One thing I didn’t expect to find in another world was energy bars. Mages consume huge amounts of calories performing their jobs, either industrially or in combat and these need to be constantly replenished.
The stringy and dense cake that Sir Ning had been bringing me after training was a capital specialty. It’s a dense fruitcake made with pork stewed and pulled until individual meat fibers could be mixed into the dough. Dried fruits and honey rounded out the taste. But these fresh cakes, cannot be transported.
There were whole boutiques with brands and styles to feed every taste that sold bars that could travel. Some even advertised their chief chef. The cheapest bars are sweetened horsebreads. Horses don't complain but people want enough salt and sugar so they can stomach the coarse mix of oats, beans, and wheaten flour. The high salt content helps prevent rot.
For the rich mage on the go to their nearest dungeon, monster nest, or whatever, they were well catered for. Sweet toothed mages could buy delicate wafers, made with rosewater or orange blossom water and covered in nuts and caramel. Or they could get glistening candy "drops", made on bronze presses and gleefully dropped by staff onto cooled tables.
Meat-lovers can enjoy Rwaggan or jerky bars, tallow, dried and often smoked meat, and salted dried berries are pounded together into a square mass and sold by a unit of 4 "unitza", which is about 4 ounces. Sometimes they are rolled in poppy or sesame seeds. Elves apparently export the best game and dried fish jerky bars.
And of course, for mages who weren't that rich but still not that much of a budget, there's oatmeal, lentils, and dried pea bars with bits of dried fruit or jerky. They can be reconstituted into a sweet or savory porridge, or work up a lot of saliva and chow down on the porridge bars.
My favorite so far was a specialty made with elven spiced stockfish, specifically the way to prepare it was to smash up the stockfish, sliced pickles, shaved a carrot, and then sliced open a bread roll, with a salted herb butter, for an amazing sandwich.
