clan Humans, haggis is made from the minced heart, liver, and lungs of a sheep, mixed with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, salt, and stock. The mixture is then stuffed into a sheep's stomach and boiled. It is served in slices, and is less a normally consumed food item than a food-based proxy for cultural braggadocio between Therengian men, especially after a few pints of ale.


=== Special Occasion Foods ===

Elven Blood Pudding
This dish, almost exclusively served at non-Clan noble weddings, was originally developed in the Human-Elven War as a custom to protect the couple from their enemies. Real Elven blood has not been used since that war ended, with pork blood used in its place. Despite protests from Elven leaders on several occasions, the original name has remained, however. It's created with pig liver, oatmeal, pig blood, onion, lard, salt, and allspice stuffed into beef casings, and served steamed.

Chocolate Coins
Created from melted chocolate laced with butter, cream, and rum, then shaped and wrapped in bronze paper, these tasty treats are frequently present at all sorts of Human parties. In the past, though, they were exclusively found as a part of Human merchant or adventurer weddings in non-Clan settlements. They were used as part of a gambling event held by the groom's family the night before the ceremony, and then passed out to children after the ceremony was completed.

The Peasant's Feast
This dish is almost always served at non-Clan Human weddings, but is also a staple food for many other celebrations. Originally hailing from Therengia, two main versions of this dish exist, one made with the more traditional rice and a sweeter glaze-like sauce containing honey and complementary spices, and the other with pasta and a spicier broth reduction sauce containing black and red pepper. Both variations use pork or beef broth to cook the starch, to which is then added potato, onion, peppers, and garlic, and served topped with the sauce of choice.

- Zelka, Historian of Human culture


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