May 1, 2019 • 41 mins
The creators of the world of ‘Game of Thrones’ help make their fantasy immersive through rich depictions of foods and drinks. Anney and Lauren explore the often-opulent cuisine of the TV series and books (with no spoilers from the recent seasons).
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello, and welcome to Savor, a production of I Heart
Radio and Stuff Media. I'm Any and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum,
and today we're talking about the food of Game of
Thrones and or a Song of Ice and Fire and or. Yeah,
that's the title of the book series that the TV
series is based on. Yes, um, it is. It's been
a long time since we've done a fictional foods Yeah, yeah,
(00:28):
it was. The time was nigh, especially because as we
record this, Game of Thrones is in its final season.
Indeed it is, indeed it is, but who knows when
you're listening. Um. We we had to decide on which
geek avenue to pursue because we just did a shwarma
episode for the Avengers, which I am seen tonight and
(00:50):
I can't believe how excited I am. Like, it's surprising
even me. I'm nervous and excited that you're so nervous
right now. That's so great, Yes, yes, um, And we
were like, let's see of fictional foods because we haven't
done one and forever. Game of Thrones is endang, let's
do that. But also Star Wars, yeah, the fourth but
then you Lauren at the excellent point that Star Wars
is not going away any time soon. Star Wars is eternal. Yeah.
(01:15):
Game of Thrones is ending, at least in its current popularity.
The books you know, oh sure, may or may not
ever come out may or may not. Yeah, all true.
And if some of you are groaning, because I do
have some friends that are very tired of Game of
Thrones because over saturation and the excitement, oh Sharon, especially
if you're not a fan of the series. Right. Um,
(01:36):
I was saying, never fear. I am a fan light
That's how I would describe myself. I really enjoy it,
but I'm kind of generally confused. And we are purportedly
a food and drink podcast, so there will be plenty
of nursery, but you know, not too much. I mean, yes, yes, Um.
And I got into Game of Thrones because of the
(01:59):
core workers here, Um Tyler from our D and D campaign.
He was super into it, and he accidentally spoiled the
season finale of season one for me. Oh wow, Um,
and he feels really bad about it. I didn't care
because I was like, Who's that what? I was more
surprised at the actor. Um, But yeah, he felt mad.
Um and he used to show them on a he
(02:23):
had a projector and every Sunday would get together and
watch them. Yeah, and then on Monday's Paul Deckins and
a couple of other people they would re enact it.
And he has a really good John Snow impressions so good,
and so I was like, well, I guess I gotta
get in on this. I've never seen that. Okay, I
like special request that, like right now, it's great, it's
(02:44):
back in this video cave. I missed everything out in
the out in the light. I miss everything, Yeah, I do.
I I am currently watching it with a different group
of co workers. Um, and it's fun because we all
are kind of generally confused, like we know it's going on,
but you know, every now and that comes in, you're like,
who the heck is show? I know? And I spent
(03:07):
the first three or four seasons thinking Castle Rock as
a person and wondering when he or she would finally arrive.
It is a place kept me like who is Castle Rock?
I also want to like soft point out that it's
Castle Rock not It's definitely not Castily Rock. I thought
it was Castly. Yeah, I think it's the I don't
(03:30):
know what accent that is that they do well, it's
it's some kind of British, but it's certainly made up
because I mean, I don't know, it's they all. They
all kind of do what they want in terms of accents.
True true story. Um so that's kind of that's kind
of where I you, Lauren. Um Well, I started reading
(03:51):
the book series in college. It must have been like
two thousand three or so, so like the third book
was out, but it would be another couple of years
before the fourth, and like ten billion years before the
fifth and and I and I want to put in
here that I am ribbing on the author George RR. Martin,
um infamously slow publishing schedule, but I'm doing so fondly
um as no less than Neil Gaiman. UH famous author
(04:15):
once said in a blog post, George R. R. Martin
is not your and he can publish his books or
not whenever he wants to calm down. Um anyway, yes, Hi,
I'm a nerd. I was like hooked on the book
series so excited when the TV series started coming out,
(04:35):
and I've been following breathlessly the entire time, like it
is problematic as heck, and like increasingly ridiculous and the
dialogue is going downhill so fast and uh and I
love every single minute of it. Yeah, I am. I've
grown to like it more and more, and I think
(04:56):
it's because it has become this kind of cultural thing,
and I just I enjoyed the social aspect of discussing it,
making fun of it, and trying to figure out who
is what, theories upon theories upon theories. Also, just like
the the production design is so gorgeous. Um that the
costumes and the food styling. Yes, yes, And we're gonna
talk about that some in a little bit. I wanted
(05:18):
to include this bit here. I found an article from
Vulture headline is Game of Thrones, the last show we'll
watch together, marks the end of the era of television
as an epic communal journey. So that's kind of what
I feel like I am experiencing. And it is strange
that this and Avengers, which is kind of a similar
communal journey aspect, are happening at the same time. And
(05:41):
if you're interested, the article argues it has to do
with social media, the difference of binging on Netflix versus
like all arriving at the shocking moments at the same time,
and that we all feel like we watch it even
if we don't, um, because you see it on social media,
Like maybe you watch Leslie Jones used to do those
Jones They were so good, they were so beautiful. Leslie Jones,
(06:03):
You're beautiful and perfect and I miss you on Twitter.
I understand, but I miss you. Yeah. She still does
them sometimes on set Myers. Yeah. Um, but yeah, so
even if you don't watch it, you probably are aware
of some of the big cultural like points of it.
Oh yes, um. And the recent premiere drew seventeen million viewers.
(06:24):
They showed it at a local theater. They screened it
for free. Um. There are several bars here with no
strict no talking policy. Yes, yes, and before HBO crackdown
on piracy, it was the most illegally downloaded show. It
might still be, but it's like not that the same numbers. Sure,
it once was. But all of this to bring us
(06:45):
to our question. Game of Thrones, food and drinks? What
are they? Uh well? Um? Game of Thrones is a
TV series based on a book series called A Song
of Ice and Fire. The books, written by George RR. Martin,
started coming out in nine and the TV series followed
(07:07):
starting in the series sort of shifts from low fantasy
meaning no magic to a high fantasy meaning like HELLI
magic over the course and is set in a fantasy
world largely patterned on medieval Europe and Eurasia. And it's
got a lot of food in it. Yes, this is
(07:27):
a good series when it comes to discussing food and drinks.
And you made a point, Lauren, that a lot of
the big things happen over feast, and of course Tyrians
a k. Peter Dinkl's character famous line, I drink and
I know things. That's what I do. I drink and
I know things. Yeah, I realized one day that like
that's actually my job to drink into no things, just
(07:52):
like Terrian. Although I know that a lot of a
lot of humans probably self associate with that line as well. Um. Yeah,
so many key points in the series are bent around
food and drink. Um. From the very first feast that
the Starks throw for Robert Brathean and his entourage. That's
one of the first scenes in the first book. Um
and and show. Uh. Yeah, you've got the red wedding,
(08:14):
the Purple wedding, denaries wine merchant in vast off rack
Uh Sir Davos is the onion night in the Crossroads,
which serves a lot of food. Is where like sixty
of the important things in the series happen. That's not
a precise number, I haven't counted, but like I'm rough
rough cuestimate. Um. So many alcoholics, so many drink poisonings. Yeah,
(08:39):
the book includes um. The books include a lot of
very intense descriptions about food, so much so that George R.
Martin has been called out for writing food porn. Oh
yeah again. Vulture has a listicle of ten times George RR.
Martin described food more erotically than sex. Because, as they
say in this article, if you're a fan of the
(09:00):
show but haven't read the Song of Ice and Fire books,
you may not know this, but they're actually not a
medieval inspired political drama. Their food erotica. Oh my goodness, um,
oh goodness, and uh yeah. So so they listed a
bunch of their their favorite examples of this sort of thing,
and one of the ones they picked out is from
a Feast in a in a Clash of Kings. I
(09:21):
forget which book that is. I know in the world Monster,
you don't have to write in and remind me I
could google that, but I just didn't. Right now, Um, okay,
so the quote of food there was plenty. The war
had not touched the fabled bounty of high garden. While
(09:42):
singers sang and tumblers tumbled. They began with pears poached
in wine and went on to tiny savory fish rolled
in salt and cooked crisp and capon stuffed with onions
and mushrooms. There were great loaves of brown bread, mounds
of turnips and sweet corn and peas, immense hams and
roast geese, and trenchers dripping full of venison stewed with
b been barley. For the sweet. Lord Caswell's servants brought
(10:03):
down trays of pastries from his castle kitchens, cream swans
and sponge, sugar unicorns, lemon cakes in the shape of roses, spice,
tiny biscuits and BlackBerry tarts, apple crisps, and wheels of
buttery cheese. Whoa, and that that happens all the time,
Like I feel like it's like continually throughout the series.
