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Thanks to the prevalence of fungi, a texture that can best be described as “rubbery to chewy” is prevalent in Underdark cuisine. Things that crunch are rarities.
Edible fungi cover a broad range of colours (though dun-browns to darker browns predominate, with...
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Dec 24, 2025 · 3:05 AM UTC
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...purple being the next most popular—and never attempt to eat any fungi that look green) and shapes, from flaky spikes and “ledges” to shelf fungi, spears like asparagus, and various cap shapes with stalks, from tall and smooth to short and shaggy; literally...
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...just about everything.
These Underdark fungi offer flavours from salty or bitter and smoky to an almost vanilla-like sweetness; again, just about everything, including flavours that a blindfolded surface-dweller sampling them might mistake for roast beef or...
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...braised rothé.
Certain common fungi can be cooked to mush and then to an oil that thickens into a spreadable paste when taken off the heat, and this serves as a hummus-like “butter” (that can take on the flavour of herbs stirred into it, like garlic or dill...
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...into “real butter” derived from the milk of surface-dwelling creatures) when spread on other edibles. This is usually called “rarthree” by folk of the Underdark, regardless of species (though deep gnomes tend to shorten this to just “rarth” in casual speech).
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The meat of the many edible lizards are often sliced into thin steaks and fried in rarthee, and tend to taste rather like real-world kangaroo meat; slightly gamier than boar or beef or rothé, but still striking the palate as “red meat” rather than fish or reptile.
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Pack lizards have the strongest taste, increasing with age and size, and Volo found it to be a curious cross between the fat of very well-marbled steaks, and bacon fat—without grease or the heaviness of fat.
Soups in the Underdark tend to all be thick enough to...
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...be called “stews” on the surface world, with diced chunks of meat or fungi, and almost all of them use simmered, reduced fungi as a base. “Superior” soups include the blood of slain edible creatures, which enriches the flavour and thins the texture.
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Large root vegetables such as potatoes are almost unknown in Underdark cuisine, yet their blandness would cause them to be “shrug” curiosities, not highly-prized novelties, if sampled.
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