Welcome to The Inn at the Crossroads!
In May of 2011, fans and food enthusiasts Chelsea and Sariann were inspired to create just a few recipes from A Song of Ice and Fire, one of our favorite series. As you can see, things clearly got out of hand. Sariann and I delved deep into the world of Westeros and ventured far over the Narrow Sea to recreate the mouthwatering cuisines of those realms. Where appropriate many recipes are two-fold: a modern recipe, and a traditional recipe more in keeping with the quasi-medieval setting of the series.
In 2012 our hard work was rewarded with the delightful publication of the Official Game of Thrones Cookbook. Since then, I have continued to explore Westerosi dishes and medieval recipes, updating and improving the blog as I go. For me, it has become a way of life, the kitchen table laden with pork pie, hot spiced wine, lemoncakes, and so many more enticing edibles.
The journey continues, so loosen your belts, sharpen your knives, and set out for the kitchens of Westeros. Check out Game of Brews for the companion beverages to these foods, and follow the Inn on Twitter and Facebook for all the very latest in what I’m cooking, brewing, or planning, and be sure to visit often!
-Chelsea
Still have a question, or just want to get in touch ? Send a Raven!
Hey guys, good to see someone else also taking up the banners of representing the food in ASoIaF. You’ve made some great meals and I look forward to seeing more.
You are awesome.
I can’t even begin to tell you how great this idea is. I’ve found Martin’s choice of dishes (and their descriptions) to be incredibly telling and often pregnant with symbolism. Who could forget the Red Wedding’s paltry dishes, or the “boiled beef and horseradish” type meals that portend doom and gloom?
Keep up the AMAZING work!
such a great idea! i’m adding you to my reading list RIGHT THIS MOMENT!
Awesome to see some fellow Boston ladies representing GRRM and some amazing creative cookery! Alas, I won’t be able to try many (any?) of the recipes since I’m vegan, but I’ll definitely be following along! I’m sure there has to be a vegetarian *somewhere* in ASOIAF….
Brilliant idea! I’ve always wanted to serve a dish on a trencher, but never gotten round to it. Keep up the amazing cooking, can’t wait to see what’s coming.
Wow, I am amazed. The idea is great and pictures are even better! Keep it up! :)))
Phenomenal idea! I’ll be checking to see new recipes soon, and leafing through my already dog-eared copies of the series to find more culinary inspiration. Wonder what new dishes George will come up with in the next in the series!
Love the site, reminds me of an excellent TV show from here in Britain, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Supersizers_Go… which I heartily recommend. Soooo hungry now!
OMG! This is such a great blog! My friends invite me for dinner every Sunday night to watch Game of Thrones. And they are huge foodies. I think this will inspire them!
Terrific idea! Glad you’ve found us! :)
I just want you to know that for certain reasons I have been eating Subway and cereal all week for every meal, and I would kill a man for some of the food you feature on this blog. I’m seriously. I can’t wait to get home and try out some of these delicious recipes!!!!
First of all, I love your blog! I stop by at least once a day to see what new culinary adventure you’ll be sharing. Second, our viewing group has decided to do a finale party pot-luck style where each of us brings a dish representative of our favorite family (or character!). I’ve directed everyone else to this blog because it’s absolutely wonderful. The hostess (an Dani supporter) is making the goat with sweet grass and firepods. I (huzzah Jon Snow!) want to make honeyed chicken or (go Arya!) bowls o’ brown. However, my husband has decided that he wants a Lannister dish, and I have no idea what that would be as I have only read the first book so far. Any suggestions? I’m leaning towards making anything tagged “king’s landing”, but I would appreciate any input from you. Thanks!
