When English author Geoffrey Chaucer popularized the phrase “familiarity breeds contempt” in the late fourteenth century, I know he wasn’t thinking about food television, but that’s only because he didn’t live long enough to experience the tropes of the genre. Watch enough Food Network or explore the more culinary pockets of Hulu and Netflix and it will start to feel like every ingredient is secret, every kitchen is cutthroat and every cook is your competition.
Granted, I’ve spent a lot of time over the last couple decades watching food television (like a lot), for both work and pleasure. However, the same thematic elements that caused pioneering programs like “Iron Chef” to crackle with electric energy when it debuted in the United States in 2005, like themed dishes and a countdown clock, have been recycled and repurposed again and again, and just like a kitchen knife guided to make the same cut over and over, they’ve grown duller over time.
I was a bit bored of seemingly being served variations of the same course — which I think is why it took something truly singular, like Netflix’s new anime series “Delicious in Dungeon,” to break me out of my months-long state of food TV burnout.
The story, which is a very faithful adaptation of the recently concluded manga of the same name by Ryōko Kui, begins not unlike the wind-up to a “Dungeons and Dragons” campaign. A mysterious, multi-leveled dungeon has appeared in a tiny village after the catacombs beneath it split. From the depths emerges a spirit who says that he will bestow his old kingdom — and all its valuable treasure — to whomever can defeat the mad mage waiting deep below ground. Parties of adventurers, fortune hunters and magic-makers begin to form in order to make the trek into the heart of the dungeon.
The series opens on one such party: There’s Laios, the party leader; his sister, Falin; an elven mage, Marcille; and Chilchuck, a half-foot locksmith with Artful Dodger energy. They enter a Red Dragon’s lair only to get roundly thrashed. Why? Well, because they were hungry.
That’s the problem with adventuring, Laios goes on to explain. One wrong move, one unplanned detour and you can be out several days’ time and, more importantly, several days worth of resources, which are expensive to replace. That said, the party has an even bigger problem. It seems, at least, that Falin has been swallowed by the dragon. While I’m a little unclear on just how long it takes for a dragon to fully digest its prey, Laios makes it clear that there’s still a chance to get his sister out in one piece.
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However, the window to do so is tight, which means that there’s no time to replace their stockpile of food — and it’s not like they have the money to do so anyways. So, inspired by his copy of “The Dungeon Gourmet Guide,” Laios hatches a plan: They’ll budget-eat their way through the dungeon by cooking the monsters they find along the way. “We’re going to get all of our food from the dungeon,” he declares. “This place is full of monsters. So then, the dungeon has to have an ecosystem in it. The carnivorous monsters eat the monsters that are herbivores and the herbivore monsters eat plants, which need water, light and dirt to grow.”
Delicious in Dungeon (Netflix)He continues: “Thus, we humanoids can sustain ourselves in the dungeon, too!”
It’s a rousing speech, but the disgust factor is a little tough to overcome, especially for Marcille (who complains that the only people who eat monsters in the world voluntarily are the criminals who have been banished below ground). That is, until the party crosses paths with Senshi, a dwarf who has spent a decade learning the finer points of monster cookery and who is thrilled to share his hard-earned knowledge with Laios and friends, like when he teaches them to make Hot Pot out of a random dungeon scorpion and a Walking Mushroom monster.
“As for the Walking Mushroom,” Senshi explains, “skin it and lose the butt. Save the feet and throw ‘em in the pot. They’re delish.”
“Delicious in Dungeon” is packed with lines like this, which — especially taken in combination with the various ingredient diagrams, animated recipe cards and explanations of monster cooking techniques — create a truly immersive world, and it’s one that fans of the show are already trying to replicate in their own kitchens. The r/DungeonMeshi subreddit is already packed with intrepid culinary explorers eager to mimic the dishes made on the show, often using the recipes laid out in the manga series as their original reference.
For instance, the recipe for the Huge Scorpion and Walking Mushroom is:
1 huge scorpion
1 walking mushroom
2 mushroom feet
Seaweed
Arctic moss/star jelly to taste
5 med. size invertatoes
Dried slime
Water to taste
Scorpion can be replaced with lobster or deveined shrimp, the cooks determine, while humble potatoes might make a decent stand-in for otherworldly invertatoes. “Sweet potato noodles would make a great dried slime substitute,” one commenter suggests. “They're chewy and clear,, which is how I imagined dried slime texture to be.”
Another chimes in: “I would also suggest King Oyster mushrooms as the walking feet because they are a little longer and more ‘feet-like’ to me than shiitake.”
It’s the kind of cooking show that captures one's imagination in a really profound way. There are currently seven episodes available on Netflix, in which the party has made everything from tarts to porridge with their fantastical finds and I find myself thinking about the recipes when at the grocery store. “What would mimic the flavor of a Screaming Mandrake?” I thought to myself while pawing through the produce section the other day (root vegetables seem to be the most commonly suggested real-world analogue).
I’ll admit, it’s also refreshing to watch food television with actual stakes beyond cash prizes and potential future hosting gigs — even if those stakes are rescuing someone from becoming dragon food themselves.
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