The Foodie’s Guide to Greyhawk

My head has been in the world of Greyhawk recently for a project. One fun trivia fact about the campaign world is that Gygax came up with the map as a fantasy version of the United States, and its titular city of Greyhawk was based on the city of his birth and childhood: Chicago! As a Chicagolander myself, I was inspired to transform one of Chicago’s main claims to fame, its food, into the fantasy milieu, with the following result. Though tongue in cheek, I still hope this can find a use in your own Greyhawk campaign…

The Free City is well known throughout the Flanaess as a haven for those seeking adventure in the Cairn Hills or the ruins of the old castle. However, Greyhawk is also the premier destination for the culinarily curious. As people from disparate regions settled the metropolis, they brought their foodways with them, so that modern Greyhawk has something to offer whether you’re in a fine dining establishment or just sampling the fare at the local tavern.

Legend has it that the city was nearly named after the Flan word for wild onions, though its founders eventually settled on the region’s distinctive avian predators as a namesake. Still, before the profits of the local dungeons began bolstering the city’s economy, growth was largely based on the meat packing industry.¹ Though no longer the engine of Greyhawk’s prosperity, cured meats can still be found in many of the city’s iconic foods, especially street foods.

If you ask locals what Geryhawk’s signature dish is, you’ll get a variety of answers, but most will probably tell you it’s the Greyhawk-style Sausage, if for no other reason that it bears the city’s name. Though other cities from Hardby to Rel Astra lay claim to originating a particular type of mild sausage served on a bread roll,² a true Greyhawk-style sausage is topped only with specific condiments. These include diced local sweet onions (the same ones that almost gave the city its name), sliced tomatoes,³ a mustard seed sauce, and pickled cucumber both as a long slice and minced nearly into a slurry; in addition, the bread roll itself is generally covered with seeds of poppy. Spicy peppers are optional, but the most important rule of the Greyhawk-style Sausage is that it absolutely must not be covered in the sweet tomato sauce that is common on sausages in Aerdy! You can grab a proper Greyhawk-style Sausage from stalls throughout the city and even as far afield as Two Ford and Blackfair Manor. If one is looking for a snack rather than a meal, the Low Market is known for selling specialty popped corn. This can be buttered or covered in cheese or caramel; a mixture of these two is sometimes called the Greyhawk mix.⁴

Many of Greyhawk’s popular street foods are brought by the city’s immigrant communities, though sometimes they find themselves transformed from the original. Take, for instance, the Marsh Street Tenha, which is a traditional sausage from Tenh but served on a bread roll in the Greyhawk-style along with mustard seed sauce and sauteed wild onions.⁵ The Adri Beef developed from cheap cuts of beef that could be afforded by recent immigrants from Aerdi and Ahlissa, stewed to tenderness and also served on a bread roll. This can be topped with cheese, spicy peppers, even a sausage! The most authentic topping is Dejl, a mix of herbs and vegetables popular in as a sort of tea in the Adri Forest, but in Greyhawk it is diced and pickled as a condiment.⁶ More recently, Baklunish immigrants have added the Helix Kebab to the city’s culinary tableau; this dish is supposedly named after the Spinning Helix of the Archmages due to the way the meat is cooked on an upright rotating skewer. Traditionally the meat is lamb but others may be used, and unlike most Greyhawk street foods it is served not on a bread roll but on a traditional Baklunish flatbread.⁷

Beyond street food, more of Greyhawk’s signature dishes can be found in the many inns and taverns. A particular favorite is a sort of savory pie of tomato sauce and Djekul cheese with various other ingredients from spinach and basil to different varieties of sliced or crumbled sausage.⁸ The “tavern style” is baked on a flatbread with just a thin layer of tomato sauce covered by the shredded Djekul cheese and other toppings, and is perfect for a quick meal. The Deep Djekul Pie is baked in a dish and usually has the cheese buried under the tomato sauce and other toppings. Over an inch thick, this type is more associated with Greyhawk than the tavern style, but is generally reserved for feasts and special occasions. Legend has it that the first Deep Djekul Pie was inspired by dungeons below Castle Greyhawk and prepared for adventurers returning after a successful delve. The Green Dragon Inn’s pie is sometimes considered the iconic, original formulation, but I personally recommend the Silver Dragon Inn’s pie in the Foreign Quarter.

Greyhawk is also known for more elegant dishes such as Chicken White Plume,⁹ made by immigrants from the Shield Lands and named for the local volcano (though there is presumably no connection to the dungeon beneath). Chicken and potatoes are sauteed in oil and white wine and garnished with peas. Head to the High Tower Inn in the Garden Quarter for the classic take on this dish.

1. The word Chicago is apparently from a word for wild onions; this was never actually true of Greyhawk but my own invention. Greyhawk being named for local birds of prey was first established in ‘From the Ashes’, while the reference to the city’s meatpacking industry (an intentional Chicago parallel) was first mentioned in 1998’s ‘Player’s Guide to Greyhawk.’
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2. In real life the origin of the Hot Dog is contested, I used Hardby and Rel Asta as stand ins for two of the real world contenders, St. Louis and New York City respectively. ↩︎
3. As far as I know, there are no canonical references to tomatoes in Greyhawk. However, there are references to potatoes (even from Gygax-era works), so I am running under the assumption that New World foodstuffs are available in the Flanaess. ↩︎
4.  Popped corn is actually mentioned in 1989’s ‘City of Greyhawk’ boxed set, so I just took an extra step to bring it in line with Chicago’s most famous flavors. ↩︎
5. Based on a Maxwell Street Polish. Greyhawk doesn’t necessarily have a clear analogue for Slavic people; in my opinion Tenh has that sort of vibe, as well as a canonical immigrant population in the city after the Greyhawk Wars. However, in your own game you could replace it with a Ratiker, Bisselish, or other place name. I chose Marsh Street mainly for the sound and connection to the Low Market, but it could also just as easily be River Street or Hothand Street. ↩︎
6. I originally called this an Aerdy Beef, for the Great Kingdom definitely has a fallen Roman Empire theme going on. During research, I discovered Bejl in “A Return to Falcon’s Bazaar” (Dragon 271). Though listed as a beverage, it reminded me of Chicago’s peculiar topping Giardiniera, so I updated to Adri Beef (and Adri is in the region of Aerdy anyhow). ↩︎
7. Gyro is the Greek name for a food known in Turkish as the Doner Kebab. Both refer to the spinning motion of the cooking, and the Spinning Helix of the Archmages first mentioned in ‘From the Ashes’ was the most relevant Greyhawk reference I could find. ↩︎
8. There are many canonical cheeses in the World of Greyhawk (never thought I’d type that sentence, but here we are). None of them are a good match for mozzarella, a pretty essential ingredient for any type of pizza. Djekul seems to be more like a brie or camembert, but if you’ve ever had a baked brie, it’s closer to mozzarella than any of the hard cheeses found in the Flanaess, so I chose to go with it rather than making up a new variety. ↩︎
9. Seemed like the perfect stand in for Chicken Vesuvio, for obvious reasons. ↩︎