Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Aachen]

Plump helmets aren't the favorite food of dwarves, they're just the easiest food.  Beef isn't the most delicious meat humans can harvest, it's just that horses run too faster than cattle.

Bacon is the most delicious harvest.

Cattle is hardly an easy food, though. Grazing or pastoral lifestyles use land in a different way than agriculture (on that thought, the army arc could give us sim of a nomadic tribe) and cave plants generally have a loose range at this stage. None of 'em are a hard harvest.

I think of a simple mushroom, like edible white mushrooms, with regard to plump helmets.

[Fen]

I also think they'd be sweet, though I'm not sure how sweet. I get the feeling it's quite sweet, but not unbearably so. The name almost suggests sweetness too, I think; purple Plump Helmets. Sounds like a sugary snack to me. An easy-to-grow, fine-to-eat 'shroom, but not something you want to rat solely for years on end without variation.

[cephalo]

I allways imagined them tasting like eggplant for some reason. I like eggplant alright, but not enough to buy it myself.

[Crustypeanut]

Plump helmets aren't the favorite food of dwarves, they're just the easiest food.  Beef isn't the most delicious meat humans can harvest, it's just that horses run too faster than cattle.

Ah.. makes sense.  XD I'll stick with feeding my dwarves a "Roast" made of chicken eggs, dwarven flour, dwarven sugar, and rum.

[Untelligent]

They taste like my cat.

[Supernerd]

I imagine plump helmets to be about 2 feet in diameter and rather juicy. As for taste... Some kind of combination of mushrooms and eggplant maybe?

[Rowanas]

2 feet? Those are big shrooms.

I reckon they're a couple of inches in radius, pink on top with a white bottom and stalk. They stalk has a hint of bitterness, while the head is fairly sweet, to encourage animals to spread the spores.

As a result, they can be eaten like a two-part meal, though the exact method of eating is as divided as it is with RL jelly babies. Some dwarves eat the sweet head, and then savour the sudden taste change from the stalk, some eat them in little bits, sweet-sour-sweet-sour. Yet others cut them up into little cubes, cut off the pink coloured parts, and shuffle them, picking at random for a surprise.

[Khenal]

I always imagined them being almost exactly like apples, just mushroom shaped.

[JacenHanLovesLegos]

Vodka is distilled, wine is fermented so not really no. If they made Dwarven Brandy then yes potato like shrooms would probably make vodka using the same process.

On that note, you can make wine from just about anything. I think this should be implemented so I can sell Elves back their previous caravan guards in alcohol form.

Plump Helmet Man Wine.

[Jalapeño Cheesepuffs]

In my imagination they have this shape:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phallaceae

I can see where that got it's name...

I think the stalk:cap ratio is a bit high. I imagine a plump helmet to have a big, plump cap that droops over the sides of the stalk like a helmet. The stalk is somewhat dwarfed compared to the cap, and is sturdy but entirely unflavorful. The plump helmet would have a sweet/bitter taste along the lines of a beet or red cabbage (along with any mushroomy texture/flavor), which coincidentally have a similar pigment gene in them that results in a deep purple color.

Also note that plump helmets have conceivably been domesticated by dwarves and have been changed from their native species.

Here's a little sketch I did (a bit too cartoony, IMO):

http://i.imgur.com/7jql7.jpg

[Deus Machina]

I've always imagined them like a mix between a mushroom and a potato.
I mean, grain is fermented into beer and isn't particularly sweet, why do we assume that plump helmets don't go through the same process to start the fermentation?

If you're a purist on the fermentation, maybe sweet potatoes. The harvest wouldn't be sweet like fruit, but no one said the most basic dwarven alcohol has to be strong.

[ArmokGoB]

I've always imagined them like a mix between a mushroom and a potato.
I mean, grain is fermented into beer and isn't particularly sweet, why do we assume that plump helmets don't go through the same process to start the fermentation?

If you're a purist on the fermentation, maybe sweet potatoes. The harvest wouldn't be sweet like fruit, but no one said the most basic dwarven alcohol has to be strong.

So basically plump helmets are giant purple truffles? Doesn't really explain them being represented by a ♠ though.

[Lectorog]

I imagine them almost exactly as they're represented: big and purple. About a foot in diameter. Pretty bland tasting, with a hint of some flavors. As for brewing, I imagine that the dwarves squeeze out all of the juice and, using their beards, superconcentrate it into an alcoholic substance. Not a very realistic process, but most things about dwarves don't make sense.

[Urist Da Vinci]

It is established in the raw files that:

Plump helmets - purple, with rounded tops
Pig tails - grey, with twisting stalks
Cave wheat - white, with stalks
Sweet pod - red, with a round shape
Quarry bush - grey, with gray leaves

Since plump helmets make wine, they are technically fruit, so I'd guess that they have the moisture content and sweetness of other wild (surface) berries.
Pig tails can be made into thread, for clothing, as well as ale. I think it is an underground version of hemp.
Cave wheat is obvious.
Sweet pod contains more sugar than all other crops, enough to be ground into a sweet powder. I guess it is an underground sugar beet that looks like a maraschino cherry.
Quarry bushes, prior to the nut introduction, were probably a subterranean spinach, but are now also crossed with some nut bush.

[jc6036]

I always imagined plump helmets as very bland with a spongy texture and a touch of sweetness. I also see it as a very filling comfort food to dwarfs, much like mashed potatoes to us, except a bit more solid and in big purple mushroom form.