# Culinary Worldbuilding



## Tom (May 13, 2015)

Food is an integral part of daily life, and an important element of a nation's culture. It's also something I've found is often overlooked in worldbuilding. I think it would be interesting to hear about how you guys approach writing about food. 

What does your fantasy world's food say about its cultures? Do you make up your own dishes, or draw primary inspiration from real-world cuisine? Does your culture have any foods that are special, such as dishes for festivals or religious events? How is food typically prepared in your world?


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## Russ (May 13, 2015)

I agree completely that this area of WB is often underdeveloped.  My work is always set in quasi-historical settings so I can draw on real food from the time period/place involved, or perhaps more frequently, real drink!


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## Garren Jacobsen (May 13, 2015)

Ha, I barely mention food, save that people eat it. I mention things about the food but never get too deep into how they're made. One of my favorite culinary scenes is any scene from the Redwall series, made my mouth water.


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## Snowpoint (May 14, 2015)

The only time I ever focused on food was in developing a treehouse culture. For whatever reason I decided they eat bugs.


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## CupofJoe (May 14, 2015)

I had a story set in a roughly 16C European setting and I loved discovering the [seemingly] bizarre things that people ate and drank around that time. 
I even made a few. I highly recommend a Quince and Mutton Stew. It smelled and tasted wonderful!
I try to use food [smell, taste, ingredients] to highlight differences a character experiences as they travel. I think everyone has arrived in a new place, looked at the street food and not had any idea what is "safe" to eat...


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## Devor (May 14, 2015)

There are a lot of places in the real world where variety is not part of the typical diet, or at least, certain elements are included in almost every meal.  For one setting, I decided that there was a fruit that they ate with every meal, cooked or raw, or sometimes the seeds were mashed into a butter and used as a sauce.  That one element, to me, brought their cuisine to life without forcing me to do too much work on it.

In another setting, which draws on east Asian societies set at high altitudes, I had one part world builder's disease, and one part a research glut, and spent a lot of time trying to decipher what they would believably eat in the region.  I came to good decisions, but it took more time than it was necessarily worth.


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## Saigonnus (May 14, 2015)

I have found it helps add depth to a culture if you include at least a bit of their cuisine. My tree-dwellers raise goats on the forest floor below thier city and it serves as their main source of protein. They cut the meat into strips and marinade it in a pulped root that they likewise grow. They grill it in an everburning brazier and serve it on a brilat leaf (a spicy cabbagelike veggie) with herbs and wild onions.


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## valiant12 (May 14, 2015)

Devor said:


> There are a lot of places in the real world where variety is not part of the typical diet, or at least, certain elements are included in almost every meal.  For one setting, I decided that there was a fruit that they ate with every meal, cooked or raw, or sometimes the seeds were mashed into a butter and used as a sauce.  That one element, to me, brought their cuisine to life without forcing me to do too much work on it.
> 
> In another setting, which draws on east Asian societies set at high altitudes, I had one part world builder's disease, and one part a research glut, and spent a lot of time trying to decipher what they would believably eat in the region.  I came to good decisions, but it took more time than it was necessarily worth.



I once made a culture where almost everybody eat the same goo everyday through his entire life. The island where that particular culture lived is so inhospitable for human life and have no forest for boat building, no pastures, little usable water, and can support only one crop type. And the island have no trade connections with the rest of the world despite the fact that they have rich deposits of many different types of ores and gems. One the bright side there only crop is plentiful and can be distilled into alcohol.


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## MineOwnKing (May 14, 2015)

I'm currently writing about bread soup. The ally of my main character works in a bread shop for his parents. I'm researching Italian bread soup recipes so that I can write with some sense of authenticity about smell, sounds and preparation, etc. 

Even though it's set in an alternate universe, I've developed a world similar to earth. If I had developed a unique world, I think some form of bread would have been part of it too.

Bread is both simple and interesting to me.


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## Saigonnus (May 14, 2015)

valiant12 said:


> I once made a culture where almost everybody eat the same goo everyday through his entire life.



