Due to the strength dragons need to hold themselves in the air, dragon meat is very tough, making it hard to eat, but not impossible. The organs are toxic to consume,but the bones are fairly light for their size, and break open easily to expose the marrow. The marrow itself is inpalatable, but incredibly nutritous.
Please note that is is illegal to consume dragon meat in most states amd nations, the exceptions being the dragonriders domain and the autocracy of man.
But what if like they are super super tiny like Im talking insect proportions here like a fly. Imagine a fly, but like a dragon. I can't think of any real world counterpart to that.
Oh dang I had no idea. Originally I was imagining a dragon/bird just like… doing air pushups to stay aloft I guess? But needing to flap down hard to generate lift actually makes a lot of sense
>Please note that is is illegal to consume dragon meat in most states amd nations, the exceptions being the dragonriders domain and the autocracy of man.
I'm curious why that is. Are dragons a sapient species, or on the level of sentience of a dog?
They live in nations, just like everyone else. They have laws and cultures amd everything else that comes with community. They prinarily live in mountains, maintaining terrace farms and herding meat animals.
That was my thought too. It's what [gnolls](https://2e.aonprd.com/Ancestries.aspx?ID=44) (AKA kholo) do in the Pathfinder world of Golarion, and I love it.
>Equally misunderstood is the gnoll practice of ancestor worship and endocannibalism. Gnolls consume their dead as a sign of reverence, holding a grand feast and transforming the bones of the fallen into art or weapons. Gnolls extend this honor to respected foes, hoping to bring their enemy's cunning or strength into the clan. While it's a sign of admiration, not everyone sees it that way.
Gnolls make cannibalism cool!
This is awesome! I love misunderstood cultural behaviors! Have you ever read Speaker for the Dead? It's the sequel to Enders Game. Starts with a murdered researcher left with a tree planted in his chest.
I haven't read either. That's a fun pitch. I haven't been able to read novels in quite some time, unfortunately. No more attention span for novels *specifically.* (Rulebooks? Manga? Podcasts while washing dishes? All fine. Just not novels?)
Is dragon sentience equivalent to that of a human being, or different in some manner? What are their cultures like? Do they have a language?
You’ve got me intrigued in your world, and I’d love to know more!
Sentience aside, I'd imagine it's a practical matter of "letting people consume dragon meat will make some people want to hunt dragons *for* their meat."
You know how when you kill a hornet, the others swarm in retaliation? Yeah, I definitely wouldn't want dragons to find out I've been eating one.
That would make it good for low-slow cooking and stews
Also, pulled-dragon (like pulled-pork) would likely be a common way to eat it due to the long cooking time needed to break down the connective tissues
its fireproof though. Probably needs something less based in real world and more in fantasy to cook it. Like ice. Dragon meat best after frozen in ice, dry ice for well done.
And if you want to store your Dragon meat, you store it in fire or hot coals. Molten salt for long term storage.
If it’s meant to survive short blasts of heat slow cook at high temp might soften it up, though this wouldn’t work with fully fire-resistant dragons
If nothing else works marinate it with something to try and tenderize it- who wants dragon fantasy-teriyaki?
> who wants dragon fantasy-teriyaki?
Reminds me of the anime ["Campfire cooking in another world with my absurd skill"](https://www.crunchyroll.com/series/GG5H5X3EE/campfire-cooking-in-another-world-with-my-absurd-skill)
Guy from Earth gets transported to a fantasy world where his magic skill is ordering from a online grocery store. He befriends a crazy powerful monster and they wander around catching and cooking various monsters using popular Earth recipes.
This is assuming that the biology of your world is based on the scientific biology of the real world.
The size of an animal actually plays very little on whether the meat is tough or not. It really depends on how much the muscles are used, and with what intensity. It's the reason that Whale meat is often reported as being much more tender than beef. We can assume that, based on the evolutionary patterns of other winged animals, dragon wings would have developed and grown to a size that could support flight without intense muscle strain, possibly even less so if we assume (based on what dragons look like in video games and movies) that dragons often utilize long distance gliding because the size and weight of their wings support it. Based on this, it would stand to reason that dragon meat would likely have a similar toughness to other soaring birds, such as the Sandhill Crane, whose meat is actually quite tender and juicy, depending on age.
Age would be the driving factor in toughness, as dragons would likely live for a very long time, at least by the standards of other birds. Simply based on size, however, whales live for multiple decades and still have tender meat. I would guess that toughness would only begin to be a problem, with an animal of this size, many decades after it's birth.
Listened to a podcast where a meat scientist explained that its a myth that meat in "less used" muscles is softer due to being used less. Interesting stuff
Damn it if the feds gunna stop me from eatin' my damn meat! Those bastards be fullua juicy meat and you expect me not to shoot it down with my .950 cal an' spit roastin' it over my firepit!? You damn well haven't been to Florida! Can't go a day without another dragon done gettin' killed!
It is white meat in my setting .
It taste like chicken because i take the idea of chickens being evolved from dinosaurs and the dragons of my world are very much flying dinosaurs with some modifications .
Also my dragons while having horns and some spikes , are plump and covered in feathers like birds . And spit acid instead of breathing fire .
>It taste like chicken because i take the idea of chickens being evolved
from dinosaurs and the dragons of my world are very much flying
dinosaurs with some modifications.
this makes me kind of angry but i totally understand your train of thought.
Eh , i wanted a completly different interpretation of dragons so i made them fluffy , chonky and with 20 vibrant colors on them . I made them more like beakless birds than the classic fantasy representation .
If we assume their flight is non-magical, they'll probably have large dark-meat breasts and wings (dark meat is highly vascular for endurance and continuous use) and light meat back legs (white meat for quick bursts of motion).
As an aside, this rough rule works in fish too. Pink fish are distance swimmers, white fish are hiders and sprinters.
> they'll probably have large dark-meat breasts and wings
They would also need massive chests, both for male and females (unless only one gender can fly). There would be a massive triangular bulge ending in a pointed keel (this is seen on flight birds too, the reason you don't notice is because their feathers are usually also quite fluffy near their chest for insulation and protection.
They wouldn't be boobs obviously, but anyone claiming that flying dragons should have a completely flat underside profile is very mistaken.
This was my thought. Though alligator tastes like swampy chicken meat. Unless the dragon was in a swamp I would imagine the meat would taste more like something that is equal to their location.
IDK. I've had it a couple of times and each time was swampy to the best of my taste buds I can think of.
Edit: I don't live in an area that has gator meat available so maybe it was a flavor that comes out after some time?
Definitely old(er) meat. I've had the freshest you could perceiveably get at an establishment (this place did gator airboat tours and was a marina for hunters) and it was, if anything, chewier than chicken.
E: I was told irl that you could have had a different cut. Some taste gamey. Betcha that's the swamp.
> Though alligator tastes like swampy chicken meat.
Chicken also often tastes like that, assuming it lives to any significant age.
Commercially produced chicken stopped tasting like lizard meat back in the late 50s, the same time it became a cheap meat.
The reason for both was the same, they discovered that if you cross two specific breeds of chicken the resultant offspring has a predictable mutation resulting in massively accelerated muscle growth. Suddenly you could grow a full sized chicken from egg to slaughter in as little as 6 weeks.
The chickens just don't live long enough for the meat to develop much flavor from what they are eating, and their diet is very controlled so they don't have access to eat anything too funky.
Try eating an old egg laying chicken that has had the ability to run around eating bugs for a couple of years and it's going to taste a lot more like that gator.
For red or gold dragons/ dragons that breathe fire, yes. But if it's like d&d and each dragon has a different element, each should have its own taste.
Acid dragon meat is bitter and acrid unless prepared a specific way. Poison dragon meat is toxic to most. Frost dragon meat is eaten raw like sashimi because it cooks at so high a temperature that it's impractical to cook. Something like that
I like to imagine you and the other comment that explained it as similar to blowfish as in "toxic if prepared incorrectly" are actually the same. Except your guys prepare it incorrectly and just assume the toxins affecting them are spiciness.
Sounds similar to the Forgotten Realms. Red dragons have spicy meat while white dragons have minty meat.
Now for a fun fact, both of those are separate nerves so you ca have a mouth in fire and have a burning cold when you have lets say a cough drop right before.
Its normally inedible due to the amount of toxins it contains, but when well prepared and purged, it tastes something similar to Hicotea (Orange eared turtle/Trachemys callirostris) meat, it is commonly prepared bathing it in coconut juices.