We’re on the case! It’s a little tricky since we never see Casterly Rock, so I’d suggest something that the Lannisters serve in King’s Landing. Cersei’s Chestnut Soup would be a contender, as would anything else from that same dinner. We’ll keep on the lookout, though, for a more Lannister-ish recipe. Maybe a stag? :)
Our pot luck was a huge success! I made honeyed chicken with b/s tenderloins (we were feeding some kids too) which were delicious. Another attendee made tyroshi honey fingers which were utterly phenomenal. The hostess was unable to find goat so she instead did a crawfish boil which we figured could be Greyjoy-ish, right? For the Lannister dish I ended up making quarter sized lemonade cookies, tinting the glaze and orange-y color, and writing an “L” on top after they’d dried with some similarly tinted vanilla frosting to represent Lannister gold. So, thank you for your recipes and inspiration, they helped make our finale party awesome!
What a wonderful blog. I read GoT on a flight back in March and was utterly clueless about the series when I left. I didn’t even know HBO was making a series until I got back and was hooked on SOIAF. I found your blog google-searching for “game of thrones watch party” and now I’m hooked on the books, the show, and your blog. Modern oatcakes and honeyed chicken have become major winners in our house. How about some more information on the chefs?
We’ll actually have an interview out soon with Westeros.org, and you can soon look for our episode, #58, with A Podcast of Ice and Fire. In the meantime, what would you like to know? :)
Finally, a blog where I get a little of everything I need: cooking, fantasy nerddom, and fire dancing. Keep up the great work. I only wish I could join you to share meat and mead, and play with my fire whip.
(By the way, if you’re in need of mead recipes, I have a friend that regularly brews cyser, and could ask him if you’re interested)
Ooooh! Mead! Yes please. :) A friend of ours made some quick mead last year that was pretty good, but what with the fruit cordials and persimmon wine we’re making or planning to make, why not throw some mead into the mix!
OK, finally got it out of my friend. He makes mead using some expensive homebrewing equipment but I did manage to get a method of making stuff by the bottle.
In brief, it goes like this: Sterilize your bottle – anything from a narrow-necked flagon to a 2-liter PET soda bottle – using everclear. Sluice it around for about 5 minutes before dumping it out. A basic recipe for sweetmead uses 14 pounds of honey per 5 gallon batch, and a drier mead can be had with down to 10 lb/5 gallon. You should scale that to your desired volume, which would be your bottle volume multiplied by 5/6. The remaining volume should be filled with water up to about 5/6 mark. You should then activate some yeast (baking yeast will do for a start) in a small volume of warm water, and then put that in. The size of your starting culture won’t determine much other than your overall fermentation time. Once this is all done, cap the bottle with a medium sized balloon and put the bottle in a room-temperature location. A warmer area will get it to ferment faster, but it might lose some flavor subtlety. The balloon will slowly inflate as the fermentation proceeds, and also acts as a safety valve so that you can use glass containers. After that, it should be a week or so if you’ve done it right. Your mead will be bubbly like champagne rather than foamy, so the more slowly you let off gas the better to avoid a small bubbly explosion. You should then cap your container and then chill to stop the fermentation. Voila!
Now that’s the basics. To make cyser, replace 1/2 of the water volume with pasteurized but otherwise virgin apple cider. Store bought usually doesn’t cut it, because it contains magnesium salts that inhibit bacterial growth. Mead is also frequently spiced, so you should experiment by adding some spices into your mixture. Cinnamon sticks, cloves, and nutmegs are usually a good way to go.
That’s a basic recipe. Homebrewing nerds will usually run a secondary fermentation, clarify it, use a different kind of yeast, and age the mead for a long while.
Enjoy!
I think this is an awesome idea for a website. It brings words to life.
Game of Thrones recipes? Um, 77 courses coming up.
Any chance you guys might turn these blog posts into a cookbook? I’ve already decided it’d be the perfect xmas gift for all my ASOIF obsessed family members.
This is probably the best food blog in the world. Yes. I said so! I’m so excited to have found you, via the Gilt Taste article. I look forward to looking through older entries and seeing what you come up with in the future. Will share the link in my blogroll, tons of friends would love your site.