Soylent Green anyone??? Yummy... [emoji53]


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## Manalodia (May 14, 2015)

I"ve actually put thought into this because of events in my story. When forced to hide in the wilderness, food is going to be brought up or the scarceness thereof. What is in the surrounding habitat comes into play. When there is famine or food supply is taken up for war efforts, it is a crucial element for Rema's family. It is also important when times or good or characters with money come into play to show the contrast of indulgence and variety.
I draw some of my inspiration from real world dishes, but mostly try and create my own based off of vegetation and animals present in my world.


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## buyjupiter (May 15, 2015)

I think I've mentioned it before, but I have a whole "class"(?) of chefs. They're also mummies. And...they're from the island of...QusQus (pronounced "Couscous"...yeah, I know). They are the people that handle food for the elite in the region my novel takes place in. They aren't super important to the main story, but they're there for a bit of world building fluff. And I thought they might be fun. 

I also have a short story idea that revolves around explaining how the mummies came to be the chefs--but it's currently on a back, very back, burner until I clear out the backlog of shorts I have going right now (in various stages. Actually, if someone would love to volunteer to edit some stuff for me, so I can clear out the backlog, I'd love that. *grumble grumble hate editing*)

As for meals? I found a random food generator thingie that I'm mixing and mashing things up into my own "creations". None of which would be food that I personally would even try, because bleck. Some of the items are rather...strange. But totally in line with some of the medieval feast dishes I've read about in history books. (Which is the only time that the chefs come into play, and thus the weird food.)

Otherwise, it's normal travelling food as my character travels a bit--so I probably won't mention any of that (as I'm as bored as the next person with depictions of traveler's stew). But when I get her into a new and strange city, I plan on having the scents of the marketplaces and their foods be part of the punchy "this is different!" of certain scenes.


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## Shreddies (May 15, 2015)

I love seeing (and tasting) new foods, and I love reading little tidbits about them in stories. But so far I've only made up a few dishes and edible stuff in my world. Most of them revolve around the time of year when all the stars fall out of the sky. They're collected, washed, and used to make cookies, cakes, and other dishes in celebration of the new year.

On a side note, this thread reminded me of an entry in the Hack & Slash Ecology Series:

" Blobs are actually a biproduct of culinary warfare. Blood pudding, haggis, mustard jelly and other foods were adulterated with trolls blood, and then animated for a unique taste sensation; sadly this caused them to combine and become mobile. Immediately after they engulfed the cooks. They were then hacked apart and now there are the many different types of blobs that roam the world. "

There's a bit of culinary world building.


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## Manalodia (May 15, 2015)

Shreddies said:


> I love seeing (and tasting) new foods, and I love reading little tidbits about them in stories. But so far I've only made up a few dishes and edible stuff in my world. Most of them revolve around the time of year when all the stars fall out of the sky. They're collected, washed, and used to make cookies, cakes, and other dishes in celebration of the new year.
> 
> On a side note, this thread reminded me of an entry in the Hack & Slash Ecology Series:
> 
> ...



*I apologize for my earlier post. I could barely read it with the errors. I must have been half asleep or something 

For some reason that reminds me of the Flan from Final Fantasy XII, although they were only eaten in jelly-type dishes. This is by far the most odd and creative thing I've heard, haha!

This does raise a question me and my brother have had, but it more deals with worldbuilding in games, not so much fantasy writing. I will ask do the people in the worlds make a difference between the creatures that are carnivores (that could humans) and ones that would be healthier. Kind of like how we view on carnivores and how they are not the best for our health. Do people in your worlds just eat everything that walks or make a conscious differentiation?


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## valiant12 (May 16, 2015)

Russ said:


> I agree completely that this area of WB is often underdeveloped.  My work is always set in quasi-historical settings so I can draw on real food from the time period/place involved, or perhaps more frequently, real drink!


What they use instead of tomatoes in medieval europe.


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## Saigonnus (May 16, 2015)

Zuchinni? Eggplant? 