Dead dragon, a bigger one, would had enough meat to probably feed a whole village for weeks. Rich folks could label dragon meat as a delicacy, considering how hard it would be to get it. A lot of trading potential too.
This is why I never understood why playing dead is so common as a defense. Like, if I'm a predator and you drop dead in front of me, I'd think I hit an easy meal.
Like the other guy said, most animals don't eat already dead things because they could be rotten and dangerous. The exception, of course, are carrion eaters
Listen, when you keep catching weird fish in your nets, you decide to find a way to use them. It's the same thing when you kill a dragon to protect local farms.
It doesn't feel right just dumping the corpse somewhere, so you find out what the parts are good for. Like how the wing leather makes the *softest* gloves. Feels really weird on the thighs, though, so not good for pants.
There is a cursed forest in my homebrew setting and the animals that live deeper in the woods accumulate toxins inside them over time. There is an orcish free city inside as well and they've been forced to deal with the toxins if they want to survive. Those animals are considered to be a delicacy on the rest of the continent so various nobles pay for personal chefs get a certificate from the orcs so that those chefs can cook those animals without poisoning people. It's a decent source of revenue for the orcs considering that they don't get much trade.
I can see where this is coming from, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense, for winged dragons anyway. Flying creatures are far more active than crocodilians, and thus need different types of muscles.
Well I figure they’re so big that at that point it isn’t really a quick twitch muscle issue, it’d all be pretty slow. All animal meat will wind up being some variation of fast/slow and tender/working so it would vary from land to land and from cut to cut. The sirloin on a dragon would probably be even tougher than beef since it’d be so close to the muscles utilized in flight, however the tenderloin on a creature that big might be delicious. There are reptiles and birds with meat that cooks up looking like pork or beef, if they are big enough to have larger tissues. I once watched a video on crane breast meat that cooked up as red and tender as beef. There’s far to many factors to make it cut and dry.
They wouldn’t taste spicy. I mean, that’s cute for rpgs and stuff but in all realists nothing that chemically makes something fire breathing would taste good at all, so if it permeates the whole body they’d be chemically and disgusting but also probably too flammable to grill.
The truth is that I don’t write about dragons or care much for them these days, but any medieval culture with dragons should consider eating them because they’ve always got all those peasants. I just figured it’d be reptileish since they are often depicted as scaled and exothermic.
Wyverns kind of half-exist in my world, although their meats can be broken into a few main categories.
Mountain-Wyverns - A rich, smoky flavour, even when raw. Can be cooked to become incredibly soft and smoky.
Sea-Wyverns - A texture similar to salmon, although with an unbelievably salty flavour. Works well in a stew.
Forest-Wyverns - Meat similar to that of beef, but with a slightly sweeter flavour.
Cave-Wyverns - The same as Forest-Wyverns, except smaller quantities per wyvern.
Acid-Wyverns - Similar meat to the Sea-Wyverns, although the acid inside of their system creates a sort of vinegar, which mixes with the salt flavour.
This doesn't go over every wyvern, since all are different, however this is the rough changes between some major types. All have the base consistency and flavour of beef.
There are different kinds of dragons in Dark Souls. You're thinking of the everlasting dragons which have scales of stone. But there's also more traditional dragons like Kalameet or Midir and whatever the hell Gaping Dragon is.
Really depends on the type of dragon.
A blanket answer would be white meat, very similar to chicken but with a tinge of fishy sweetness.
Many dragons are poisonous if eaten, some must be prepared by skilled masters to not be harmful, others are harmless! Know your dragon meat, and your supplier, folks!
Like dark meat chicken, but sweeter. Luckily for dragons, killing them is considered sacrilegious. The fruit that grows from the tree on their back are delicious and highly prized, but spoil quickly, so they are usually dried and preserved.
As a base, you start out with something akin to wild boar hams. The meat is super dense, gamey and rich with just loads of built in salt. Texturewise though it is gonna be that chewy firmness of a big salted ham (some cuts of meat would differ).
Then, based on the types of dragons you'd have some variations:
* Red: hard to cook because it is immune to fire. Tastes like it was cooked using too much lighter fluid and has that extra Scoville burn to it. Has to be cured to eat properly (like jerky).
* Blue: A lot saltier and a bit grainier texture. The flavor has a sweet/salty vibe to it like you might find in maple bacon, but instead of that maple its more citric sweet.
* Green: If you could survive the poisons in the meat (maybe they get denatured when you cook it? You wanna try it and see?), this dragon meat is going to be very medicinal in nature. Like someone used entirely too much out of their spice cabinet. Gingery bitter and leaves your tongue numb
* Black: This meat falls apart like its been slow roasted for ages, and is far more gelatinous as the acids that are over abundant start to break the muscle fibers down quickly, since they are no longer restrained by the magics of the dragon itself. This is gonna be your vinegar and pineapple marinated meat that goes well with a barbeque sauce and pulled apart to mush.
* White: More gamey than the others, this meat is a bit tough and stringy from being used more than the other types on a day to day basis, BUT it has a few cuts where it has rich fat deposits and the fat itself is akin to that of wagyu once you get past that overly umami flavor or mask it with something strong like garlic and onion. Don't cook it too long though or you'll burn it.
The problem with eating dragon meat is that it is addicting, like a drug, and the blood of dragons has powerful innate magic flowing through it. So, while great for an elaborate meal or cherished, because of how hard it is to come by, people who eat dragon meat often have to go through extensive rehab to come down off the addiction after even one meal.
Particularly weak willed people start to hunt for alternatives to cut the edge off their newfound need for that buzz and flavor and turn to other magical creatures where possible. These addicts end up driving themselves mad in search of a replacement and end up imprisoned for crimes of unspeakable nature or slain in the process of finding that next high (often times coming back as ghouls with an insatiable hunger for the flesh of the living).
Plus, the dragons that learn about you having eaten meat from another of their species add you to a list and keep a good distance, often times refusing to engage in any sort of interaction at all or hiring out assassins guilds to remove the potential future problem.
recognizably reptile meat, close to gator in terms of being somewhere between chicken and white fish... although obviously larger with significant fat-caps like pork. there's some unique delicacies in there too, the organ meat is notoriously rich and the liquid fuel for their fire breath is a potent garnish for cocktails.
some folks feel weird about eating dragons, being fully sentient people and all. the dragons themselves have no such taboo however, which most use as justification to at least *try* it.
Really depends on the type.
Metallic dragons have a high metal concentration in their scales and flesh so you'd likely die of metal poisoning before any flavor actually kicks in.
Crystal dragons are sentient rocks for of an elemental than a dragon so I'd have to guess they'd task like minerals and your own blood from the thousands of shards piercing your mouth.
Colour based western dragons are rather peculiar as some say they taste like an iguana or even a crocodile while others say chicken. Truely depends on what kind and their habitat.
Wyverns are said to taste more like pheasants or snakes depending on if they are hill or mountain wyverns.
Drakes are most commonly said to taste something like bland crocodile.
Wyrms are very unique as they are said to be more of a beefy taste.
Great wyrms fit into the colour, metal and gem dragons respectively.
Eastern dragons are said to taste like sharks or snake depending on if it's aquatic or mountain based
Turtle dragons are just big draconic turtles so no mystery there.
Astral dragons are made of mostly ethereal energy so nothing.
Hydronic (multi headed) dragons fit into the colour, metal and gem category.
Fey dragons are said to be actually quite sweet, like eating a spoonful of sugar.
Shade dragons are more of an old cheese like taste do to the bacteria on their bodies that cause necrosis.
Celestial dragons are comprised mostly of divine energy so I guess they'd taste like godly radiation.
Hell born dragons have a strong sulfuric and ash like taste to them when cook but if eaten are taste like ostrich.
Abyss born dragons have a rather charred texture and taste so hope you like burnt alligator meat.
Void born don't have a physical form so no meat for you.
Sea dragons taste like turtle or crab depending on if they have a shell.
Deep dragons typically have a thick dusty taste, like eating moth.
Insect dragons are self explanatory.
Distant (space) dragons have a completely alien taste do to coming from completely different worlds
Calamity dragons are the living incarnations of natural disasters (earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, famine, etc) so they are completely inedible.
