Columbus: Everybody loves dodo... ... awesome!

@user6760: The Dodos were nowhere near Columbus. (But they were allegedly tasty, alas!)

Is it common to cook and eat elephants? Or lions? Or horses? Just because a creature is "special" (size, ferocity, method of transport) does not mean people will be interested in eating it.

@Zxyrra Horses > Definitely, very tasty as well; Elephants/Lions they are mostly eaten in Africa iirc, alas their consumption has been higher some 200-400 years ago than today, mostly due to westernization and ethic values and stuff like that

I think the main reason dragons are usually not eaten is similar to why goblins, hobgoblins or lamias are not eaten. We generally are not ok with eating creatures we consider sentient. As a character in Schlock succinctly puts it "Food that talks is not food." schlockmercenary.com/2003-11-30 and for extra fun schlockmercenary.com/2003-12-03.

@DRF Not all interpretations of dragons speak.

@NexTerren True but the quote was more for fun. While there are some interpretations of dragons which you might not consider sentient they seem (to me) to be comparatively rare. I can't actually think of one except maybe the christian legends?

@DRF if you're talking about the epic fight against the dragon which itself was Satanas.. well it's Satan so it can probably speak - also Saint Michael is awesome

well first you call it master, and then you... wait a minute.

@Ryan on the off chance of blaming myself, would you bother explaining that one to me?

If dragons are an inherent part of a world... then why is there never any mention of how to prepare, cook and serve them? I imagine it's related to the fact that killing a dragon is generally considered an epic feat that's rarely actually accomplished. Cookbooks and recipes are made with mass appeal in mind. Similarly, you don't see recipes for other fantastical monsters either... not because they are inedible, but because they're not commonly used as food.

@dot_Sp0T He's using "serve" in the sense of a servant serving his master.... which is how I read the question title too.

We already have a recipe on another SE: rpg.stackexchange.com/a/75929/11162

We really should invite the guys from Seasoned Advice to give us some tips here.

Yes, look at Seasoned Advice for general realism on tough game animal meat.

«recipes for other fantastical monsters» isn’t that Newt Scamander’s lesser-known sequel?

In the spirit of the XKCD meme, I added a "citation needed" to your quote. I felt it fit with the humor, and avoids any accidental confusion about a real life scientist talking about dragons. Feel free to roll it back if you do not agree with my sense of humor.

A better title would be "To Serve a Dragon"... alluding to the famous Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Mankind"

Not for nothing, but I was able to find what purports to be a real-life article for cooking and serving dragon. Komodo dragon, but still dragon. I can't say if it has any basis in reality, or if it actually tastes good, having been ejected from the zoo when I started asking culinary questions about the residents of the reptile house, but there you have it.

@Hack-R I was trying to reference a certain animated movie. But your proposal is interesting as well.

How to serve your dragon? Send your assistant with the paperwork! (Legal joke.)

I'm curious as to how your dragons exist in a world without magic. They're one of those species that seems biologically implausible to even the most ardent fans (myself included)... the example of non-magic dragons that jumps to mind is the ones on Pern, but their origins are a pretty good candidate to meet Clarke's third law and still have some science resistant characteristics to make them functional.

@Kaithar if you're referring to the 2nd foot-note: I do not mean to say that there is no magic; but the inclusion of the magic tag or even the mere mention normally puts people into a medieval high-fantasy mindset, which is beyond the scope of this question and does only add unnecessary bulk

@dot_Sp0T ah, fair enough. On first read it appeared that you were implying a more hard science world. Apologies for the misunderstanding.

@Kaithar no worries; it is clear that dragons are probably impossible to realise without adding some magical properties, etc. But the consistency of a world is defined in the rules imposed on it, and only because a dragon has some properties that make it possible does not mean that anything else can conjure things or change properties of things by willpower (aka magic)

@dot_Sp0T one of my favourite plot points in Pernese lore is that a dragon can carry whatever weight it thinks it can carry, as they essentially use and abuse telekinesis for the purposes of flight assist. Likely that means their weight has similar properties.