Food magic

Kitchenpunk/food alchemy/culinaromancy: the magic system works through cooking. Chefs and alchemists are one and the same. Food has to be ingested to have magical effects and rarer ingredients can have more powerful effects. Culinary magic is highly subjective because people have different tastes: a healing recipe can be a deadly poison to someone else. This also means that people with refined palates and knowledge of flavours and textures can extract powers from food that others are unable to “digest”. Wars are fought over access to valuable ingredients. Laws are enacted by people in power to keep undesirable groups from accessing powerful foods and recipes. Putting pineapple on pizza can summon demons and so is punished with the death penalty.

Gee, I wonder why?

Ouch. Harsh.

The power of Garum led the Roman Legion from victory to victory. The bland Britannian fare led them to be particularly sensitive to the power of Spice and thus the British empire was established. The fabled Stir Fry Masters of the East defied invader after invader until the Mongol warriors learned to drink Kumis before every battle. It is said the secret of the Viking's power was in their honey-wine.

Sounds fun but don't take it seriously.

To be honest with that "can be healing or poison" my first thought was "it's all in the dosage" xd

Course, there is an entire history of magical cooking in the real world, nearly all of which were medicinal.

Man, not putting pineapple on pizza should be punishable by being sent to the House for People with Basic Palates.

Heretic! Pineapple does not go on pizza under any circumstances.

Edited by dvorak on Apr 27th 2020 at 12:23:00 PM

And so the Pinapple Pizza wars began in earnest.

At least the various factions should have some interesting pennants. :P