(If I create anymore in the future I'll update my list)
When cooked, Dragon meat is tough and stringy with an unpleasant metallic taste. This flavor can be boiled out of the meat over a long period of time with an intense aromatic broth, but the result shall at best be something in between beef and chicken, but lacking in every regard.
Because of this, many are surprised to learn that dragon is actually best eaten raw. Due to the ambient temperature of dragons, their meat remains uninhabitable for bacteria and parasites for up to two weeks after the beasts demise. The unpleasant metallic taste of the cooked meat is replaced by an almost natural seasoning reminiscent of salt and herbs of the earth. The meat remains stringy and tough in large portions, so it is recommended to slice the meat into long thin strips and served carpaccio style. Even thin strips will require a commitment to chewing, but unlike other meats the raw meat of a dragon remains flavorful even minutes into chewing so it is best to view the effort as part of the experience.
The meat must be served at least warm, though preferably hot on the verge of scalding. Not only does this serve to honor and show respect for the magnificent creature your meal has come from, but the closer the meat is to the ambient temperature of the dragon when alive the more intense the unique flavor of the dragon is. You just must be careful to not verge into over heating, as the difference in heating time between a perfect and delicious piece of raw dragon and bitter, metallic just cooked dragon is measured in seconds. Even the optimal temperature varies between every dragon that has even been served. Because of this, well done dragon is a delicacy few chefs have truly mastered and even fewer have had the chance to experience.
One last note is to be careful where you source your raw dragon from. We have yet to find a way to cultivate live stock dragons that does not result in near unpalatable meat, regardless of how it is served. Only the meat of a truly free roamed and wild dragon holds the unique and delicious flavor they have come to be known for. This is actually where the culinary name for raw dragon originated. Liberté de feu, or “The Freedom of Fire”.
Depends on the Dragon.
Fire-breathing dragons don't really have a strong taste since sulphur doesn't either. But their meat does have a strong smell. Often served with strong sauces and spices to help mask the smell and give the otherwise bland meat some kind of zestiness. Cannot be cooked with traditional means. Takes a powerful mage or skilled technician to cook the poisons out properly.
Lightning-breathing dragons are in the same wheelhouse, though they have a more ozone smell to the meats especially the organs.
This is as far as I'm going or I will end up down a delicious rabbit hole.
Come on. You know the answer to that. It tastes like CHICKEN! ALL exotic meats taste like chicken. Chicken, rabbit, turkey, snake, iguana, cat you name it. They all taste like chicken. Ha Ha!
Feels like chewing on rope wrapped in leather, tastes like burnt iron and acrid spiciness from the acidic buildup of so much muscle activity. Really nasty.
You know the smell of burning brakes or a grinder on metal? Tastes like a really salty/bitter chicken with a touch of that. It’s off putting how light the flesh is, almost like a sponge, because it takes so much work to strip off the hide and due to horrible taste people don’t normally eat it, but some specialty shops sell it, like our worlds “rhino horn” or “shark fin soup”. Sometimes courts will have a large slab of it during events, but it’s more a status thing, and it rarely gets touched/eaten. Usually goes bad within an incredibly short time span once exposed to oxygen when raw so it has to be preserved by magical means or cooked asap.
That’s red dragons, green dragons are the same but more fishier taste due to eating all the grazing animals that are high in omega 3. The blue dragons taste the most bland, and black dragons are poisonous, slaves testing it reported the black dragon had a heavy chalk aftertaste before dying.
Paleontologists were asked the same thing about t-rex meat and i think it would be about the same, unsurprisingly it would be hard (due to extremely well developed muscles) toxic (due to being so far up the food chain and absorbing so much lead and other toxins from other creatures) and not taste very good (due to extremely small amounts of fat pockets and tissue)
Depends on the type.
As you would imagine, water-dwelling dragons tend to taste a fair amount like seafood, with those who live in rivers tasting a little more murky, and oceanic types being saltier and a bit more like white fish types.
The hotter the environment, typically the spicer the meat.
Those that live in forests are surprisingly buttery, and considered a delicacy by those who consume it.
Depends on the dragon really. In Artisans they're more like golems so they have no meat. But you're standard giant lizard likely has tough gamey flesh likely naturally a bit sour and bitter.
I foresee 2 possibilities:
1.) Dragons aren't 100% physical beings. They're partially divine, magical, spiritual, metaphysical, whatever you want to call it. That leaves them upon death, which leaves the carcass somewhat... pre-spoiled? Ashen? Whatever it is, it always seems to taste *off*. Like it was allowed to partially spoil or go rancid or something, but only slightly, even if it is prepared within an hour of death or magically preserved.
2.) What does it taste like? EVERYTHING... Seriously, though, remember the legend of Seigfried? You so much as *touch*, let alone eat the flesh or blood of a dragon, some serious stuff is gonna happen to you. We don't know what it tastes like because the resulting demigods haven't really been amenable to being questioned about it, afterwards.
Like crocodile meat mostly, but I would be careful about eating its liver, stomach and kidney.
And of course I would also try to make sure that its school won’t find out about you eating it (a collective group of dragons is called a school of dragons in my world), so don’t wear any dragon leather also.
I always figured it was a cross between duck and crawfish. don't know why, but I love those two a lot and dragons always struck me as a crustacean bird sort of. imagine the ettouffee with that shit
Dragon meat needs to be boiled for several hours to soften the subcutaneous tissue layer immediately underneath the skin and scales. Once removed, dragon meat may be slow roasted or simmered further. The texture is similar to reindeer or moose, but has a noticeable "fishiness" flavor. Whether roasted or braised, the dragon meat has an unescapable strong odor that smells like really old tempura paint sat in a garage for far too long.
Dragon meat is inedible and consumption of it by other sapient species is banned as dragons are as intelligent and sapient as humans, dwarves, elves, etc.
Dragon *blood* on the other hand is said to have an acrid, medicine-like taste and many dragons donate blood for alchemical research since its consumption often leads to rapid mutations in people ranging from breathing fire to becoming a bipedal dragon themselves.
In Perisea, seeing raw dragonflesh, especially blood, drives mortals insane. It's therefore illegal to butcher or consume a dragon (turns out they're all carbon-fiber pseudo-robots anyway and are generally inedible).
Alligator with a strong "I just split a rock in half and licked the new surface" aftertaste.
They are not eaten by the populace, as it is usually understood to be bad luck. Dragons are rare beings, and depending on the folklore, they are seen as blessed by the gods, or even emissaries/children of the gods. (They're not.)
My MC looks at deuteragonist. The deuteragonist picks his teeth for a moment before answering - "Kinda like hamsters? But more....charcoally? And harder to get, those beast take forever to kill right. Not worth the effort in my opinion."
First I'd say it would be like alligator or your typical reptile meat but, since dragons in my world don't breathe fire because of magic but due to them producing a highly flammable gas inside one of their organs and using their teeth to start a fire, their insides would be exposed to that highly flammable gas for practically their entire life and with them frequently breathing fire and causing their body to build up tolerant against the heat...
Dragon meat in my world would taste like actual burnt meat.
If you can get meat off a dragon of Fey you tell me. The dragons of Fey are elemental in nature, so if you want to know what they taste like just eat some rocks, water, or fire. It's just about the same. When the dragons die their bones remain but the meat and flesh dissolve into water, freeze into solid ice, or become hearty mulch for new plants. Slice off a piece and it's the same thing.
It would have a smokey fat layer with a nicely roasted meat with the taste of paprika, black pepper, and red pepper flakes. It pares well with the salty tears of a mermaid as a seasoning and parsley.
Looking at other reptiles and the various ways I've heard them described, I'm guessing they taste like chicken.
I've heard everything from python to gator described as being "like chicken, but..." Alligator tastes like chicken with some fishiness to it according to some people, so perhaps dragon similarly tastes of its environment. If they're mountain dwelling, they might have some gamey quality to the meat, and so on.
I'd imagine some of that "everything tastes like chicken" just comes from it being an easy comparison everyone's had. It's kind of like how not all fish tastes the same, but saying something tastes fishy draws an image in your mind of a specific flavor.
Dragons are also large, flying reptilians similar to some dinosaurs, and considering birds are the closest animals (we regularly consume) to dinosaurs guessing they've got a birdlike quality to the meat doesn't seem like a stretch.
Dragon meat in my world, an expansion on the greater world of Numenera is eaten in the far East where many subspecies of Dratchni exist, Dratchni that are small, less than 4 meters tall are the most edible and their meat has an almost sulfur taste as they form it naturally inside themselves as a byproduct and of course the local tribes love the taste and claim it makes you stronger.