(10:23):
That is I mean, that's just one, that's not the
only one. Constant um. Oh, it's it's it's really it's
really lavish and beautiful. Um but uh but yeah on
on the show too. Just like check out how often
food and drink is either consumed or is part of
these lavish set dressings. Um. Cercy in Tyrian Dang always
(10:47):
have a wine goblet in hand. Um. Just about every
scene in the bougie castle in King's Landing includes like
a tower of fruit that in medieval times would have
cost like my call are right? Yeah? Um? So so
many conversations happen over meals, like I start to wonder,
like in the writer's room if they're ever just going
(11:08):
like f this is eight pages of straight dialogue. We
need something for visual interest. Who has a coin to flip?
Long hallway or dinner? Right? Yeah? Yeah, I read. I
read some articles about it and how they how much
thought went into depending on the setting of like what
would they have available with colors? And like all of
(11:29):
this thought went into it. Um. And speaking of there
is an official cookbook with George R. Martin himself involved.
Yeah yeah, he wrote a forward for it, but the
meat the book. Um. It started as this nerd recipe
blog started by two fans, Chelsea Eat Monroe Castle and
Sarayan Laher. Since April eleven, as far as I can tell, um,
(11:51):
they've been keeping a blog at In at the Crossroads
dot com. Um. The first posted recipe on there is
for Stance's favorite treat, lemon cakes. Um. That starting date
is kind of uncertain because they had to take some
stuff down from the site upon the ultimate publication of
the book. But anyway, um. Yeah, they base their recipes
on historical recipes, historical Earth recipes, apparently Elizabethan era texts
(12:15):
and along with some like some like world ancient Roman
stuff um, but sometimes also often a second take on
a dish that's more fit for modern tastes and ingredients
in technology and they they really have their work cut
out for them. Um. In the books in general, Martin
employees this really interesting combination of like historically researched objects
(12:36):
and terms plus actual magic, uh, plus a blend of
what would be anachronisms if the setting was Earth and
there was no magic involved, like at the very base
of the food issue here. The way that the seasons
work in in the world of the series, and it
is a key plot device, is that the summers and
winters each last for years. So winter is so winter
(12:58):
is coming. Yeah, And that set up is like explicitly
not what most plants and animals that we humans use
for food would be able to survive through ever, um like,
and even frozen foods will go off after like three
or four years and then you're down to well preserved goods.
And Earth humans didn't invent really great canning technology until
after Napoleon Bonaparte offered a prize to whoever could figure
(13:21):
out how to better preserved food for soldiers in sevente
at which point we also had muskets and steam engines,
which is a very different world from that of Game
of Thrones. Yeah, Like, like Martin loosely bases wester ros
on England Circle the War of the Roses in the
mid to late fourteen hundreds, so problem problem um but yeah,
(13:43):
so yes, and building off of that very basic base
of the seasons being so screwed, you've just got food
supply chaos in this world, and Martin seems completely unconcerned
with explaining it, which I love. He's just like, yeah, whatever,
figure it out. But you know, I mean, dragons and
ice zombies exist there, so I guess whatever foods and
(14:05):
dishes you want to put in are possible to maybe
the plants are really good at surviving frost. I don't know.
That's the thing about a magical world. Um. And I
found when I was researching into this, and I can't
believe I didn't run into this when we were researching
our Lord of the Rings episode. But there's a controversial
(14:26):
tomato see and Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movies,
and this has to do with the avoidance of New
World crops like tomatoes and tobacco and potatoes in the books.
I believe something was even republished to take tomatoes out.
Wow in Lord of the Rings. Yeah, yeah, because he
did try to explain it and then people were like
(14:47):
whoa actually, um, yeah, since they're in theory supposed to
take place in a lost historical era in Europe before colonialism, yeah,
like six thousand years ago. And Martin had the same problem,
but like didn't seem as concerned about it. Yes, he
does make some allowances, like like there's there's some things
(15:09):
that he specifically doesn't put in there, like um, like
he never mentions tobacco. I don't think anyone smokes. But
he does have characters chew sour leaf, something called sour leaf,
which is essentially chewing tobacco except kind of reddish. I
don't know anyway, Um, yes, anyway, these these fans, we're
running this recipe blog and it turned into it an
officially approved cookbook deal later in in October, and now
(15:34):
they've got other books out for World of Warcraft and
Hearthstone and Elder Scrolls and the whole thing makes me
so happy for fandom and like cooking nursery and history nursery,
and awesomely they're now in touch with the food stylist
from the show and thus can offer recipes that are
more like what they actually produce for the show. That's
(15:55):
really cool. Yeah. Their website is pretty awesome, Like it's
in depth. It is is a lot. There is so
much and it's great. There's also an unofficial Game of
Thrones cookbook that was published in and lots of fans
have posted stuff online, you know, recipes but also trying
to find earthly matches to the series wines and ales.
(16:17):
Oh yes, I my famously themed D and D campaigns
that one of our first ones was Game of Thrones
themed because this show was premiering. I can go last season. Um,
and I made some of those those recipes for sure,
and then I bought a beer called Stark. Yeah. Anyway,
(16:39):
so this actually Segway is really well to my next point,
because there's so much excitement for this final season. Companies
saw all the chance to make some money and they
went all in, and they've been going all but it
is especially big right now. Yeah. You've got Mountain Dew
with their Game of Thrones them hands Shake checks promote
(17:00):
for an off the menu Game of Thrones themed Jakarisberger
and dragon Glass Shake. But you have to ask for
it in the Valerian language if you're interested, though. The
translation is on their site. Okay, so okay, I'll put
that out there. Um Brewery Omegang's Game of Thrones beers
like they've been in on the game for a while. Um. Yeah.
(17:21):
And there's some Game of Throne wines that you can buy,
White Walker Whiskey from Johnny Walker. And my favorite, the
allegedly spoiler ish oreos with the house centrals. How are
they spoilers? Somebody told me they were spoilers and I
was like, no, I can't look at orios. It's great. Um.
(17:43):
And those oreos, by the way, there's a commercial with
them and it's an epic recreation of the opening sea. Yeah,
I have to look this up now. That's great, it's
really great. Um. And in the UK, the food delivery
service UM called Delivery is delivering white chocolate dragon egg
that way about two pounds. It cost about a dollar.
What exactly? Huh? What huh? Um? A bakery in Dubai
(18:10):
made a four ft tall fondant and sugar paste sculpture
in the shape of the iron throne with a fond
in tier in Peter Danklich sitting on it holding a
cup of wine. That pretty excellent for parametric friends. For
a feet is about about a meter in a third
or so. It was worth seven thousand dollars. What what?
(18:32):
Oh Dubai? And um there's a Chinese restaurant in al Monte,
California called a Song of Rice and Fire. My hatch
is off to you. It is pretty excellent. But this
about brings us to some some examples, some specific examples.
(18:56):
But first it brings us to a quick break for
a word from her sponsor m and we're back. Thank
you sponsors, yes, thank you. So all these foods we
could find in this our nonfictional food world are like
counterparts of them or ancestors of them. Um, but since
(19:20):
there are so many memorable seeds around food, drinks, and feast,
they are worth unpacking. Yeah. The basic ingredients and tastes
in this fictional world very bi fictional region and are
often directly illustrative of the character of the people from
that region. Um like the North has hearty, unpretentious food. Uh.
(19:42):
Meals and kings Landing are showy like overlavish and decorative.
The Tyrrells of High Garden have a sense of sensuality
about their food, like they're eating for pleasures sake. Um,
Iron islands food stuff so are straightforward and practical and
uh so on I see, I see. And because this
is such a sprawling universe, every group has a specific
uh they have specific eating customs or rules. And this
(20:04):
is where we're going to get into fun with fictional prestation.
Oh goodness, I'm probably not gonna be able to help
you with either. No, sorry, alright. So, for example, the
Giscari who seek out rich foods, and the story goes
that only on the only meat that is off the
table for them is the heart event or dragon. Oh wow, okay, Um,
there's the Nafi who practice passivism and they refuse to
(20:28):
eat any animal, and that's where millisslandra is from. Well, Um,
the dorn Is prefer spicy foods and bold wines. Plowing
the earth is considered sacrilege to the dough Raki, so
they don't cultivate crops things like that. Yeah. Yeah, and
and in there, like there's a lot of real weird,
half fantasy, half real racist stereotyping that's just floating through
(20:51):
the series. Um, and uh yeah, you can you can
see if you can see some of that in the
way that the food illustrates these different people's like like
the like the like the door and Ish being basically
Spanish or at least Hispanic or Latin kind of like,
oh man, they really like their spicy food. I'm like,
you guys, can we not? Could we just not have
(21:12):
done that? Yeah? But that's fine, I mean it's not.