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## valiant12 (May 16, 2015)

> This does raise a question me and my brother have had, but it more deals with worldbuilding in games, not so much fantasy writing. I will ask do the people in the worlds make a difference between the creatures that are carnivores (that could humans) and ones that would be healthier. Kind of like how we view on carnivores and how they are not the best for our health. Do people in your worlds just eat everything that walks or make a conscious differentiation?


In my maim world it  depends on the person, most people don't.The predators that are at the top of the food chain are too dangerous to be hunted- the great kraken probably taste great and are plentiful  , but are so dangerous that no sane person would try to hunt it. The smaller predators are eaten by some people.


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## Saigonnus (May 16, 2015)

Manalodia said:


> *This does raise a question me and my brother have had, but it more deals with worldbuilding in games, not so much fantasy writing. I will ask do the people in the worlds make a difference between the creatures that are carnivores (that could humans) and ones that would be healthier. Kind of like how we view on carnivores and how they are not the best for our health. Do people in your worlds just eat everything that walks or make a conscious differentiation?



Humans eat anything... Bear steaks, lion steaks, shark steaks and even crocodile and alligator. I think it comes down to personal preference or societal taboos more than what is healthy for you. I don't think carnivores are necessarily 'bad" compared to other sources of meat, they would only taste different. 

I personally have never eaten any of the creatures I mentioned above, but I certainly know people who have. 


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## valiant12 (May 16, 2015)

Zucchini are nativ to North America.


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## Miskatonic (May 21, 2015)

valiant12 said:


> Zucchini are nativ to North America.



And they are a ghastly food!


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## SugoiMe (May 21, 2015)

Where has this thread been for the last two weeks?  Oh, wait, where have _I_ been?  Yeah, gone. lol

Food is something that I've only looked into recently.  It occurred to me when my MC was thrown into a new place.  Some of the aspects of this culture are snippets taken from other places.  One of those is Japanese since I've been living here for a few years.  I decided that it would be interesting to put sashimi and tamagoyaki into a mealtime scene.  But of course, I couldn't use those terms, so instead I described the food.  Also, what sorts of eating utensils do your characters use?  Is it the usual fork and knife, are their chopsticks, do they use their hands?  Adding a little snippet of how they eat enriches the fantasy world, I think.


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## Tom (May 21, 2015)

Miskatonic said:


> And they are a ghastly food!



Not if you cook 'em right. My friend's Italian mother makes this amazing zucchini soup, and grilled, spiced zucchini slices are pretty good.


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## Shreddies (May 21, 2015)

SugoiMe said:


> --Also, what sorts of eating utensils do your characters use?  Is it the usual fork and knife, are their chopsticks, do they use their hands?  Adding a little snippet of how they eat enriches the fantasy world, I think.



Sporks. When in doubt, go with sporks.


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## ChasingSuns (May 22, 2015)

Personally I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it, although I do incorporate it depending on the region. I have some pretty specific terrain and weather conditions in certain regions, so I have to do some research to see what would sound like a believable diet for those living in said regions. Occasionally, if I want somewhere to seem extra exotic/foreign, I'll throw in a unique dish of sorts. However if I don't have a reason to incorporate it then I won't give it much thought.


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## K.S. Crooks (May 23, 2015)

I mention food to show that tie ha passed and to add realism to long journeys. I don't mention what they are eating the majority of the time because it would be foods that travel well such as fruit, breads, cheese, etc. If I create new foods in these situation I would need to explain then. I feel it distracts from the main focus, that being the journey or struggle at hand.


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## Bruce McKnight (Jun 9, 2015)

I got really deep into this when I started worldbuilding. I had the geography laid out and started laying out plant life (where does rice grow, what about garlic) and animals (like a bay where eels are plentiful and considered delicious and a plains area, depleted of population by war, that became sheep grazing land where mutton is consumed regularly). This made it easy to start to put together regional dishes, because if the north half of a country is overgrown with rice and the middle of it is sheep grazing land, guess what? They eat a lot of rice and mutton!

Trading partnerships, geography, and political relations all play a part in trade, which also influences what these countries eat.

It wasn't very hard and added a lot of depth.