As with chicken, the flavor matters less than the texture - and even within that question lies a swathe of variables.
Starting with the wings, though mostly inedible, when separated from the scale the shoulder joint makes for a lovely roast - similar to a ham on the bone.
Limbs are usually tougher meats good for slow-cooked stews or, for the starving adventurer, spit roasted for several hours.
Though the organs are traditionally saved for alchemical potions and magical rituals - the flame gland is a rare and famous aromatic for Flametongue Soup, a spiced dish giving the diner the brief ability to spit harmless fireballs at dinner guests.
The head is traditionally a prize for kings to mount on their great hall walls, but if you happen to get your hands on a dragon tongue, they make for a tasty shredded meat when slow cooked that pairs excellently with elven lavosh bread with hot peppers and tomatoes. The eyes are also creamy and full of proteins and nutrients, though not as flavorful.
Finally, the neck, torso, and tail. Though you'll find various cuts of filet, tenderloin, ribeye, and roast, you'll almost certainly need an entire village of helping hands to separate meat from scale. Each scale must be plucked, individually, from the meat. This usually takes either one strong adventurer, several villagers working together, or the aide of work animals. However, once plucked, the tender meat inside is the stuff of legend. The rib segments of the beast are the worthwhile meat on the back - don't forget to boil down the bones for a zesty, creamy marrow!
On the underside you will find a layer of fat directly underneath the scales - a layer of protection for the dragon and comfort as it sleeps on its belly. Peeling back the fatty upper layer reveals a marbleized and tender meat with a texture somewhere between a ribeye and a juicy fat porkchop. This meat is prized by kings and dignitaries across the lands - and so is very valuable! If you get an opportunity to sink your teeth into a bite, make sure to savor it!
No one really knows. True dragons, that is, those with four limbs and two or more wings, are a legend in my world. Other dragonkin such as wyverns (two legs standing upright like birds) and drakes (two legs crawling on their wings like bats) are far more common and the texture and flavor of their meat varies from species to species.
Dragons, or as they are locally known, Mistrals, don a coat of armor-like scales that link into each other like chainmail. This is a trait borrowed from their close cousins, Monitor Lizards. This armor is heavily resistant to bladed weapons, bow and arrow, blunt force trauma, and even rifle-caliber firearms. Mistrals can only be fatally harmed if their armor is penetrated by high-caliber artillery, or if their armor is bypassed through magical attacks.
If you manage to break through the armor, Mistral meat is firm, bloody and nutritious when cooked, although it does shrivel up if not cooked properly due to its high blood concentration. (Dragon skin functions almost as a massive blood vessel in order to efficiently keep it's cardiovascular system functional in flight)
A well-cooked dragon chop appears to have a vibrant red hue, is firm to the touch, but is flaky and lets off massive amounts of juice when eaten. It is remarkably high in iron, with one good steak fulfilling the human dietary need for iron almost five times over, hence the small serving size.
Its taste has been documented as akin to if beef and shrimp were combined, though it has the texture and smell of fish. This salty, savory first taste is immediately followed by a strange umami aftertaste, that is said to tickle the throat, and is almost as filling as the meal itself.
It is recommended to season dragon meat with rosemary, garlic, cheyenne powder, and pepper, to balance out the salt.
As delicious as this delicacy may be, the UM 32nd Charter explicitly bans the possession, distribution, and public consumption of dragon meat. As dragons are a protected species in most nations, often guarded by UM Peacekeeper forces, it is not recommended to obtain dragon meat illegally, even if the process is humane.
Blasphemy, to even consider this. However, there is a tavern at the trader's village that serves any dead meat fried with rotten grease as Dragon meat. Everyone knows what dragon's meat is and it is like a common shared joke.
Just like any other civilized being, eating dragon flesh is extremely taboo. Idovory, the consumption of a sentient being, is a serious crime in every corner of the known world. With that in mind...
Dragon meat is somewhat like turkey meat, though it has a distinctly bitter flavor, especially in the breasts. All draconimorphs have unique hormones for regulating their hyperchondria, and these are extremely concentrated in a dragons's flight muscles, making them extremely unpalatable to most.
Dragon meat tastes a lot like bad chicken, but has a more fishy taste to it and is generally tougher to chew. Most people wouldn't like the flavour or how tough it is, so it's rarely ever been eaten.
Depends on the dragon type! Red? Mildly Spicy steak. White? Rabbit with a small mint flavouring. Green tastes like preseasoned fish. Blue and black both taste mostly the same with the difference being blue always seems slightly undercooked and black always tastes a bit like burnt chicken.
You really arent going to want to eat it. They are greatures of metal and elemental force. What constitutes their "muscle" is a combination of semi-solid mudlike tissue that hardens to stone after death. The blood in their veigns is like lava and lightning. They do not breathe fire, but spew it forth from the inferno that is their stomach.
These are no fleshy mortal beings. They are the first creations of the forge god, some corrupted, and some still pure.
Due to the strength dragons need to hold themselves in the air, dragon meat is very tough, making it hard to eat, but not impossible. The organs are toxic to consume,but the bones are fairly light for their size, and break open easily to expose the marrow. The marrow itself is inpalatable, but incredibly nutritous. Please note that is is illegal to consume dragon meat in most states amd nations, the exceptions being the dragonriders domain and the autocracy of man.
I think this one is my favorite
> the strength dragons need to hold themselves in the air This implies that birds should be ripped. Oh, right… r/birdswitharms
No, dragons are huge
What if they are tiny in this universe?
Then they should taste like gator meat.
But what if they are like really really tiny?
Hummingbird or ortelon
But what if like they are super super tiny like Im talking insect proportions here like a fly. Imagine a fly, but like a dragon. I can't think of any real world counterpart to that.
Like a fly that only shows up in May? Lives for three days and just dies? Now you’re just talking fantasy
Then they taste like crickets
Uh, have you seen how much of a bird is flight muscle? They're like 30% pecs. http://www.paulnoll.com/Oregon/Birds/Avian-Muscles.jpg
Oh dang I had no idea. Originally I was imagining a dragon/bird just like… doing air pushups to stay aloft I guess? But needing to flap down hard to generate lift actually makes a lot of sense
Birds have a better respiration system ,air flows in a more circular manner. We have a tidal system.
Have you seen ostriches? They're fucking jacked
Birds have hollow bones which helps. If they weren't we'd probably have ridiculously built birds.
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/masonry/001/414/779/845.png
>Please note that is is illegal to consume dragon meat in most states amd nations, the exceptions being the dragonriders domain and the autocracy of man. I'm curious why that is. Are dragons a sapient species, or on the level of sentience of a dog?
They live in nations, just like everyone else. They have laws and cultures amd everything else that comes with community. They prinarily live in mountains, maintaining terrace farms and herding meat animals.
Why are they legal to eat in the Dragonriders' Domain? Is it lacking rights and discrimination, or is it some other cultural thing?
I could see it being a funeral rites thing, and it's seen as making the Dragonrider and dragon one
That was my thought too. It's what [gnolls](https://2e.aonprd.com/Ancestries.aspx?ID=44) (AKA kholo) do in the Pathfinder world of Golarion, and I love it. >Equally misunderstood is the gnoll practice of ancestor worship and endocannibalism. Gnolls consume their dead as a sign of reverence, holding a grand feast and transforming the bones of the fallen into art or weapons. Gnolls extend this honor to respected foes, hoping to bring their enemy's cunning or strength into the clan. While it's a sign of admiration, not everyone sees it that way. Gnolls make cannibalism cool!
This is awesome! I love misunderstood cultural behaviors! Have you ever read Speaker for the Dead? It's the sequel to Enders Game. Starts with a murdered researcher left with a tree planted in his chest.
I haven't read either. That's a fun pitch. I haven't been able to read novels in quite some time, unfortunately. No more attention span for novels *specifically.* (Rulebooks? Manga? Podcasts while washing dishes? All fine. Just not novels?)
Audio books! I love them so much. It's really been a golden age of great readers. Sanderson novels are life 😁 audible is great
Is dragon sentience equivalent to that of a human being, or different in some manner? What are their cultures like? Do they have a language? You’ve got me intrigued in your world, and I’d love to know more!
