Doin' The Research

[nebulousmistress]

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Townsends. A history of cooking methods over time through the invention of stove types

I plan to run the gamut of various stove types for Dragon Age. The big mud oven seems like it would be standard for tiny settlements in the middle of nowhere, the big brick oven owned by the baker for larger villages like Redcliffe. All the way up to the raised stoves in city estates. Take Kirkwall, for instance.

It makes total sense that Lowtown and the Alienage had nothing resembling any sort of kitchen. There wouldn't be. Most in the lower classes would have relied on communal cookfires and, I mean, you're in a city. You can buy bread from the baker or bake your bread by renting space in the baker's oven. "[Many] can barely buy bread" was something Lirene said to show how the Fereldans were too poor to live.

So how do you use such an oven? Generally it's a brick or mud structure, basically a box with a wood door. You put your burning fuel inside, be it sticks or dung or charcoal, then when it's good and hot you scrape it all out and put your bread and pies inside to bake in the ambient heat. The baker would have one giant oven for all his wares and extra space inside for rent: for a small fee you can bring your pies and loaves to be baked in his oven.

Taken all the way up to reflector ovens to big walk-in types to the complete kitchens of the nobility. So the utter complexity of a noble's feast is itself as much a flex as anything else. Not even just the roast peacock then refeathered as a centerpiece, the bechamel sauce itself is a flex of wealth and a statement of power. As much a flex of power as a Prince of Starkhaven revealing a roast capon as the centerpiece of a feast.