But I mean, you know, all your faves are problematic.
This is very anyway, let's talk about pigeon pie. Um.
So this is reminiscent of a meat pie and it's
typically served at weddings in wester Row's. Probably the most
(21:33):
memorable scene of pigeon pie on the show was the
one at King Geoffrey who dreadful terrible Oh yeah, bad guy,
bad person and Marjorie Tyrell's wedding. Geoffrey slices into the
enormous pie with his sword Valerious Steel, and outflies some pigeons,
but others are dead pon his blade. It's true, it happened.
(21:54):
There pigeons in there. There are, I mean, most pigeon
pies I imagine don't have live one. That's a stunt
cake kind of issue. Yeah, I have to believe you're
correct on that. Um, Lamprey pie so similar to pigeon pie,
except lampreys are okay, they're like eels that don't have
jaws but have lots of teeth. Yeah, they're pretty. They're
(22:18):
pretty gross looking but apparently delicious, and they like lurk
around in the water. And I think they're expensive because yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah they are because it's dangerous to get them and
they're marred defined you got to go into the dark
waters and base the teeth. And then there's free pie.
(22:40):
And just in case serious season or two behind on
the show, we're not gonna specify about this one, but
free Pie, those of you who get it, get it. Yeah,
there's so many types of hie. There's pork pie, steak
and kidney pie, beef and bacon pie, Lord Manderley's pie
as big as a wagon wheel, delicious oyster's clams and cockles.
(23:01):
Ah Yeah. Seafood is abundant and fresh and especially in
the free City of Bravos, and street vendors sell shellfish
straight from carts, cracking open the shells to order. There's
dire wolf bread and okay, hot pie who is a person,
not a pie, is a friend of Aria's Starks and
a baker's apprentice, and he along with Aria and a
(23:23):
friend of theirs, Gendri, who I went on a very
deep and long rabbit hole trying to figure out what
his deal is. Recently, they get captured and their captors
offer hot pies baking skills to the end at the
cross Roads to pay for their lodging and meals and
hot pie prefers. This too, you know, danger, So he
decides he'd rather stay, and as a parting gift, he
(23:45):
makes Aria some bread in the shape of a dire wolf,
which is the sigil of her house house stark Um.
This comebacks. This comes back a little bit later in
the series. He he offers a a much better like
less slumpy dire wolf head to um uh to to
someone to give to Aria if they find her. Um
and okay. Favorite fact of the episode, y'all the actor
(24:09):
um Ben Hockey, who plays Hot Pie enjoys baking in
real life and in he opened a pop up bakery
in London and it was called you Know Nothing John
Doe and he made dire wolf breads for it. That
is beautiful. It is so heck and delightful. Um yeah.
His were cornbread with orange zest um. The ones featured
(24:32):
on the show are closer to English scones, which are
pretty close to American biscuits on the On the opposite
into this picture, m I guess. Bowl of brown an
aptisingly named bowl of stew common for peasants in King's
Landing and specifically in Flea Bottom, which is like the
poor yeah um, sometimes made with rat meat when you're lucky.
(24:53):
When you're lucky, you got a little bit of a
little ratter pigeon in there. Um yeah. This stuff is
cooked in large pots that are kept simmering for days
or like indefinitely, with a portions sold out by the
bowl and more ingredients added in as it goes. So
many other soups and stews, though. Um Slate published an
article in ten called a Song of Ice and Fire
and soup subtitle What's behind George are Martin's obsession with
(25:17):
chowder and bread bowls? Yeah? What's the deal with that?
I've got a quote for you here. Um what P. G.
Woodhouse is two butlers? What Jane Austin is two eligible suitors.
What Cormick McCarthy is to horse carcasses? George R. Martin
is two soup? Well? Good for him? Uh yeah, and
(25:37):
and and for for example, Um, a Sister stew is
a seafood chowder made around the Three Sisters Islands, sometimes
served in a hollowed loaf of bread. He bowl. There's
like a whole page of conversation about this bowl of
soup and like the lady who made it, and like
what ingredients are in it and where those ingredients came from,
and like why it's better than other things, and like
it's it's intense. Oh gosh, it's hounds intense. Like what
(26:02):
am I reading anymore? You're like I thought they were dragons?
Like is this just about showder? Now? Really? The exciting
part is the soup. We all know soup is the
most exciting of meals. And speaking of exciting meals, chicken yeah,
roasted chicken. Yes. Um. So there's this character known as
the Hound, who I also went on a long rabbit
(26:23):
hole about recently. Who's he's this big brudy fellow. And
at one point the Hound runs into some of King
Geoffrey's followers at the end, not the end, at the
crossroads for once, oh different days, a different dend, I
do believe, Correct me if I'm wrong, y'all. I think
it's a different one. Well, he says something not so
nice about King Geoffrey and demands some of the chickens
they're eating. A fighting sues and the Hound rains victorious
(26:46):
and hound eats his chicken. Yeah he does, Oh yeah
it does. The Hound always gets his chicken. Planister always
paste their TETs, and the hound always gets a chicken.
That's what they say in the book The Frame Starved
foods like stringy beef and jellied calf brains at the
Red Wedding and the thin leak soup. Yeah, like Lord
(27:08):
Walter phrase kind of gross and stingy, and so so
is his kitchen's food. Yeah, he played the same guy,
plays a filch. Yeah, he's brilliant. Heck, I love that
guy so gross in that series, appropriately so. And of
course doth Racky horse Heart from S S. Dothracky priestesses
(27:29):
give Denarius a heart of Dothracky to eat during a
ceremony to bless the health of her unborn child. She
bites into it as the princess's chant. It's a very
memorable scene. Yeah, horse heart, not doth racky horse heart,
not doth racky human heart. Just making sure that's clear. Yeah,
I got confused about it. Oh, that was so long ago.
It was very long time ago. That was that was
first season. Yeah. Um. Doth racki horse turkey is also
(27:52):
a thing. Yeah. Um. And apparently during the filming of
the scene of that heart eating scene for the oh um,
the proper heart was made of this like stiff gelatin
and it tasted really terrible, and the actor Amelia Clark
ate like twenty eight of them, or at least parts thereof, um,
and so she was not faking her nausea. Um. She
(28:14):
said that they tasted like bleach and raw pasta, and
that she was really glad she had a spit bucket
because yeah, yeah, if I saw something that said bleach
and raw pasta the menu, I would not order that thing.
Hope I might leave that very establishment. Yes, no, thank you, sir. Yes,
I am at the wrong place. There is occasional cannibalism, though, um,
(28:38):
just you know, not among the death racky that I'm
aware of, but the fens from north of the Wall
eat their fallen enemies. Okay. And then previously mentioned lemon cakes.
Lemon cakes were discussing gossip sounds finally reveals how terrible
Geoffrey is over lemon cakes. Yeah, her love for lemon
cakes comes up what feels like constantly, um, like everyone
(29:00):
in King's Landing knows that they're her favorite. She gets
upbraided by her aunt and the Veil for eating too many,
like gotta watch your figure, like yeah, yeah, um and
for all the fancy dishes, though there's also a bunch
of survival eating spread throughout, you know, berries to bugs
to worms to acorn paste. Um, you know your own
horse when nothing else is left. That kind of thing.
(29:22):
Oh man, I like how we put we did cannibalism,
lemon cakes, bucks. We really know how to thematically stack. Yeah,
just when you think it's all well and good, bugs
can be good. Surely out of order maybe perhaps. Um
(29:48):
So those are some of the food examples, but there
are a lot of drink examples as well. Oh yeah,
and we will get into those as soon as we
get back from another quick break for a word from
our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you, sponsored, Yes, thank you.
(30:11):
The first thing we should talk about is wine. Cercy
and her wine. I love it, Oh, I know, it's
a thing of glorious beauty. I think one of my
favorite gifts I sended people is someone where she just
like more wine. She like very firmly sticks out her
her beautiful goblet and says more wine. Yeah. Yeah, there's
(30:34):
one of my Now I'm just straight nrting out, but
y'all like like like some of my favorite lines in
the entire series are from Robert brathy and played by
Mark Addie brilliantly in back in season one and um
and he has this monologue that's terrible, like he's just
like such a like like oh like angry like like
person with all of this bad stuff that's happened in
(30:55):
his life, and he just punctuates it with more wine, like, oh,
it's so beautiful, makes me really happy anyway, Okay, yeah wine, Yes,
sst Ros has several types of wine. There's Arbor Gold,
which is super fancy, super expensive, and sweet white wine.