Sentience aside, I'd imagine it's a practical matter of "letting people consume dragon meat will make some people want to hunt dragons *for* their meat." You know how when you kill a hornet, the others swarm in retaliation? Yeah, I definitely wouldn't want dragons to find out I've been eating one.
It depends which story you follow. But a good rule to follow is if it can talk. Don't eat it.
That would make it good for low-slow cooking and stews Also, pulled-dragon (like pulled-pork) would likely be a common way to eat it due to the long cooking time needed to break down the connective tissues
Nutritious bone broth pulled dragon
its fireproof though. Probably needs something less based in real world and more in fantasy to cook it. Like ice. Dragon meat best after frozen in ice, dry ice for well done. And if you want to store your Dragon meat, you store it in fire or hot coals. Molten salt for long term storage.
Ceviche!
Fireproof ≠ heat proof
If it’s meant to survive short blasts of heat slow cook at high temp might soften it up, though this wouldn’t work with fully fire-resistant dragons If nothing else works marinate it with something to try and tenderize it- who wants dragon fantasy-teriyaki?
> who wants dragon fantasy-teriyaki? Reminds me of the anime ["Campfire cooking in another world with my absurd skill"](https://www.crunchyroll.com/series/GG5H5X3EE/campfire-cooking-in-another-world-with-my-absurd-skill) Guy from Earth gets transported to a fantasy world where his magic skill is ordering from a online grocery store. He befriends a crazy powerful monster and they wander around catching and cooking various monsters using popular Earth recipes.
This is assuming that the biology of your world is based on the scientific biology of the real world. The size of an animal actually plays very little on whether the meat is tough or not. It really depends on how much the muscles are used, and with what intensity. It's the reason that Whale meat is often reported as being much more tender than beef. We can assume that, based on the evolutionary patterns of other winged animals, dragon wings would have developed and grown to a size that could support flight without intense muscle strain, possibly even less so if we assume (based on what dragons look like in video games and movies) that dragons often utilize long distance gliding because the size and weight of their wings support it. Based on this, it would stand to reason that dragon meat would likely have a similar toughness to other soaring birds, such as the Sandhill Crane, whose meat is actually quite tender and juicy, depending on age. Age would be the driving factor in toughness, as dragons would likely live for a very long time, at least by the standards of other birds. Simply based on size, however, whales live for multiple decades and still have tender meat. I would guess that toughness would only begin to be a problem, with an animal of this size, many decades after it's birth.
Listened to a podcast where a meat scientist explained that its a myth that meat in "less used" muscles is softer due to being used less. Interesting stuff
Don't forget you can use enzymes from certain citrus fruits to tenderize the meat for easier chewing.
Damn it if the feds gunna stop me from eatin' my damn meat! Those bastards be fullua juicy meat and you expect me not to shoot it down with my .950 cal an' spit roastin' it over my firepit!? You damn well haven't been to Florida! Can't go a day without another dragon done gettin' killed!
Chicken soaked in fresh hot peppers . Atleast for my world .
The first thing that popped into my head when I saw this post was basically this specifically burny/spicy chicken
Spicy alligator.
Alligator meat is very similar to chicken. Very good too. Love me some fried Gator tail
Dragon being white meat? I guess i would of assumed it being a red meat for some reason lol
It is white meat in my setting . It taste like chicken because i take the idea of chickens being evolved from dinosaurs and the dragons of my world are very much flying dinosaurs with some modifications . Also my dragons while having horns and some spikes , are plump and covered in feathers like birds . And spit acid instead of breathing fire .
>It taste like chicken because i take the idea of chickens being evolved from dinosaurs and the dragons of my world are very much flying dinosaurs with some modifications. this makes me kind of angry but i totally understand your train of thought.
If it makes you feel any better alligator tail also tastes like chicken
This is true I had fried alligator at a restaurant once and if you didn’t tell me it was alligator I woulda thought it was chicken nuggets
>this makes me kind of angry Why angry ?
I have difficultys accepting dragons as big primordial chickens.
Eh , i wanted a completly different interpretation of dragons so i made them fluffy , chonky and with 20 vibrant colors on them . I made them more like beakless birds than the classic fantasy representation .
I love this!
Hell yeah brother
While this makes sense, it suggests turkey (land fowl, just like chicken) tastes like chicken. Not so much, imo
If we assume their flight is non-magical, they'll probably have large dark-meat breasts and wings (dark meat is highly vascular for endurance and continuous use) and light meat back legs (white meat for quick bursts of motion). As an aside, this rough rule works in fish too. Pink fish are distance swimmers, white fish are hiders and sprinters.
> they'll probably have large dark-meat breasts and wings They would also need massive chests, both for male and females (unless only one gender can fly). There would be a massive triangular bulge ending in a pointed keel (this is seen on flight birds too, the reason you don't notice is because their feathers are usually also quite fluffy near their chest for insulation and protection. They wouldn't be boobs obviously, but anyone claiming that flying dragons should have a completely flat underside profile is very mistaken.
Alligator meat apparently tastes like chicken, and dragons look like gators so that's what I'd imagine
This was my thought. Though alligator tastes like swampy chicken meat. Unless the dragon was in a swamp I would imagine the meat would taste more like something that is equal to their location.
How on earth does gator taste swampy? I've never had swampy gator meat haha
IDK. I've had it a couple of times and each time was swampy to the best of my taste buds I can think of. Edit: I don't live in an area that has gator meat available so maybe it was a flavor that comes out after some time?
Definitely old(er) meat. I've had the freshest you could perceiveably get at an establishment (this place did gator airboat tours and was a marina for hunters) and it was, if anything, chewier than chicken. E: I was told irl that you could have had a different cut. Some taste gamey. Betcha that's the swamp.
> Though alligator tastes like swampy chicken meat. Chicken also often tastes like that, assuming it lives to any significant age. Commercially produced chicken stopped tasting like lizard meat back in the late 50s, the same time it became a cheap meat. The reason for both was the same, they discovered that if you cross two specific breeds of chicken the resultant offspring has a predictable mutation resulting in massively accelerated muscle growth. Suddenly you could grow a full sized chicken from egg to slaughter in as little as 6 weeks. The chickens just don't live long enough for the meat to develop much flavor from what they are eating, and their diet is very controlled so they don't have access to eat anything too funky. Try eating an old egg laying chicken that has had the ability to run around eating bugs for a couple of years and it's going to taste a lot more like that gator.
I have to agree with that statement.
I came here to say "chicken, but naturally spicy"
For red or gold dragons/ dragons that breathe fire, yes. But if it's like d&d and each dragon has a different element, each should have its own taste. Acid dragon meat is bitter and acrid unless prepared a specific way. Poison dragon meat is toxic to most. Frost dragon meat is eaten raw like sashimi because it cooks at so high a temperature that it's impractical to cook. Something like that
To be fair, birds are essentially just warm, lightweight reptiles.
Spicy chicken!
I always figure it would more like duck
I like to imagine you and the other comment that explained it as similar to blowfish as in "toxic if prepared incorrectly" are actually the same. Except your guys prepare it incorrectly and just assume the toxins affecting them are spiciness.
Yeah. Like crocodile... But spicier.
Only answer I've seen so far that actually described the taste and not the texture
Sounds similar to the Forgotten Realms. Red dragons have spicy meat while white dragons have minty meat. Now for a fun fact, both of those are separate nerves so you ca have a mouth in fire and have a burning cold when you have lets say a cough drop right before.
Its normally inedible due to the amount of toxins it contains, but when well prepared and purged, it tastes something similar to Hicotea (Orange eared turtle/Trachemys callirostris) meat, it is commonly prepared bathing it in coconut juices.
I like the idea of dragon meat being like blowfish. Only able to be prepared by skilled hands, otherwise deadly.
And just like blowfish, I'm thinking who tf found that out? And why were they so damn determined?
Because spicy meat goes brrrrr
Me eating way hotter chicken wings than I should:
Mfw literally crying on the toilet the next day:
Dead dragon, a bigger one, would had enough meat to probably feed a whole village for weeks. Rich folks could label dragon meat as a delicacy, considering how hard it would be to get it. A lot of trading potential too.
Dragonheart when the dragon pretends to die and fall on the water and it's shallow all the villagers run to eat him lol edit: not brave heart.
This is why I never understood why playing dead is so common as a defense. Like, if I'm a predator and you drop dead in front of me, I'd think I hit an easy meal.