Thank you so much! We’re glad you’re enjoying the site. Let us know if you get a chance to cook any of the dishes!
This blog is phenomenal and I look forward to attempting your collection of recipes here at home.
I’m so glad someone put this together, and you two someones are doing a fantastic job. I will certainly be buying the cookbook!
I’m trying very, very hard not to become obsessed with ASOIAF. This blog will not help. Nor will it help with my weight loss efforts. That said, this website is undeniably amazing. Thank you… and curse you!
i just saw an article in today’s “the boston (mass.) globe” about you, which led me to your website! i had not read any of the books in this series until this year – i do not ordinarily read “fantasy” – so once i tried one and was hooked, i read them all one after another as fast as i could! (now i’m waiting for the next one and hope that it is not years in the making….) cooking is one of my favorite hobbies, so i always noticed the great-sounding meals in the books. what you are doing is a great idea!
I am thrilled to discover your blog!! I was searching for a chilled persimmon and prawn soup a la Dany, and found you! I just devoured the first 4 SOIAF books and adore all the food descriptions. Made a hearty stew in a bread bowl last night (closest I got to a trencher) but I have a persimmon tree and have never figured out what to do with all the bounty, till now. Can’t wait to figure out persimmon wine!
I’m jealous of your persimmon tree!! Our own persimmon wine is in the first fermentation stage, and so far looks great, if a lighter color than I expected. I’ll be sure to post results as soon as it’s done!
I love the song of fire and ice series, food, and your blog! Keep up the excellent work. I’ve added your link to my blog and have tweeted, facebooked, social media’d you to pieces :)
Amazing idea!! Huge fan of the books and have always loved george’s detailed description of the meals, which both compliments the story and makes it one of most immersive journeys I’ve experienced
I am a young man, who happens to be a huge fan of both the culinary arts, and the song of ice and fire and I must say you guys did a great thing when you made this place! I was ecstatic when I found this page! My mother is also a huge fan. Today we were reading a few chapters of game of thrones, when we stumbled upon the Honey Duck of Pentos within the book itself. You guys bring the food of this wonderful book series to life for us all! As a huge fan of the book series, and the HBO television series I thank you! You have made my mother and I very happy fans!
The Starks are always right eventually, Winter is coming!
I love a few of the recipes I’ve tried and I’ll steal a comment to plug my own G.O.T. spinoff. you might like this app we’ve built. Hodor is the new Siri: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrEADPHRj7c&hd=1
I can’t wait to explore your blog. We are starting to plan our GOT premiere dinner for 4/2/12 and this will definitely help!
I have a complant: I found it a bit jerkish of you guys take down some, and by some I mean most, of your recipes that were already up, and you now put them under “exclusive cookbook recipes.” It’s rather dissapointing that guys have turned into that direction
I’m sorry that you feel like we are being jerks- we certainly are not trying to be.
The reason we have taken down recipes is that when Random House gave us a contract for the cookbook, they also obtained the rights for all of those recipes- we are required by our contract not to include them on the blog anymore. We have tried hard to continue to add recipes to replace those that we have taken down- we do so at least once a week, usually more, (while also working on the cookbook.) All of the new recipes are available for free to fans, like us, who love Martin’s books and are excited about experiencing the world of Westeros in a new way. Please understand that we have put literally thousands of hours and thousands of dollars into this, and it has been a labor love- not of profit. We really work very hard to keep providing new material, to answer questions that people send us, and to connect with fans who share our passion.
I hope you will continue to visit our site despite your complaint; enthusiasm from fellow fans is what has made this project worthwhile.
This website is amazing! Every time they talk about food in the books it sounds so good and I always want to make it, thanks for making that possible. One thank I have to ask is can u please make a sisters stew recipe its talked about in dance with dragons and sounds amazing
Great website – but shouldn’t the banner say “in the game of food, you cook or you wash the dishes”? At least that’s the philosophy I live by.
Thank you