What Makes Mandalorian Food Mandalorian?

Mandalorian cooking has four essential elements. You can think of them as the four legs of a kitchen table.

Oh. Right. You probably don't speak Mando'a.

1. Draluram "Bright Mouth"

The food should have a strong, rich flavour.

2. Heturam/Hetikleyc "Mouth Burn" and "Nose Burn,"

The food should be spicy enough to reliably take the paint off a ship's hull. You specifically want to get a heat that not only makes your mouth burn, but your nose/sinuses should tingle too.

3. Yai'yai "Richly Nourishing"

The food should be able to support your dietary needs.

4. Munit'oy "Long Life"

The food should be long lasting, preferably shelf stable for long periods of time.

Sounds easy, right?

Striking a balance between all four is incredibly difficult, especially getting that last one in.

So what do we do?

Well, the most important aspect of Mandalorian cooking is taste. It should taste good, and it should be capable of launching your mouth at least into low orbit. This actually led to me buying one of my cookbooks specifically for finding the right spice blend that's hot, but not so hot that it overtakes the flavour.

I'm, uh, still working on that at the moment.

So be sure to check back in and see if I've cracked the hetiklyc code!