I have also recommended this book in the past because it's awesome:
What Kings Ate and Wizards Drank by Krista D. Ball


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## Ophiucha (Jun 10, 2015)

I spend entirely _too_ much time thinking about food in my worlds, I think. Food is to me as linguistics is to Tolkien; I basically write entire stories just as an excuse to explore magical culinary techniques, ingredients, and traditions.

One story that I've been workin on for quite a while, and that I'm currently on about my eighth draft of, has a five-course meal as the framing device for the whole novel. Ash is a powerful source of magic in the world of this story, so my protagonist - who is the king's personal chef - creates a huge meal for him and his guests with each dish featuring ash in some way. I ended up cooking all five of the courses (as closely as possible, anyway, since one of them had horse and my parents were willing to experiment with eating ash but drew a line there) as a sort of taste test, to make sure it seemed both tasty and suitably extravagant, and that really helped me describe them as decadently as possible, since I do spend about a page describing each course.

I also cut an ingredient from the dessert course, since it was poison. Works great as a justification for using food as a framing device for the whole novel, but I'm not a fan of it in my meringue.


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## Jay_Ehm (Jun 10, 2015)

You could say I'm a pretty big eater, and some of my favorite non-animated shows are the food shows on the Travel channel like _Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern_ and _Food Paradise_. In fact, when I was in preschool I wanted to be a chef for a while. It's no surprise, then, that I usually include a character in any story I'm writing who likes to eat (or at least has some specific favorite foods) and thus explores a bit of the world's cuisine. One of these characters is Gustav, the king of Fyrherte and one of the big good guys in one of my current projects. His favorite foods are hagfish with a sauce made from their own slime (yuck) and candied squid pops (double yuck!). He unfortunately validates a stereotype of his people with his odd taste for seafood cooked in vile ways, and this is played for comedy. I just really like including food in my stories with _Bizarre Foods_ and the _Redwall_ series of books by Brian Jacques being some of my big inspirations. It makes the world have a nice sense of depth when the inclusion of food is appropriate.


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## Tom (Jun 10, 2015)

Time to add my two cents to my own thread!

I approach worldbuilding from a very anthropological standpoint, so food and other aspects of cultures are things I focus on especially. I really like experimenting with food--unusual spices, unorthodox cooking methods, the works. For most of my stories, I find historical/traditional dishes from the cultures my fantasy cultures are loosely based on. For instance, I've researched how the ancient Irish baked their bread in beehive ovens, and looked up cheese made with horse milk for a nomadic horse-centered culture. 

When I plan cuisine, I try to design the foods so that they reflect the overall character of their culture. Mild, sweet, spicy, rich,  plain--each flavor and texture tells me something about the people who make this food. It's really fun to do, and it's led to some interesting foods.


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## Jay_Ehm (Jun 10, 2015)

Tom Nimenai said:


> I approach worldbuilding from a very anthropological standpoint, so food and other aspects of cultures are things I focus on especially. I really like experimenting with food--unusual spices, unorthodox cooking methods, the works. For most of my stories, I find historical/traditional dishes from the cultures my fantasy cultures are loosely based on. For instance, I've researched how the ancient Irish baked their bread in beehive ovens, and looked up cheese made with horse milk for a nomadic horse-centered culture.



Sometimes, the opposite happens with me. I'll make up a food dish that people in a country or world eat and find out that it or something similar to it exists in real life. I merely typed 'squid candy' into google search when I was making my previous post to the thread this morning, and found out that squid candy actually exists- In Japan. Now, I came up with the idea purely because I wanted King Gustav to have an amusingly weird taste in food and thought of something I personally would think was gross or weird. To know that this thing actually exists somewhere makes me want to try it just to see why my character thinks something like it would be so good.


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## Miskatonic (Jun 11, 2015)

Tom Nimenai said:


> Not if you cook 'em right. My friend's Italian mother makes this amazing zucchini soup, and grilled, spiced zucchini slices are pretty good.



Zucchini makes tomatoes taste like candy bars!


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## Miskatonic (Jun 11, 2015)

Check out the Toriko manga if you want to see an entire world that revolves around food and where chefs are rock stars. It's a guilty pleasure of mine because it's pretty darn funny.


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