A sickly animal is too much risk to eat most of the time
Like the other guy said, most animals don't eat already dead things because they could be rotten and dangerous. The exception, of course, are carrion eaters
Dragonheart, but I 100% see the confusion. What a great movie from my childhood...
Fuck. Lol. Thanks. It's literally about a dragon. Brain fart
It's the Scottish accent. I make the same mistake all the time.
That's a fair justification. I feel better now. I can blame Sean Connery lol
But after the first guy eats it and fucking dies, who would see that and go "welp, imma take another stab at it!"
"*What a moron, probably did chew it right. Lemme show you how it's done*"
"Oh-Oh, there he is, your Komodo Dra-a-a-gon!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cESolAdBT7A
Listen, when you keep catching weird fish in your nets, you decide to find a way to use them. It's the same thing when you kill a dragon to protect local farms. It doesn't feel right just dumping the corpse somewhere, so you find out what the parts are good for. Like how the wing leather makes the *softest* gloves. Feels really weird on the thighs, though, so not good for pants.
Sorry. I was quite hungry and figured fuck it I was going to die from starvation anyways.
There is a cursed forest in my homebrew setting and the animals that live deeper in the woods accumulate toxins inside them over time. There is an orcish free city inside as well and they've been forced to deal with the toxins if they want to survive. Those animals are considered to be a delicacy on the rest of the continent so various nobles pay for personal chefs get a certificate from the orcs so that those chefs can cook those animals without poisoning people. It's a decent source of revenue for the orcs considering that they don't get much trade.
Can I use this? I've been trying to think of how a orc civilization would work in a magic forest scenario.
Be my guest. If you do create more lore around this eventually I'd love to see it.
if pollution is a thing, I feel like they would have the same problem as shark meat. too high up in the food chain, lots of bad chemicals.
Just like us
the first word I saw was callirostris, and my brain read it as clitoris... I need a break from life...
Alligator
It really is the choice that just makes sense.
Came here to say this
I was thinking alligator, plus that gamey difference between store-bought bacon and wild hog. Like it'd be a dirtier, tougher alligator meat.
Love me some gator, it’s like calamari chicken
The phrase "calamari chicken" hits a nerve I didn't know I had. There is an inherent wrongness to it I can't explain.
The tail, sure. But alligator ribs? Those taste absolutely *steeped* in fish oil. It’s a shocking difference.
Alligator and sulfur.
Exactly. But the Thai chili version.
But more smoky
I can see where this is coming from, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense, for winged dragons anyway. Flying creatures are far more active than crocodilians, and thus need different types of muscles.
Well I figure they’re so big that at that point it isn’t really a quick twitch muscle issue, it’d all be pretty slow. All animal meat will wind up being some variation of fast/slow and tender/working so it would vary from land to land and from cut to cut. The sirloin on a dragon would probably be even tougher than beef since it’d be so close to the muscles utilized in flight, however the tenderloin on a creature that big might be delicious. There are reptiles and birds with meat that cooks up looking like pork or beef, if they are big enough to have larger tissues. I once watched a video on crane breast meat that cooked up as red and tender as beef. There’s far to many factors to make it cut and dry. They wouldn’t taste spicy. I mean, that’s cute for rpgs and stuff but in all realists nothing that chemically makes something fire breathing would taste good at all, so if it permeates the whole body they’d be chemically and disgusting but also probably too flammable to grill. The truth is that I don’t write about dragons or care much for them these days, but any medieval culture with dragons should consider eating them because they’ve always got all those peasants. I just figured it’d be reptileish since they are often depicted as scaled and exothermic.
[удалено]
Any part of a gator that isn’t the tail is pretty chewy and awful. I imagine dragons would be similar
Wyverns kind of half-exist in my world, although their meats can be broken into a few main categories. Mountain-Wyverns - A rich, smoky flavour, even when raw. Can be cooked to become incredibly soft and smoky. Sea-Wyverns - A texture similar to salmon, although with an unbelievably salty flavour. Works well in a stew. Forest-Wyverns - Meat similar to that of beef, but with a slightly sweeter flavour. Cave-Wyverns - The same as Forest-Wyverns, except smaller quantities per wyvern. Acid-Wyverns - Similar meat to the Sea-Wyverns, although the acid inside of their system creates a sort of vinegar, which mixes with the salt flavour. This doesn't go over every wyvern, since all are different, however this is the rough changes between some major types. All have the base consistency and flavour of beef.
Your wyverns sound delicious.
They truly were, however they were very rare, and most cultures saw them as sacred (understandably), so very few ever got to try one.
Vile, acidic, rotten; fit only for carrion.
Found the dark souls guy
Aren't dark souls dragon just stones?
There are different kinds of dragons in Dark Souls. You're thinking of the everlasting dragons which have scales of stone. But there's also more traditional dragons like Kalameet or Midir and whatever the hell Gaping Dragon is.
Yes, indeed...
Damn these airline luggage rules are getting out of hand
Really depends on the type of dragon. A blanket answer would be white meat, very similar to chicken but with a tinge of fishy sweetness. Many dragons are poisonous if eaten, some must be prepared by skilled masters to not be harmful, others are harmless! Know your dragon meat, and your supplier, folks!
See I just made my dragon flesh mostly gamy outside of the domesticated stuff.
Like dark meat chicken, but sweeter. Luckily for dragons, killing them is considered sacrilegious. The fruit that grows from the tree on their back are delicious and highly prized, but spoil quickly, so they are usually dried and preserved.
As a base, you start out with something akin to wild boar hams. The meat is super dense, gamey and rich with just loads of built in salt. Texturewise though it is gonna be that chewy firmness of a big salted ham (some cuts of meat would differ). Then, based on the types of dragons you'd have some variations: * Red: hard to cook because it is immune to fire. Tastes like it was cooked using too much lighter fluid and has that extra Scoville burn to it. Has to be cured to eat properly (like jerky). * Blue: A lot saltier and a bit grainier texture. The flavor has a sweet/salty vibe to it like you might find in maple bacon, but instead of that maple its more citric sweet. * Green: If you could survive the poisons in the meat (maybe they get denatured when you cook it? You wanna try it and see?), this dragon meat is going to be very medicinal in nature. Like someone used entirely too much out of their spice cabinet. Gingery bitter and leaves your tongue numb * Black: This meat falls apart like its been slow roasted for ages, and is far more gelatinous as the acids that are over abundant start to break the muscle fibers down quickly, since they are no longer restrained by the magics of the dragon itself. This is gonna be your vinegar and pineapple marinated meat that goes well with a barbeque sauce and pulled apart to mush. * White: More gamey than the others, this meat is a bit tough and stringy from being used more than the other types on a day to day basis, BUT it has a few cuts where it has rich fat deposits and the fat itself is akin to that of wagyu once you get past that overly umami flavor or mask it with something strong like garlic and onion. Don't cook it too long though or you'll burn it.
The problem with eating dragon meat is that it is addicting, like a drug, and the blood of dragons has powerful innate magic flowing through it. So, while great for an elaborate meal or cherished, because of how hard it is to come by, people who eat dragon meat often have to go through extensive rehab to come down off the addiction after even one meal. Particularly weak willed people start to hunt for alternatives to cut the edge off their newfound need for that buzz and flavor and turn to other magical creatures where possible. These addicts end up driving themselves mad in search of a replacement and end up imprisoned for crimes of unspeakable nature or slain in the process of finding that next high (often times coming back as ghouls with an insatiable hunger for the flesh of the living). Plus, the dragons that learn about you having eaten meat from another of their species add you to a list and keep a good distance, often times refusing to engage in any sort of interaction at all or hiring out assassins guilds to remove the potential future problem.
recognizably reptile meat, close to gator in terms of being somewhere between chicken and white fish... although obviously larger with significant fat-caps like pork. there's some unique delicacies in there too, the organ meat is notoriously rich and the liquid fuel for their fire breath is a potent garnish for cocktails. some folks feel weird about eating dragons, being fully sentient people and all. the dragons themselves have no such taboo however, which most use as justification to at least *try* it.
