Lore talk:Dunmer Cuisine

UOL: Horse

Prefacing the inclusion of horse meat with a post. Gary Noonan's Posts are being cited for the existence of horse meat in Dunmeri cuisine. The claim is supported by ESO's inclusion of a recipe for Dunmeri Jerked Horse Haunch. Noonan's words supplement the existing horse haunch. Regardless of whether the post or the recipe came first, ESO has legitimized the use of horse meat in Dunmer meals. -MolagBallet (talk) 23:18, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Unreliable Source

On the whole, we have a problem with taking literally everything about a particular subject as fact, treating every piece of information that comes our way as valid, and not considering how reliable the source is. Fool's Ebony is an unreliable source. It is not intended to be a play that gives Us In The Real World actual information about Tamriel, it's an entertaining story written *for* the citizens of Tamriel that doesn't necessarily portray actual lore (Lore being facts that are true in Tamriel, and are not fiction *in Tamriel*). The story is a satire, poking fun at every group it brings up and providing no actual Tamrielic truths. It makes fun of High Rock's religious institutions by portraying exaggeratedly corrupt priests. The Epilogue of Part the Twoth even says:

"I request that you recall that this is a work of fiction created by one of the finest writers of the asylum, Frincheps, Archprince of All Sumurset. There is no such thing as Fools' Ebony. Furthermore, Ebony is not mined as the priests have described the process. Grasp that please. If you can still enjoy the play as a rude work of fiction, stay with us for Part the Threeth."

On to Orc guts.

Calling Orc guts Dark Elven cuisine is taking the name of a "food" out of context and assuming that because it's named, it must be actual cuisine eaten by one of Tamriel's races. The opposite of this is true: Fools' Ebony uses Orc guts to illustrate how hard life out in the wilderness is, not to name an actual thing eaten by Dark Elves.

Here's the context of Orc guts. The Adventurer is trying to swindle a pair of mages into showing him on the map where he can find Fools' Ebony. He offers to pay for an expedition and whatnot to go harvest the stuff, making the mages and the adventurer unbelievably rich, because as it is established (by the adventurer, who is swindling everybody involved, even the priests), Fools' Ebony is "very valuable to the right people". At this point in Part Two, the Adventurer is getting everything he wants out of the deal. He's considering every possibility, every setback he could encounter on the "expedition". The mages find him agreeable; he looks like he knows what he's doing!

So now the Adventurer wants to dissuade them from asking to come along, thus he hits them with this line:

"So -- why don't I make arrangements, get back to you in ... er ... say a week? Say -- sure that you don't want to come with me. After all, there's nothing like the wilderness life. Waking up with the sun, shaking off the frost. Catching an orc for breakfast - ever have orc guts fried over stinkwood? Oh, that's a treat! Checking each stream for dead giant spiders - or live ones! Imp jerky for lunch! Scanning the ridges for dragonlings! Standing guard against Ice Daedra in a blinding snowstorm! Oh, what a life!"

Here, the adventurer is illustrating just how unappealing an expedition all the way out to the supposed deposits would be. Adventuring is hard. He often camps out in the wilderness and eats disgusting things like dried imp flesh to sustain himself. The mages reply:

"Shub and Shub (Together): No, no ... we, we better stay here at the Guild. Got our duties after all ... someones got to mind the store ... someones got to get the word out to selected customers ... No, thank you kind Sir, it does sound such a lovely life, but I think we best be here ... yes, indeed ..."

And so the Adventurer's ploy was successful. The wilderness is cold, mean, and gross, and the mages don't want to leave their clean, warm, guildhall, where they won't be attacked by spiders or imps.

As you can see, the idea that Dark Elves seriously eat fried Orc guts is not rooted in fact, but is an exaggeration invented by the Adventurer to dissuade a pair of dumb mages from asking to accompany him to a fake mineral deposit. -MolagBallet (talk) 18:26, 13 October 2021 (UTC)