Um as in the most fancy and most expensive in
(31:16):
all of that. Oh yeah, yeah, the Arbor is known
for its very fine wines, very nice label. I'm sure
there's an in world joke that a commoner would sell
their firstborn child for some Arbor gold. And then there's
Dornish red, which is a sour, spicy red Apparently it's
an acquired taste um, but still an expensive acquired chase. Absolutely,
(31:38):
And then you got Arbor reds and homemade BlackBerry wine.
SS has wine too, They have their own BlackBerry wine,
Tiroshi pear brandy, and sweet reds possibly made with beats.
And one of these wines it's called fire one like
that name. The Knights Watch at the Wall drink hot
spiced mold wine. Apparently Lord Commander Mormon had a very
(32:03):
specific recipe that he liked. Um Like John Snow kind
of like complains about how specific it is at some point,
um quote, so much cinnamon and so much nutmeg and
so much honey, not a drop more raisins and nuts
and dried berries, but no lemon. That was the rankest
sort of Southern heresy ran all right, you know, I
(32:24):
appreciate some strong opinions. Yeah, I love a person with
strong opinions about food. I don't know if you guys
knew that about me. No, no, Um. Of course beer
is also present in this world. Beer is for commoner's
wine is for rich folks in general. General, in general. Um.
There's meat black beer in the North, which is probably
(32:44):
a logger type thing. Some black beers are high quality
enough to to charge a similar price as imported wines.
There's other beers, lots of ales. Yeah, mostly like brown ales.
Beer for every time a day. Breakfast beer is a
thing at the wall at least. Oh, I have a
friend that little it's that their breakfast beer used to
be a thing and it's not renymore and she laments it. Uh.
(33:06):
There's there's RUMs sometimes poisoned, hopefully not hopefully not. Dusk
rose tea made from a flower that grows around Slaver's
Bay and is used as a fever reliever, fermented mare's
milk for the doughth Rocky a shade of the Evening,
so named because of the blue stain it gives to
your lips after repeated consumption. The Warlocks of carth believe
(33:29):
it to be a drink or maybe a drug that
can grant magical abilities. But your mileage very on that.
And then the mysterious proper Northern drink, which could have
been either moonshine, sarages milk, or neither or both. I
think it was moonshine, but again that's very confusing because
they didn't really have stilling technology by that. Oh, anyway,
(33:49):
that's fine, I'm fine with it. This is me being
fine with things. Oh yeah, I think you know, I
kind of interpreted it. Well, no, I can't interpret it
that way. I was to say, I saw it as
a moonshine esque, like not moonshine, but that's like our
closest maybe like a moonshine wine. Yeah, I don't know.
I'm sure we'll discuss it in too much depth off
(34:11):
the podcast. And then, as you can imagine, there is
an entire world of Game of Thrones themed recipes that
you can make out there that I probably have nothing
to do with any of the food seen in the books.
Or in the show mostly pun based exactly exactly. So yes,
I have certainly made some myself, and I had to
(34:31):
include some of my favorite ones based on the puns
puns only I haven't made read all of these. Um,
Geoffrey is hopefully not poisoned. Sangria chickens, little fingers, pot Pies,
pot Pie, don't racki artichoke cards, a corn dog has
no name, The King Crab, John Snow counts you know,
(34:55):
Muffin John Snow, the three Eyed Raisin brand Loaf, when
the Squashes coming, Pizza, House of Tolly, Band of Tarts
and called Joe gurt Um And thanks to the list
for the list. Uh, they have plenty, plenty, plenty more.
So you can go check this out if you want.
(35:16):
I mean, I just like looking through the names. Oh yeah,
I didn't. I purposefully didn't read that before we came
in here. So um, if you heard me quietly dying
in the background, that's exactly what was happening. Is they're
so good. I kept like finding more and having to
whittle it down and being like, but this one so
good too. It was tough. I think three Eyed Raising
(35:40):
Brand Love might be my favorite. That is um, an
excellent also pun costume is hod Or carrying the box
of I want somebody to come with me to Jagon
Come wearing a Winters Coming shirt as I'm the win
your soldiers Soldiers Coming. Yeah, so the position is open.
(36:08):
Applications are now being accepted. Oh yeah that yeah, this
is a This has been a fun one of these
fictional food episodes where it was really fun. Yeah yeah,
I am. I'm still so tickled about that pop up bakery.
Oh I am too. That's amazing. Um, and uh yeah
(36:28):
I'm excited. I'm excited for the these final episodes. Oh
so so psyched. Yeah, so worried. Yes, I got a
lot of concerns. Uh, as we record this, the third
one is about to come out, and that one that
feels yeah, it's it's looking like it's going to be
(36:49):
that everybody dies episode. But the battle episode, it's like
an hour in twenty minutes of a fight. So we'll
say we're going to be different people when you hear it. Hum.
But yeah that h That just about brings us to
the end of our Game of Thrones food episode and
(37:11):
into Mary I can't do John Snow I try. Um,
I was gonna do like an, I figured it would
have been a trick. Yeah, the words listener male don't
particularly forward themselves into that into that pattern. Yeah, if
(37:33):
y'all have never noticed, though, what does perfectly fit into
that pattern is Peter Dinklage. So you can just sing
Peter Dinkledge's name over and over and over again the
entire time that the credits are going, And I think
it's great if you want to record yourself doing it
and send it our way, we would not be opposed.
(37:55):
We would in fact be thrilled. We would We would. Man.
I'm watching with a friend right now who has like
analyzed all the changes they made in the opening credits,
and he was like pausing it and being like, do
you know what this means? And I'm like, no, please, please.
I don't know how excited her about it, Sarah wrote
(38:18):
as a self proclaimed Saturday Morning cartoon connoisseur, she was
writing in response to all my mentions of Scooby Doo
one Zombie Island. This was one of my favorite kids movies.
Slash is probably among my favorite movies in general. Thanks
very much for referencing it throughout your New Orleans run.
It brought a smile to my face as it felt
like an audio easter egg. I mean it was difficult
(38:42):
to stop me. Honestly, I stopped trying. I just gotta
let her go. I never I never tried, y'all. I
wouldn't do that. And Sarah, it was all for you.
It was all for you. Um. I'm still planning on
getting everybody together and watching it. Yeah, yeah, definitely, um.
Chelsea wrote when I was in college, I was flying
(39:04):
from the U. S To Israel with a study abroad group,
and part of the journey was taken over Germany in
an Austrian Airlines plane. Oddly enough, the plane was upholstered
with bright green seats and bright red walls, making us
all feel like we're flying in Santa's sleigh. To top
it all off, when the stewardess came around with the
in flight snacks, we were each given a large packaged
soft pretzel stick. I love soft pretzels and was so
(39:26):
excited to bite into this wonderful treat that it took
me a moment to realize that this pretzel was more
than met The eye running through the center of the
pretzel was quite literally a stick of butter. It was
about an inch wide and five inches long. The pretzel
was about six inches long and ice cold. While it
was a fun surprise and delicious with the pretzel, I
(39:46):
felt like asking for more pretzel with my butter. Even so,
our group really enjoyed this fun change from plane peanuts.
I can't say I've never I've ever had that experience. No,
I've never been on a plane so brightly colored either. Yeah.
Usually it's all just like just like soothing eggshell. I
(40:07):
feel like you must have been on like a nice
twilight zone type thing, like not a scary one, just
like a weird just sort of like why is this
butter in my pretzel? Like seed screen? I don't know,
although I would watch, I would watch Williams Shatner do
(40:27):
that entire stick about a stick of butter being inside
of a pretzel on an airplane. Yeah, I don't really
have a Shatner impression. So y'all y'll have to work
on it yourselves. I have been working on it long
time listeners of the show. No, it's on my it's
on my list of goals. I haven't come far, but
(40:51):
I haven't given up either. Oh that's good, that's good. Yeah,
it's important to have goals, thank you, and this one
is a very important one obviously. Thanks to you both
of them for writing in. If you'd like to write
to as you can, Our email is Hello at saborpod
dot com. You can also find us on social media.
We are on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at savor Pod.
