Otik’s spiced potatoes!

One of my favourite series of books when I was growing up was the Dragonlance trilogy. More than 20 years later, I still remember how the characters all loved a particular dish: Otik’s spiced potatoes!

Otik was an inn-keeper and his spiced potatoes were legendary. So much so, I decided to find out what they were like for myself, using a recipe I found online (the internet is amazing!).

Basically they’re fried potatoes with cayenne pepper and black pepper. I’d never used cayenne pepper before today so I was interested to find out what it tasted like. This dish was legendary after all, it had to be pretty tasty!

Now, the recipe I found online for these said to use a teaspoon of cayenne pepper and a teaspoon of black pepper. The idea of using so much black pepper seemed ridiculous, so I just used a pinch, so it wouldn’t be too hot.

Still, I might as well have just eaten a few jalapenos then set fire to my face.

Otik was clearly a smart inn-keeper. He made his potatoes like this so people had to buy a load of drinks to put out the fire in their mouth!

Let this be a lesson to fiction readers: writers don’t always plan every little detail in their book. Sometimes we just make shit up! This recipe obviously falls into that category. Thanks Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickmann.

I’d like to see Friar Tuck cooking up some of these around the campfire in Barnsdale…I don’t think Will Scarlet or Little John would enjoy them much, but it’d be a good excuse to down more of the local ale!

Anyone ever tried cooking up any other fictional recipes? LotR must have a few? Share them here if you have!