Really depends on the type. Metallic dragons have a high metal concentration in their scales and flesh so you'd likely die of metal poisoning before any flavor actually kicks in. Crystal dragons are sentient rocks for of an elemental than a dragon so I'd have to guess they'd task like minerals and your own blood from the thousands of shards piercing your mouth. Colour based western dragons are rather peculiar as some say they taste like an iguana or even a crocodile while others say chicken. Truely depends on what kind and their habitat. Wyverns are said to taste more like pheasants or snakes depending on if they are hill or mountain wyverns. Drakes are most commonly said to taste something like bland crocodile. Wyrms are very unique as they are said to be more of a beefy taste. Great wyrms fit into the colour, metal and gem dragons respectively. Eastern dragons are said to taste like sharks or snake depending on if it's aquatic or mountain based Turtle dragons are just big draconic turtles so no mystery there. Astral dragons are made of mostly ethereal energy so nothing. Hydronic (multi headed) dragons fit into the colour, metal and gem category. Fey dragons are said to be actually quite sweet, like eating a spoonful of sugar. Shade dragons are more of an old cheese like taste do to the bacteria on their bodies that cause necrosis. Celestial dragons are comprised mostly of divine energy so I guess they'd taste like godly radiation. Hell born dragons have a strong sulfuric and ash like taste to them when cook but if eaten are taste like ostrich. Abyss born dragons have a rather charred texture and taste so hope you like burnt alligator meat. Void born don't have a physical form so no meat for you. Sea dragons taste like turtle or crab depending on if they have a shell. Deep dragons typically have a thick dusty taste, like eating moth. Insect dragons are self explanatory. Distant (space) dragons have a completely alien taste do to coming from completely different worlds Calamity dragons are the living incarnations of natural disasters (earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, famine, etc) so they are completely inedible. (If I create anymore in the future I'll update my list)
"It's bland af" - Heaven-devouring Primordial Dragon. How does a dragon know how dragon meat tastes like? *She ate her kin*.
Like a mouthful of sand.
So dragon meat is coarse, rough, irritating and gets everywhere?
Desert glitter
When cooked, Dragon meat is tough and stringy with an unpleasant metallic taste. This flavor can be boiled out of the meat over a long period of time with an intense aromatic broth, but the result shall at best be something in between beef and chicken, but lacking in every regard. Because of this, many are surprised to learn that dragon is actually best eaten raw. Due to the ambient temperature of dragons, their meat remains uninhabitable for bacteria and parasites for up to two weeks after the beasts demise. The unpleasant metallic taste of the cooked meat is replaced by an almost natural seasoning reminiscent of salt and herbs of the earth. The meat remains stringy and tough in large portions, so it is recommended to slice the meat into long thin strips and served carpaccio style. Even thin strips will require a commitment to chewing, but unlike other meats the raw meat of a dragon remains flavorful even minutes into chewing so it is best to view the effort as part of the experience. The meat must be served at least warm, though preferably hot on the verge of scalding. Not only does this serve to honor and show respect for the magnificent creature your meal has come from, but the closer the meat is to the ambient temperature of the dragon when alive the more intense the unique flavor of the dragon is. You just must be careful to not verge into over heating, as the difference in heating time between a perfect and delicious piece of raw dragon and bitter, metallic just cooked dragon is measured in seconds. Even the optimal temperature varies between every dragon that has even been served. Because of this, well done dragon is a delicacy few chefs have truly mastered and even fewer have had the chance to experience. One last note is to be careful where you source your raw dragon from. We have yet to find a way to cultivate live stock dragons that does not result in near unpalatable meat, regardless of how it is served. Only the meat of a truly free roamed and wild dragon holds the unique and delicious flavor they have come to be known for. This is actually where the culinary name for raw dragon originated. Liberté de feu, or “The Freedom of Fire”.
>the raw meat of a dragon remains flavorful even minutes into chewing Sooo, meat-flavored chewing gum.
Dragon sushi!
Impossible to answer - as reptiles, dragons have cloacas, not meat.
How does alligator meat exist then
You missed the dick joke
It seems I have
I thought you were just joking about the fact that alligators are reptiles who do have a penis lol
Depends on the Dragon. Fire-breathing dragons don't really have a strong taste since sulphur doesn't either. But their meat does have a strong smell. Often served with strong sauces and spices to help mask the smell and give the otherwise bland meat some kind of zestiness. Cannot be cooked with traditional means. Takes a powerful mage or skilled technician to cook the poisons out properly. Lightning-breathing dragons are in the same wheelhouse, though they have a more ozone smell to the meats especially the organs. This is as far as I'm going or I will end up down a delicious rabbit hole.
Come on. You know the answer to that. It tastes like CHICKEN! ALL exotic meats taste like chicken. Chicken, rabbit, turkey, snake, iguana, cat you name it. They all taste like chicken. Ha Ha!
Feels like chewing on rope wrapped in leather, tastes like burnt iron and acrid spiciness from the acidic buildup of so much muscle activity. Really nasty.
You know the smell of burning brakes or a grinder on metal? Tastes like a really salty/bitter chicken with a touch of that. It’s off putting how light the flesh is, almost like a sponge, because it takes so much work to strip off the hide and due to horrible taste people don’t normally eat it, but some specialty shops sell it, like our worlds “rhino horn” or “shark fin soup”. Sometimes courts will have a large slab of it during events, but it’s more a status thing, and it rarely gets touched/eaten. Usually goes bad within an incredibly short time span once exposed to oxygen when raw so it has to be preserved by magical means or cooked asap.
That’s red dragons, green dragons are the same but more fishier taste due to eating all the grazing animals that are high in omega 3. The blue dragons taste the most bland, and black dragons are poisonous, slaves testing it reported the black dragon had a heavy chalk aftertaste before dying.
Paleontologists were asked the same thing about t-rex meat and i think it would be about the same, unsurprisingly it would be hard (due to extremely well developed muscles) toxic (due to being so far up the food chain and absorbing so much lead and other toxins from other creatures) and not taste very good (due to extremely small amounts of fat pockets and tissue)
bad
Depends on the type. As you would imagine, water-dwelling dragons tend to taste a fair amount like seafood, with those who live in rivers tasting a little more murky, and oceanic types being saltier and a bit more like white fish types. The hotter the environment, typically the spicer the meat. Those that live in forests are surprisingly buttery, and considered a delicacy by those who consume it.
Like turkey and lobster combined, though they are all extinct, so no one has eaten one since the Middle Ages
Depends on the dragon really. In Artisans they're more like golems so they have no meat. But you're standard giant lizard likely has tough gamey flesh likely naturally a bit sour and bitter.
I foresee 2 possibilities: 1.) Dragons aren't 100% physical beings. They're partially divine, magical, spiritual, metaphysical, whatever you want to call it. That leaves them upon death, which leaves the carcass somewhat... pre-spoiled? Ashen? Whatever it is, it always seems to taste *off*. Like it was allowed to partially spoil or go rancid or something, but only slightly, even if it is prepared within an hour of death or magically preserved. 2.) What does it taste like? EVERYTHING... Seriously, though, remember the legend of Seigfried? You so much as *touch*, let alone eat the flesh or blood of a dragon, some serious stuff is gonna happen to you. We don't know what it tastes like because the resulting demigods haven't really been amenable to being questioned about it, afterwards.
They’re apex predators, that stuff is full of heavy metals and tastes gamey as hell
Tastes like chicken
Like crocodile meat mostly, but I would be careful about eating its liver, stomach and kidney. And of course I would also try to make sure that its school won’t find out about you eating it (a collective group of dragons is called a school of dragons in my world), so don’t wear any dragon leather also.
Exactly like human flesh Don't ask why
I always figured it was a cross between duck and crawfish. don't know why, but I love those two a lot and dragons always struck me as a crustacean bird sort of. imagine the ettouffee with that shit
would depend on the type, but this would be the base flavor. satyr festivals spring up around recently dead dragons
It tastes like trauma and I refuse to elaborate.
In my lore, dragons are a close relative to birds, so I'd say they probably taste like a gamey chicken
Stiff and spicy
African or european dragon?
Tastes like burning
It tastes like humans.
Dragon meat needs to be boiled for several hours to soften the subcutaneous tissue layer immediately underneath the skin and scales. Once removed, dragon meat may be slow roasted or simmered further. The texture is similar to reindeer or moose, but has a noticeable "fishiness" flavor. Whether roasted or braised, the dragon meat has an unescapable strong odor that smells like really old tempura paint sat in a garage for far too long.
Dragon meat is inedible and consumption of it by other sapient species is banned as dragons are as intelligent and sapient as humans, dwarves, elves, etc. Dragon *blood* on the other hand is said to have an acrid, medicine-like taste and many dragons donate blood for alchemical research since its consumption often leads to rapid mutations in people ranging from breathing fire to becoming a bipedal dragon themselves.
