As Series 4 dungeoneer Helen prepared to leave the antechamber, Pickle attempted to send her on her way with a banana, but failed. However, in the gamebook section of Fortress of Assassins, it is possible to acquire food before entering the Dungeon. It comes in the form of a slice of quiche - a dish consisting of eggs, milk/cream and other ingredients baked in a crust of pastry - offered to the adventurer by Treguard. (The player may take a SHIELD, STEALTH or RUST spell from Treguard instead.)

During the adventure, the quiche can be eaten to increase Life Force by one grade, just as most food items can in the KM gamebooks. Should the player encounter a 'hammer-wielding warrior' (likely to be Thor) trying to cook a brontosaurus steak, the quiche can be offered to him, and his response is to scorn it as unmanly (quoting an established cliché), take it anyway, and give nothing in return.
During earlier times in the Knightmare fan community, the identity of the Series 8 Life Force indicator was a hotly (if not warmly) debated topic. To some, it was definitely a cake. To others, it could be nothing other than a pie (and when asked in 2004, Tim Child confirmed this). Knightmare.com Discussion Forum member Grimaldine Grimwold, though, jokingly championed a third option in 2002:

'Call it a Quiche! I'm a lot happier since I converted from the anguish of the pie/cake dilemma to the satisfaction of calling it something ever so slightly silly.'

He had taken his inspiration from a forum comment by Adam 'Treguard' Battersby that the images looked 'like a massive Pork Pie or Queche (sp?) with a cherry on top'. GG went on to refer to 'life force quiche' in dozens of posts. He gained a supporter or two among the forum users as well, with Skarkill at one point asserting, 'That Is A Quiche never in a month of Sundays is it a Cake.'

Mentions of the quiche possibility were even added to knightmare.com, though one was removed after Billy highlighted them in his Picky Website Corrections thread in 2004.

Although there was still fun to be had from Life Force Quiche referencing on the forum, another member decided to put his foot down later that same year:

'What about a quiche slowly rotting away until there's only the crust left...' - Harvey Towers

'It's a pie, not a quiche or anything else that was used in series 8.' - The Brollachan, three minutes later

Ironically, quiche and cake both have their origins in the German word küche, which itself means cake.

When the Fortress of Assassins gamebook was played as a Knightmare Live adventure via Facebook during the 2020 coronavirus lockdown, quiche became a running joke. The choice between spell or quiche even inspired a T-shirt design.

[Earlier versions: 2017-01-21 15:23:02, 2011-03-13 22:29:02, 2010-02-28 20:33:21, 2008-06-26 14:19:39]

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