What fancy and decadent dishes do the Great Kingdom leaders and their families love to eat? Do they secretly eat food that’s more “plebeian” as they might say?
Good question! I think it would be tedious to go through every single character's tastes, so I'll just talk about the most notable ones.
FOLKVAR: Juvella loves traditional Folkvaran fudge bars. It's her biggest weakness. This woman tries so hard to stay in shape, attending aerobics classes every day, turning down so many junk foods at the royal feasts, keeping track of everything she eats to stay healthy...then every night, she hides in a closet while she secretly scarfs down a plate of these damn fudge bars. She's deeply ashamed and hides this behavior from Gultopp, believing he would think her weak for having so little self-control. In reality, he'd just be like "o shit u got fudge?? pass me some of those! :D"
MATUZU: Marghan has a taste for exotic cuisine, and it must be authentic! He has every meal imported from faraway lands, and he does so in the most impractical, expensive way possible. Of course he's not using his own allowance money for this, oh no...he's using Matuzan tax dollars for his cross-continental DoorDash orders, the little prick.
LAMAI: Chua hates gruju, but pretends to love it because it's synonymous with Lamaish culture. They force themselves to chug that crap at every gala to keep up appearances. Every one of their conjoined siblings has their own likes and dislikes, which makes dinner time a complicated ordeal. One sibling has an addiction to xamali and sneaks this alcoholic beverage whenever Chua isn't looking. Of course, Chua suffers the consequences of whatever their siblings consume...on more than one occasion, Chua has found themselves randomly drunk or on the verge of shitting themself because of things their siblings ate.
YERIM-MOR: Roz brews his own kombucha, believing it has all kinds of crazy health benefits. He drinks this stuff all day long and encourages his son Jaq to drink it too, but Jaq thinks it's gross and his dad is weird. Roz is also a fan of yogurt, cheese, and all things probiotic. This is a guy who tries to nurture life wherever he goes, but that's hard to do when his kingdom is such a pit of death. If he can't breathe life back into his kingdom, at least he can nurture microbial life.
ZAREEN: Qara and her husband are junk food junkies, but Qara is particularly fond of sweetpork burgers. In fact, her love of these burgers is so well known that she endorsed a Zareenite burger chain, appearing in their ads for many years. This chain quickly became the most popular fast food joint in the empire. Some would say it's unprofessional and uncouth--perhaps even unethical--for an empress to advertise such unhealthy slop to her people. But this deal scored Qara a lifetime supply of free burgers, and she regrets nothing. Her endorsement of such plebian cuisine won her points with blue collar Zareenites, convincing them that she was ~*~relatable~*~. Other people think her tastes are just as trashy as she is.
EVANGELINE: Indiga strikes me as the type of woman who eats the exact same things every day. A traditional blue breakfast, meat pie for lunch, blue dinner, and a couple cookies for dessert. Every day. For decades. She's so xenophobic, she doesn't trust any sort of foreign cuisine.
MOGDIR: Oberon has a thing for mushrooms, especially truffles. He demands only the finest specimens, no matter their cost. After snorting a long line of pink sugar off a hooker's ass, he washes it down with some silk milk tea, his favorite drink. His daughter, Winnie, is a bugs rights activist who refuses to eat any bug-based dishes. This is hard to do in a place like Mogdir Kingdom, as its traditional cuisine is based almost entirely around bugs. That's because in this culture, farming animals for meat is forbidden, but bugs are not considered animals here. Winnie is like a Mogdiri super-vegan who subsists on scrap rice and carrot mash. She won't even consume bug byproducts such as honey or silk milk.
ETIOS: Hethor loves to eat grass. She's a typical Etiosi grass snob who insists that different types of grass have completely different tastes. Other than that, she enjoys quite a bit of Folkvaran cuisine, which is shipped to her regularly by her pal Gultopp as an act of good diplomacy.
DAMIJANA: Serafeen regularly visits different Damijani restaurants and eats their food as a PR stunt. In reality, she can't stand her empire's native cuisine and much prefers Mogdiri food. Of course she can't possibly let her people know this, and they would flip their lids if they saw their god-like leader put a bug in her mouth. Most foreign cuisine is viewed as "dirty" and "uncivilized" in Damijana. Serafeen must endorse only the sterile, hyper-processed cuisine of her native land.
SEELIE: There is a cup of chocolate coffee within arm's reach of Titania at all times. It's one of the few little joys she has left in her grueling, never-ending life. She has grown sick of all flavors, having tasted them all too many times...but there's something about that chocolately coffee that never gets old to her.
UNSEELIE: Morgause enjoys pickled squid. She'll sit on her throne and eat it straight from the jar with her fingers, she doesn't give a shit. She seems to have a taste for bitter, vinegary things in general.
AQUARIA: Sovereign is infamous for eating live baby dolphins, considering them a delicacy. He insists they must be alive until the moment he bites into them for peak freshness. This makes him sound like a picky guy, but in reality he's a total glutton who will eat damn near anything you put in front of him. He'll even eat stuff he hates as long as it's convenient. Bro has a pretty bad eating disorder, to be honest...It's less about enjoying food and more about the act of consumption for him, which fits his greedy nature.