(41:11):
We do hope to hear from you. Savor is a
production of iHeart Radio and stuff media from more podcasts
from my heart Radio. You can visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thank you as always to our superproducers Dylan Fagan and
Andrew Howard. Thank you to you for listening, and we
hope that lots more good things are coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to Savor, a production of I Heart
Radio and Stuff Media. I'm Any and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum,
and today we're talking about the food of Game of
Thrones and or a Song of Ice and Fire and or. Yeah,
that's the title of the book series that the TV
series is based on. Yes, um, it is. It's been
a long time since we've done a fictional foods Yeah, yeah,
(00:28):
it was. The time was nigh, especially because as we
record this, Game of Thrones is in its final season.
Indeed it is, indeed it is, but who knows when
you're listening. Um. We we had to decide on which
geek avenue to pursue because we just did a shwarma
episode for the Avengers, which I am seen tonight and
(00:50):
I can't believe how excited I am. Like, it's surprising
even me. I'm nervous and excited that you're so nervous
right now. That's so great, Yes, yes, um, And we
were like, let's see of fictional foods because we haven't
done one and forever. Game of Thrones is endang, let's
do that. But also Star Wars, yeah, the fourth but
then you Lauren at the excellent point that Star Wars
is not going away any time soon. Star Wars is eternal. Yeah.
(01:15):
Game of Thrones is ending, at least in its current popularity.
The books you know, oh sure, may or may not
ever come out may or may not. Yeah, all true.
And if some of you are groaning, because I do
have some friends that are very tired of Game of
Thrones because over saturation and the excitement, oh Sharon, especially
if you're not a fan of the series. Right. Um,
(01:36):
I was saying, never fear. I am a fan light
That's how I would describe myself. I really enjoy it,
but I'm kind of generally confused. And we are purportedly
a food and drink podcast, so there will be plenty
of nursery, but you know, not too much. I mean, yes, yes, Um.
And I got into Game of Thrones because of the
(01:59):
core workers here, Um Tyler from our D and D campaign.
He was super into it, and he accidentally spoiled the
season finale of season one for me. Oh wow, Um,
and he feels really bad about it. I didn't care
because I was like, Who's that what? I was more
surprised at the actor. Um, But yeah, he felt mad.
Um and he used to show them on a he
(02:23):
had a projector and every Sunday would get together and
watch them. Yeah, and then on Monday's Paul Deckins and
a couple of other people they would re enact it.
And he has a really good John Snow impressions so good,
and so I was like, well, I guess I gotta
get in on this. I've never seen that. Okay, I
like special request that, like right now, it's great, it's
(02:44):
back in this video cave. I missed everything out in
the out in the light. I miss everything, Yeah, I do.
I I am currently watching it with a different group
of co workers. Um, and it's fun because we all
are kind of generally confused, like we know it's going on,
but you know, every now and that comes in, you're like,
who the heck is show? I know? And I spent
(03:07):
the first three or four seasons thinking Castle Rock as
a person and wondering when he or she would finally arrive.
It is a place kept me like who is Castle Rock?
I also want to like soft point out that it's
Castle Rock not It's definitely not Castily Rock. I thought
it was Castly. Yeah, I think it's the I don't
(03:30):
know what accent that is that they do well, it's
it's some kind of British, but it's certainly made up
because I mean, I don't know, it's they all. They
all kind of do what they want in terms of accents.
True true story. Um so that's kind of that's kind
of where I you, Lauren. Um Well, I started reading
(03:51):
the book series in college. It must have been like
two thousand three or so, so like the third book
was out, but it would be another couple of years
before the fourth, and like ten billion years before the
fifth and and I and I want to put in
here that I am ribbing on the author George RR. Martin,
um infamously slow publishing schedule, but I'm doing so fondly
um as no less than Neil Gaiman. UH famous author
(04:15):
once said in a blog post, George R. R. Martin
is not your and he can publish his books or
not whenever he wants to calm down. Um anyway, yes, Hi,
I'm a nerd. I was like hooked on the book
series so excited when the TV series started coming out,
(04:35):
and I've been following breathlessly the entire time, like it
is problematic as heck, and like increasingly ridiculous and the
dialogue is going downhill so fast and uh and I
love every single minute of it. Yeah, I am. I've
grown to like it more and more, and I think
(04:56):
it's because it has become this kind of cultural thing,
and I just I enjoyed the social aspect of discussing it,
making fun of it, and trying to figure out who
is what, theories upon theories upon theories. Also, just like
the the production design is so gorgeous. Um that the
costumes and the food styling. Yes, yes, And we're gonna
talk about that some in a little bit. I wanted
(05:18):
to include this bit here. I found an article from
Vulture headline is Game of Thrones, the last show we'll
watch together, marks the end of the era of television
as an epic communal journey. So that's kind of what
I feel like I am experiencing. And it is strange
that this and Avengers, which is kind of a similar
communal journey aspect, are happening at the same time. And
(05:41):
if you're interested, the article argues it has to do
with social media, the difference of binging on Netflix versus
like all arriving at the shocking moments at the same time,
and that we all feel like we watch it even
if we don't, um, because you see it on social media,
Like maybe you watch Leslie Jones used to do those
Jones They were so good, they were so beautiful. Leslie Jones,
(06:03):
You're beautiful and perfect and I miss you on Twitter.
I understand, but I miss you. Yeah. She still does
them sometimes on set Myers. Yeah. Um, but yeah, so
even if you don't watch it, you probably are aware
of some of the big cultural like points of it.
Oh yes, um. And the recent premiere drew seventeen million viewers.
(06:24):
They showed it at a local theater. They screened it
for free. Um. There are several bars here with no
strict no talking policy. Yes, yes, and before HBO crackdown
on piracy, it was the most illegally downloaded show. It
might still be, but it's like not that the same numbers. Sure,
it once was. But all of this to bring us
(06:45):
to our question. Game of Thrones, food and drinks? What
are they? Uh well? Um? Game of Thrones is a
TV series based on a book series called A Song
of Ice and Fire. The books, written by George RR. Martin,
started coming out in nine and the TV series followed
(07:07):
starting in the series sort of shifts from low fantasy
meaning no magic to a high fantasy meaning like HELLI
magic over the course and is set in a fantasy
world largely patterned on medieval Europe and Eurasia. And it's
got a lot of food in it. Yes, this is
(07:27):
a good series when it comes to discussing food and drinks.
And you made a point, Lauren, that a lot of
the big things happen over feast, and of course Tyrians
a k. Peter Dinkl's character famous line, I drink and
I know things. That's what I do. I drink and
I know things. Yeah, I realized one day that like
that's actually my job to drink into no things, just
(07:52):
like Terrian. Although I know that a lot of a
lot of humans probably self associate with that line as well. Um. Yeah,
so many key points in the series are bent around
food and drink. Um. From the very first feast that
the Starks throw for Robert Brathean and his entourage. That's
one of the first scenes in the first book. Um
and and show. Uh. Yeah, you've got the red wedding,
(08:14):
the Purple wedding, denaries wine merchant in vast off rack
Uh Sir Davos is the onion night in the Crossroads,
which serves a lot of food. Is where like sixty
of the important things in the series happen. That's not
a precise number, I haven't counted, but like I'm rough
rough cuestimate. Um. So many alcoholics, so many drink poisonings. Yeah,
(08:39):
the book includes um. The books include a lot of
very intense descriptions about food, so much so that George R.
Martin has been called out for writing food porn. Oh
yeah again. Vulture has a listicle of ten times George RR.
Martin described food more erotically than sex. Because, as they
say in this article, if you're a fan of the
(09:00):
show but haven't read the Song of Ice and Fire books,
you may not know this, but they're actually not a
medieval inspired political drama. Their food erotica. Oh my goodness, um,
oh goodness, and uh yeah. So so they listed a
bunch of their their favorite examples of this sort of thing,
and one of the ones they picked out is from
a Feast in a in a Clash of Kings. I
(09:21):
forget which book that is. I know in the world Monster,
you don't have to write in and remind me I
could google that, but I just didn't. Right now, Um, okay,
so the quote of food there was plenty. The war
had not touched the fabled bounty of high garden. While
(09:42):
singers sang and tumblers tumbled. They began with pears poached
in wine and went on to tiny savory fish rolled
in salt and cooked crisp and capon stuffed with onions
and mushrooms. There were great loaves of brown bread, mounds
of turnips and sweet corn and peas, immense hams and
roast geese, and trenchers dripping full of venison stewed with
b been barley. For the sweet. Lord Caswell's servants brought
(10:03):
down trays of pastries from his castle kitchens, cream swans
and sponge, sugar unicorns, lemon cakes in the shape of roses, spice,
tiny biscuits and BlackBerry tarts, apple crisps, and wheels of
buttery cheese. Whoa, and that that happens all the time,
Like I feel like it's like continually throughout the series.