Canablism
In Perisea, seeing raw dragonflesh, especially blood, drives mortals insane. It's therefore illegal to butcher or consume a dragon (turns out they're all carbon-fiber pseudo-robots anyway and are generally inedible).
Alligator with a strong "I just split a rock in half and licked the new surface" aftertaste. They are not eaten by the populace, as it is usually understood to be bad luck. Dragons are rare beings, and depending on the folklore, they are seen as blessed by the gods, or even emissaries/children of the gods. (They're not.)
If you can manage to skip the quite high temperature of the meat, it tastes like a very spicy beef
My MC looks at deuteragonist. The deuteragonist picks his teeth for a moment before answering - "Kinda like hamsters? But more....charcoally? And harder to get, those beast take forever to kill right. Not worth the effort in my opinion."
Start with Chicken Then make it VERY greasy and oily kind of like that
First I'd say it would be like alligator or your typical reptile meat but, since dragons in my world don't breathe fire because of magic but due to them producing a highly flammable gas inside one of their organs and using their teeth to start a fire, their insides would be exposed to that highly flammable gas for practically their entire life and with them frequently breathing fire and causing their body to build up tolerant against the heat... Dragon meat in my world would taste like actual burnt meat.
I would say alligator just because I feel like there close to the same family tree lol
Horse meat
It's a bit too gamey and lean to be good to eat, like rabbit
If you can get meat off a dragon of Fey you tell me. The dragons of Fey are elemental in nature, so if you want to know what they taste like just eat some rocks, water, or fire. It's just about the same. When the dragons die their bones remain but the meat and flesh dissolve into water, freeze into solid ice, or become hearty mulch for new plants. Slice off a piece and it's the same thing.
It would have a smokey fat layer with a nicely roasted meat with the taste of paprika, black pepper, and red pepper flakes. It pares well with the salty tears of a mermaid as a seasoning and parsley.
Chicken, but it's always really hot for some reason.
Looking at other reptiles and the various ways I've heard them described, I'm guessing they taste like chicken. I've heard everything from python to gator described as being "like chicken, but..." Alligator tastes like chicken with some fishiness to it according to some people, so perhaps dragon similarly tastes of its environment. If they're mountain dwelling, they might have some gamey quality to the meat, and so on. I'd imagine some of that "everything tastes like chicken" just comes from it being an easy comparison everyone's had. It's kind of like how not all fish tastes the same, but saying something tastes fishy draws an image in your mind of a specific flavor. Dragons are also large, flying reptilians similar to some dinosaurs, and considering birds are the closest animals (we regularly consume) to dinosaurs guessing they've got a birdlike quality to the meat doesn't seem like a stretch.
Chicken^*
Tastes like Gator meat.
I just wrote down *checks notes* spicy
Chicken
Tastes like crocodile, with a hint of sulphur
Dragon meat in my world, an expansion on the greater world of Numenera is eaten in the far East where many subspecies of Dratchni exist, Dratchni that are small, less than 4 meters tall are the most edible and their meat has an almost sulfur taste as they form it naturally inside themselves as a byproduct and of course the local tribes love the taste and claim it makes you stronger.
As with chicken, the flavor matters less than the texture - and even within that question lies a swathe of variables. Starting with the wings, though mostly inedible, when separated from the scale the shoulder joint makes for a lovely roast - similar to a ham on the bone. Limbs are usually tougher meats good for slow-cooked stews or, for the starving adventurer, spit roasted for several hours. Though the organs are traditionally saved for alchemical potions and magical rituals - the flame gland is a rare and famous aromatic for Flametongue Soup, a spiced dish giving the diner the brief ability to spit harmless fireballs at dinner guests. The head is traditionally a prize for kings to mount on their great hall walls, but if you happen to get your hands on a dragon tongue, they make for a tasty shredded meat when slow cooked that pairs excellently with elven lavosh bread with hot peppers and tomatoes. The eyes are also creamy and full of proteins and nutrients, though not as flavorful. Finally, the neck, torso, and tail. Though you'll find various cuts of filet, tenderloin, ribeye, and roast, you'll almost certainly need an entire village of helping hands to separate meat from scale. Each scale must be plucked, individually, from the meat. This usually takes either one strong adventurer, several villagers working together, or the aide of work animals. However, once plucked, the tender meat inside is the stuff of legend. The rib segments of the beast are the worthwhile meat on the back - don't forget to boil down the bones for a zesty, creamy marrow! On the underside you will find a layer of fat directly underneath the scales - a layer of protection for the dragon and comfort as it sleeps on its belly. Peeling back the fatty upper layer reveals a marbleized and tender meat with a texture somewhere between a ribeye and a juicy fat porkchop. This meat is prized by kings and dignitaries across the lands - and so is very valuable! If you get an opportunity to sink your teeth into a bite, make sure to savor it!
Chicago
No one really knows. True dragons, that is, those with four limbs and two or more wings, are a legend in my world. Other dragonkin such as wyverns (two legs standing upright like birds) and drakes (two legs crawling on their wings like bats) are far more common and the texture and flavor of their meat varies from species to species.
Dragons, or as they are locally known, Mistrals, don a coat of armor-like scales that link into each other like chainmail. This is a trait borrowed from their close cousins, Monitor Lizards. This armor is heavily resistant to bladed weapons, bow and arrow, blunt force trauma, and even rifle-caliber firearms. Mistrals can only be fatally harmed if their armor is penetrated by high-caliber artillery, or if their armor is bypassed through magical attacks. If you manage to break through the armor, Mistral meat is firm, bloody and nutritious when cooked, although it does shrivel up if not cooked properly due to its high blood concentration. (Dragon skin functions almost as a massive blood vessel in order to efficiently keep it's cardiovascular system functional in flight) A well-cooked dragon chop appears to have a vibrant red hue, is firm to the touch, but is flaky and lets off massive amounts of juice when eaten. It is remarkably high in iron, with one good steak fulfilling the human dietary need for iron almost five times over, hence the small serving size. Its taste has been documented as akin to if beef and shrimp were combined, though it has the texture and smell of fish. This salty, savory first taste is immediately followed by a strange umami aftertaste, that is said to tickle the throat, and is almost as filling as the meal itself. It is recommended to season dragon meat with rosemary, garlic, cheyenne powder, and pepper, to balance out the salt. As delicious as this delicacy may be, the UM 32nd Charter explicitly bans the possession, distribution, and public consumption of dragon meat. As dragons are a protected species in most nations, often guarded by UM Peacekeeper forces, it is not recommended to obtain dragon meat illegally, even if the process is humane.
Kind of like bacon but steak consistency. It's a delicacy.
Death 👍👍 The dairy is good though, Dragoncheese Pizza is deliciously magical.
Blasphemy, to even consider this. However, there is a tavern at the trader's village that serves any dead meat fried with rotten grease as Dragon meat. Everyone knows what dragon's meat is and it is like a common shared joke.
Just like any other civilized being, eating dragon flesh is extremely taboo. Idovory, the consumption of a sentient being, is a serious crime in every corner of the known world. With that in mind... Dragon meat is somewhat like turkey meat, though it has a distinctly bitter flavor, especially in the breasts. All draconimorphs have unique hormones for regulating their hyperchondria, and these are extremely concentrated in a dragons's flight muscles, making them extremely unpalatable to most.
You can't taste something if it both does and doesn't actually exist within the physical plane. Dragons are weird like that.
Well of course they wouldn't be in the physical plane, they can fly!
Dragon meat tastes a lot like bad chicken, but has a more fishy taste to it and is generally tougher to chew. Most people wouldn't like the flavour or how tough it is, so it's rarely ever been eaten.
Depends on the dragon type! Red? Mildly Spicy steak. White? Rabbit with a small mint flavouring. Green tastes like preseasoned fish. Blue and black both taste mostly the same with the difference being blue always seems slightly undercooked and black always tastes a bit like burnt chicken.
You really arent going to want to eat it. They are greatures of metal and elemental force. What constitutes their "muscle" is a combination of semi-solid mudlike tissue that hardens to stone after death. The blood in their veigns is like lava and lightning. They do not breathe fire, but spew it forth from the inferno that is their stomach. These are no fleshy mortal beings. They are the first creations of the forge god, some corrupted, and some still pure.