(10:23):
That is I mean, that's just one, that's not the
only one. Constant um. Oh, it's it's it's really it's
really lavish and beautiful. Um but uh but yeah on
on the show too. Just like check out how often
food and drink is either consumed or is part of
these lavish set dressings. Um. Cercy in Tyrian Dang always
(10:47):
have a wine goblet in hand. Um. Just about every
scene in the bougie castle in King's Landing includes like
a tower of fruit that in medieval times would have
cost like my call are right? Yeah? Um? So so
many conversations happen over meals, like I start to wonder,
like in the writer's room if they're ever just going
(11:08):
like f this is eight pages of straight dialogue. We
need something for visual interest. Who has a coin to flip?
Long hallway or dinner? Right? Yeah? Yeah, I read. I
read some articles about it and how they how much
thought went into depending on the setting of like what
would they have available with colors? And like all of
(11:29):
this thought went into it. Um. And speaking of there
is an official cookbook with George R. Martin himself involved.
Yeah yeah, he wrote a forward for it, but the
meat the book. Um. It started as this nerd recipe
blog started by two fans, Chelsea Eat Monroe Castle and
Sarayan Laher. Since April eleven, as far as I can tell, um,
(11:51):
they've been keeping a blog at In at the Crossroads
dot com. Um. The first posted recipe on there is
for Stance's favorite treat, lemon cakes. Um. That starting date
is kind of uncertain because they had to take some
stuff down from the site upon the ultimate publication of
the book. But anyway, um. Yeah, they base their recipes
on historical recipes, historical Earth recipes, apparently Elizabethan era texts
(12:15):
and along with some like some like world ancient Roman
stuff um, but sometimes also often a second take on
a dish that's more fit for modern tastes and ingredients
in technology and they they really have their work cut
out for them. Um. In the books in general, Martin
employees this really interesting combination of like historically researched objects
(12:36):
and terms plus actual magic, uh, plus a blend of
what would be anachronisms if the setting was Earth and
there was no magic involved, like at the very base
of the food issue here. The way that the seasons
work in in the world of the series, and it
is a key plot device, is that the summers and
winters each last for years. So winter is so winter
(12:58):
is coming. Yeah, And that set up is like explicitly
not what most plants and animals that we humans use
for food would be able to survive through ever, um like,
and even frozen foods will go off after like three
or four years and then you're down to well preserved goods.
And Earth humans didn't invent really great canning technology until
after Napoleon Bonaparte offered a prize to whoever could figure
(13:21):
out how to better preserved food for soldiers in sevente
at which point we also had muskets and steam engines,
which is a very different world from that of Game
of Thrones. Yeah, Like, like Martin loosely bases wester ros
on England Circle the War of the Roses in the
mid to late fourteen hundreds, so problem problem um but yeah,
(13:43):
so yes, and building off of that very basic base
of the seasons being so screwed, you've just got food
supply chaos in this world, and Martin seems completely unconcerned
with explaining it, which I love. He's just like, yeah, whatever,
figure it out. But you know, I mean, dragons and
ice zombies exist there, so I guess whatever foods and
(14:05):
dishes you want to put in are possible to maybe
the plants are really good at surviving frost. I don't know.
That's the thing about a magical world. Um. And I
found when I was researching into this, and I can't
believe I didn't run into this when we were researching
our Lord of the Rings episode. But there's a controversial
(14:26):
tomato see and Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movies,
and this has to do with the avoidance of New
World crops like tomatoes and tobacco and potatoes in the books.
I believe something was even republished to take tomatoes out.
Wow in Lord of the Rings. Yeah, yeah, because he
did try to explain it and then people were like
(14:47):
whoa actually, um, yeah, since they're in theory supposed to
take place in a lost historical era in Europe before colonialism, yeah,
like six thousand years ago. And Martin had the same problem,
but like didn't seem as concerned about it. Yes, he
does make some allowances, like like there's there's some things
(15:09):
that he specifically doesn't put in there, like um, like
he never mentions tobacco. I don't think anyone smokes. But
he does have characters chew sour leaf, something called sour leaf,
which is essentially chewing tobacco except kind of reddish. I
don't know anyway, Um, yes, anyway, these these fans, we're
running this recipe blog and it turned into it an
officially approved cookbook deal later in in October, and now
(15:34):
they've got other books out for World of Warcraft and
Hearthstone and Elder Scrolls and the whole thing makes me
so happy for fandom and like cooking nursery and history nursery,
and awesomely they're now in touch with the food stylist
from the show and thus can offer recipes that are
more like what they actually produce for the show. That's
(15:55):
really cool. Yeah. Their website is pretty awesome, Like it's
in depth. It is is a lot. There is so
much and it's great. There's also an unofficial Game of
Thrones cookbook that was published in and lots of fans
have posted stuff online, you know, recipes but also trying
to find earthly matches to the series wines and ales.
(16:17):
Oh yes, I my famously themed D and D campaigns
that one of our first ones was Game of Thrones
themed because this show was premiering. I can go last season. Um,
and I made some of those those recipes for sure,
and then I bought a beer called Stark. Yeah. Anyway,
(16:39):
so this actually Segway is really well to my next point,
because there's so much excitement for this final season. Companies
saw all the chance to make some money and they
went all in, and they've been going all but it
is especially big right now. Yeah. You've got Mountain Dew
with their Game of Thrones them hands Shake checks promote
(17:00):
for an off the menu Game of Thrones themed Jakarisberger
and dragon Glass Shake. But you have to ask for
it in the Valerian language if you're interested, though. The
translation is on their site. Okay, so okay, I'll put
that out there. Um Brewery Omegang's Game of Thrones beers
like they've been in on the game for a while. Um. Yeah.
(17:21):
And there's some Game of Throne wines that you can buy,
White Walker Whiskey from Johnny Walker. And my favorite, the
allegedly spoiler ish oreos with the house centrals. How are
they spoilers? Somebody told me they were spoilers and I
was like, no, I can't look at orios. It's great. Um.
(17:43):
And those oreos, by the way, there's a commercial with
them and it's an epic recreation of the opening sea. Yeah,
I have to look this up now. That's great, it's
really great. Um. And in the UK, the food delivery
service UM called Delivery is delivering white chocolate dragon egg
that way about two pounds. It cost about a dollar.
What exactly? Huh? What huh? Um? A bakery in Dubai
(18:10):
made a four ft tall fondant and sugar paste sculpture
in the shape of the iron throne with a fond
in tier in Peter Danklich sitting on it holding a
cup of wine. That pretty excellent for parametric friends. For
a feet is about about a meter in a third
or so. It was worth seven thousand dollars. What what?
(18:32):
Oh Dubai? And um there's a Chinese restaurant in al Monte,
California called a Song of Rice and Fire. My hatch
is off to you. It is pretty excellent. But this
about brings us to some some examples, some specific examples.
(18:56):
But first it brings us to a quick break for
a word from her sponsor m and we're back. Thank
you sponsors, yes, thank you. So all these foods we
could find in this our nonfictional food world are like
counterparts of them or ancestors of them. Um, but since
(19:20):
there are so many memorable seeds around food, drinks, and feast,
they are worth unpacking. Yeah. The basic ingredients and tastes
in this fictional world very bi fictional region and are
often directly illustrative of the character of the people from
that region. Um like the North has hearty, unpretentious food. Uh.
(19:42):
Meals and kings Landing are showy like overlavish and decorative.
The Tyrrells of High Garden have a sense of sensuality
about their food, like they're eating for pleasures sake. Um,
Iron islands food stuff so are straightforward and practical and
uh so on I see, I see. And because this
is such a sprawling universe, every group has a specific
uh they have specific eating customs or rules. And this
(20:04):
is where we're going to get into fun with fictional prestation.
Oh goodness, I'm probably not gonna be able to help
you with either. No, sorry, alright. So, for example, the
Giscari who seek out rich foods, and the story goes
that only on the only meat that is off the
table for them is the heart event or dragon. Oh wow, okay, Um,
there's the Nafi who practice passivism and they refuse to
(20:28):
eat any animal, and that's where millisslandra is from. Well, Um,
the dorn Is prefer spicy foods and bold wines. Plowing
the earth is considered sacrilege to the dough Raki, so
they don't cultivate crops things like that. Yeah. Yeah, and
and in there, like there's a lot of real weird,
half fantasy, half real racist stereotyping that's just floating through
(20:51):
the series. Um, and uh yeah, you can you can
see if you can see some of that in the
way that the food illustrates these different people's like like
the like the like the door and Ish being basically
Spanish or at least Hispanic or Latin kind of like,
oh man, they really like their spicy food. I'm like,
you guys, can we not? Could we just not have
(21:12):
done that? Yeah? But that's fine, I mean it's not.
But I mean, you know, all your faves are problematic.
This is very anyway, let's talk about pigeon pie. Um.
So this is reminiscent of a meat pie and it's
typically served at weddings in wester Row's. Probably the most
(21:33):
memorable scene of pigeon pie on the show was the
one at King Geoffrey who dreadful terrible Oh yeah, bad guy,
bad person and Marjorie Tyrell's wedding. Geoffrey slices into the
enormous pie with his sword Valerious Steel, and outflies some pigeons,
but others are dead pon his blade. It's true, it happened.
(21:54):
There pigeons in there. There are, I mean, most pigeon
pies I imagine don't have live one. That's a stunt
cake kind of issue. Yeah, I have to believe you're
correct on that. Um, Lamprey pie so similar to pigeon pie,
except lampreys are okay, they're like eels that don't have
jaws but have lots of teeth. Yeah, they're pretty. They're
(22:18):
pretty gross looking but apparently delicious, and they like lurk
around in the water. And I think they're expensive because yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah they are because it's dangerous to get them and
they're marred defined you got to go into the dark
waters and base the teeth. And then there's free pie.
(22:40):
And just in case serious season or two behind on
the show, we're not gonna specify about this one, but
free Pie, those of you who get it, get it. Yeah,
there's so many types of hie. There's pork pie, steak
and kidney pie, beef and bacon pie, Lord Manderley's pie
as big as a wagon wheel, delicious oyster's clams and cockles.
(23:01):
Ah Yeah. Seafood is abundant and fresh and especially in
the free City of Bravos, and street vendors sell shellfish
straight from carts, cracking open the shells to order. There's
dire wolf bread and okay, hot pie who is a person,
not a pie, is a friend of Aria's Starks and
a baker's apprentice, and he along with Aria and a
(23:23):
friend of theirs, Gendri, who I went on a very
deep and long rabbit hole trying to figure out what
his deal is. Recently, they get captured and their captors
offer hot pies baking skills to the end at the
cross Roads to pay for their lodging and meals and
hot pie prefers. This too, you know, danger, So he
decides he'd rather stay, and as a parting gift, he
(23:45):
makes Aria some bread in the shape of a dire wolf,
which is the sigil of her house house stark Um.
This comebacks. This comes back a little bit later in
the series. He he offers a a much better like
less slumpy dire wolf head to um uh to to
someone to give to Aria if they find her. Um
and okay. Favorite fact of the episode, y'all the actor
(24:09):
um Ben Hockey, who plays Hot Pie enjoys baking in
real life and in he opened a pop up bakery
in London and it was called you Know Nothing John
Doe and he made dire wolf breads for it. That
is beautiful. It is so heck and delightful. Um yeah.
His were cornbread with orange zest um. The ones featured
(24:32):
on the show are closer to English scones, which are
pretty close to American biscuits on the On the opposite
into this picture, m I guess. Bowl of brown an
aptisingly named bowl of stew common for peasants in King's
Landing and specifically in Flea Bottom, which is like the
poor yeah um, sometimes made with rat meat when you're lucky.
(24:53):
When you're lucky, you got a little bit of a
little ratter pigeon in there. Um yeah. This stuff is
cooked in large pots that are kept simmering for days
or like indefinitely, with a portions sold out by the
bowl and more ingredients added in as it goes. So
many other soups and stews, though. Um Slate published an
article in ten called a Song of Ice and Fire
and soup subtitle What's behind George are Martin's obsession with
(25:17):
chowder and bread bowls? Yeah? What's the deal with that?
I've got a quote for you here. Um what P. G.
Woodhouse is two butlers? What Jane Austin is two eligible suitors.
What Cormick McCarthy is to horse carcasses? George R. Martin
is two soup? Well? Good for him? Uh yeah, and
(25:37):
and and for for example, Um, a Sister stew is
a seafood chowder made around the Three Sisters Islands, sometimes
served in a hollowed loaf of bread. He bowl. There's
like a whole page of conversation about this bowl of
soup and like the lady who made it, and like
what ingredients are in it and where those ingredients came from,
and like why it's better than other things, and like
it's it's intense. Oh gosh, it's hounds intense. Like what
(26:02):
am I reading anymore? You're like I thought they were dragons?
Like is this just about showder? Now? Really? The exciting
part is the soup. We all know soup is the
most exciting of meals. And speaking of exciting meals, chicken yeah,
roasted chicken. Yes. Um. So there's this character known as
the Hound, who I also went on a long rabbit
(26:23):
hole about recently. Who's he's this big brudy fellow. And
at one point the Hound runs into some of King
Geoffrey's followers at the end, not the end, at the
crossroads for once, oh different days, a different dend, I
do believe, Correct me if I'm wrong, y'all. I think
it's a different one. Well, he says something not so
nice about King Geoffrey and demands some of the chickens
they're eating. A fighting sues and the Hound rains victorious
(26:46):
and hound eats his chicken. Yeah he does, Oh yeah
it does. The Hound always gets his chicken. Planister always
paste their TETs, and the hound always gets a chicken.
That's what they say in the book The Frame Starved
foods like stringy beef and jellied calf brains at the
Red Wedding and the thin leak soup. Yeah, like Lord
(27:08):
Walter phrase kind of gross and stingy, and so so
is his kitchen's food. Yeah, he played the same guy,
plays a filch. Yeah, he's brilliant. Heck, I love that
guy so gross in that series, appropriately so. And of
course doth Racky horse Heart from S S. Dothracky priestesses
(27:29):
give Denarius a heart of Dothracky to eat during a
ceremony to bless the health of her unborn child. She
bites into it as the princess's chant. It's a very
memorable scene. Yeah, horse heart, not doth racky horse heart,
not doth racky human heart. Just making sure that's clear. Yeah,
I got confused about it. Oh, that was so long ago.
It was very long time ago. That was that was
first season. Yeah. Um. Doth racki horse turkey is also
(27:52):
a thing. Yeah. Um. And apparently during the filming of
the scene of that heart eating scene for the oh um,
the proper heart was made of this like stiff gelatin
and it tasted really terrible, and the actor Amelia Clark
ate like twenty eight of them, or at least parts thereof, um,
and so she was not faking her nausea. Um. She
(28:14):
said that they tasted like bleach and raw pasta, and
that she was really glad she had a spit bucket
because yeah, yeah, if I saw something that said bleach
and raw pasta the menu, I would not order that thing.
Hope I might leave that very establishment. Yes, no, thank you, sir. Yes,
I am at the wrong place. There is occasional cannibalism, though, um,
(28:38):
just you know, not among the death racky that I'm
aware of, but the fens from north of the Wall
eat their fallen enemies. Okay. And then previously mentioned lemon cakes.
Lemon cakes were discussing gossip sounds finally reveals how terrible
Geoffrey is over lemon cakes. Yeah, her love for lemon
cakes comes up what feels like constantly, um, like everyone
(29:00):
in King's Landing knows that they're her favorite. She gets
upbraided by her aunt and the Veil for eating too many,
like gotta watch your figure, like yeah, yeah, um and
for all the fancy dishes, though there's also a bunch
of survival eating spread throughout, you know, berries to bugs
to worms to acorn paste. Um, you know your own
horse when nothing else is left. That kind of thing.
(29:22):
Oh man, I like how we put we did cannibalism,
lemon cakes, bucks. We really know how to thematically stack. Yeah,
just when you think it's all well and good, bugs
can be good. Surely out of order maybe perhaps. Um
(29:48):
So those are some of the food examples, but there
are a lot of drink examples as well. Oh yeah,
and we will get into those as soon as we
get back from another quick break for a word from
our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you, sponsored, Yes, thank you.
(30:11):
The first thing we should talk about is wine. Cercy
and her wine. I love it, Oh, I know, it's
a thing of glorious beauty. I think one of my
favorite gifts I sended people is someone where she just
like more wine. She like very firmly sticks out her
her beautiful goblet and says more wine. Yeah. Yeah, there's
(30:34):
one of my Now I'm just straight nrting out, but
y'all like like like some of my favorite lines in
the entire series are from Robert brathy and played by
Mark Addie brilliantly in back in season one and um
and he has this monologue that's terrible, like he's just
like such a like like oh like angry like like
person with all of this bad stuff that's happened in
(30:55):
his life, and he just punctuates it with more wine, like, oh,
it's so beautiful, makes me really happy anyway, Okay, yeah wine, Yes,
sst Ros has several types of wine. There's Arbor Gold,
which is super fancy, super expensive, and sweet white wine.
Um as in the most fancy and most expensive in
(31:16):
all of that. Oh yeah, yeah, the Arbor is known
for its very fine wines, very nice label. I'm sure
there's an in world joke that a commoner would sell
their firstborn child for some Arbor gold. And then there's
Dornish red, which is a sour, spicy red Apparently it's
an acquired taste um, but still an expensive acquired chase. Absolutely,
(31:38):
And then you got Arbor reds and homemade BlackBerry wine.
SS has wine too, They have their own BlackBerry wine,
Tiroshi pear brandy, and sweet reds possibly made with beats.
And one of these wines it's called fire one like
that name. The Knights Watch at the Wall drink hot
spiced mold wine. Apparently Lord Commander Mormon had a very
(32:03):
specific recipe that he liked. Um Like John Snow kind
of like complains about how specific it is at some point,
um quote, so much cinnamon and so much nutmeg and
so much honey, not a drop more raisins and nuts
and dried berries, but no lemon. That was the rankest
sort of Southern heresy ran all right, you know, I
(32:24):
appreciate some strong opinions. Yeah, I love a person with
strong opinions about food. I don't know if you guys
knew that about me. No, no, Um. Of course beer
is also present in this world. Beer is for commoner's
wine is for rich folks in general. General, in general. Um.
There's meat black beer in the North, which is probably
(32:44):
a logger type thing. Some black beers are high quality
enough to to charge a similar price as imported wines.
There's other beers, lots of ales. Yeah, mostly like brown ales.
Beer for every time a day. Breakfast beer is a
thing at the wall at least. Oh, I have a
friend that little it's that their breakfast beer used to
be a thing and it's not renymore and she laments it. Uh.
(33:06):
There's there's RUMs sometimes poisoned, hopefully not hopefully not. Dusk
rose tea made from a flower that grows around Slaver's
Bay and is used as a fever reliever, fermented mare's
milk for the doughth Rocky a shade of the Evening,
so named because of the blue stain it gives to
your lips after repeated consumption. The Warlocks of carth believe
(33:29):
it to be a drink or maybe a drug that
can grant magical abilities. But your mileage very on that.
And then the mysterious proper Northern drink, which could have
been either moonshine, sarages milk, or neither or both. I
think it was moonshine, but again that's very confusing because
they didn't really have stilling technology by that. Oh, anyway,
(33:49):
that's fine, I'm fine with it. This is me being
fine with things. Oh yeah, I think you know, I
kind of interpreted it. Well, no, I can't interpret it
that way. I was to say, I saw it as
a moonshine esque, like not moonshine, but that's like our
closest maybe like a moonshine wine. Yeah, I don't know.
I'm sure we'll discuss it in too much depth off
(34:11):
the podcast. And then, as you can imagine, there is
an entire world of Game of Thrones themed recipes that
you can make out there that I probably have nothing
to do with any of the food seen in the books.
Or in the show mostly pun based exactly exactly. So yes,
I have certainly made some myself, and I had to
(34:31):
include some of my favorite ones based on the puns
puns only I haven't made read all of these. Um,
Geoffrey is hopefully not poisoned. Sangria chickens, little fingers, pot Pies,
pot Pie, don't racki artichoke cards, a corn dog has
no name, The King Crab, John Snow counts you know,
(34:55):
Muffin John Snow, the three Eyed Raisin brand Loaf, when
the Squashes coming, Pizza, House of Tolly, Band of Tarts
and called Joe gurt Um And thanks to the list
for the list. Uh, they have plenty, plenty, plenty more.
So you can go check this out if you want.
(35:16):
I mean, I just like looking through the names. Oh yeah,
I didn't. I purposefully didn't read that before we came
in here. So um, if you heard me quietly dying
in the background, that's exactly what was happening. Is they're
so good. I kept like finding more and having to
whittle it down and being like, but this one so
good too. It was tough. I think three Eyed Raising
(35:40):
Brand Love might be my favorite. That is um, an
excellent also pun costume is hod Or carrying the box
of I want somebody to come with me to Jagon
Come wearing a Winters Coming shirt as I'm the win
your soldiers Soldiers Coming. Yeah, so the position is open.
(36:08):
Applications are now being accepted. Oh yeah that yeah, this
is a This has been a fun one of these
fictional food episodes where it was really fun. Yeah yeah,
I am. I'm still so tickled about that pop up bakery.
Oh I am too. That's amazing. Um, and uh yeah
(36:28):
I'm excited. I'm excited for the these final episodes. Oh
so so psyched. Yeah, so worried. Yes, I got a
lot of concerns. Uh, as we record this, the third
one is about to come out, and that one that
feels yeah, it's it's looking like it's going to be
(36:49):
that everybody dies episode. But the battle episode, it's like
an hour in twenty minutes of a fight. So we'll
say we're going to be different people when you hear it. Hum.
But yeah that h That just about brings us to
the end of our Game of Thrones food episode and
(37:11):
into Mary I can't do John Snow I try. Um,
I was gonna do like an, I figured it would
have been a trick. Yeah, the words listener male don't
particularly forward themselves into that into that pattern. Yeah, if
(37:33):
y'all have never noticed, though, what does perfectly fit into
that pattern is Peter Dinklage. So you can just sing
Peter Dinkledge's name over and over and over again the
entire time that the credits are going, And I think
it's great if you want to record yourself doing it
and send it our way, we would not be opposed.
(37:55):
We would in fact be thrilled. We would We would. Man.
I'm watching with a friend right now who has like
analyzed all the changes they made in the opening credits,
and he was like pausing it and being like, do
you know what this means? And I'm like, no, please, please.
I don't know how excited her about it, Sarah wrote
(38:18):
as a self proclaimed Saturday Morning cartoon connoisseur, she was
writing in response to all my mentions of Scooby Doo
one Zombie Island. This was one of my favorite kids movies.
Slash is probably among my favorite movies in general. Thanks
very much for referencing it throughout your New Orleans run.
It brought a smile to my face as it felt
like an audio easter egg. I mean it was difficult
(38:42):
to stop me. Honestly, I stopped trying. I just gotta
let her go. I never I never tried, y'all. I
wouldn't do that. And Sarah, it was all for you.
It was all for you. Um. I'm still planning on
getting everybody together and watching it. Yeah, yeah, definitely, um.
Chelsea wrote when I was in college, I was flying
(39:04):
from the U. S To Israel with a study abroad group,
and part of the journey was taken over Germany in
an Austrian Airlines plane. Oddly enough, the plane was upholstered
with bright green seats and bright red walls, making us
all feel like we're flying in Santa's sleigh. To top
it all off, when the stewardess came around with the
in flight snacks, we were each given a large packaged
soft pretzel stick. I love soft pretzels and was so
(39:26):
excited to bite into this wonderful treat that it took
me a moment to realize that this pretzel was more
than met The eye running through the center of the
pretzel was quite literally a stick of butter. It was
about an inch wide and five inches long. The pretzel
was about six inches long and ice cold. While it
was a fun surprise and delicious with the pretzel, I
(39:46):
felt like asking for more pretzel with my butter. Even so,
our group really enjoyed this fun change from plane peanuts.
I can't say I've never I've ever had that experience. No,
I've never been on a plane so brightly colored either. Yeah.
Usually it's all just like just like soothing eggshell. I
(40:07):
feel like you must have been on like a nice
twilight zone type thing, like not a scary one, just
like a weird just sort of like why is this
butter in my pretzel? Like seed screen? I don't know,
although I would watch, I would watch Williams Shatner do
(40:27):
that entire stick about a stick of butter being inside
of a pretzel on an airplane. Yeah, I don't really
have a Shatner impression. So y'all y'll have to work
on it yourselves. I have been working on it long
time listeners of the show. No, it's on my it's
on my list of goals. I haven't come far, but
(40:51):
I haven't given up either. Oh that's good, that's good. Yeah,
it's important to have goals, thank you, and this one
is a very important one obviously. Thanks to you both
of them for writing in. If you'd like to write
to as you can, Our email is Hello at saborpod
dot com. You can also find us on social media.
We are on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at savor Pod.
(41:11):
We do hope to hear from you. Savor is a
production of iHeart Radio and stuff media from more podcasts
from my heart Radio. You can visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thank you as always to our superproducers Dylan Fagan and
Andrew Howard. Thank you to you for listening, and we
hope that lots more good things are coming your way.
Savor News
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Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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