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Magic and Food!

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
Hello everyone here in the World Building Forum!

I have been watching the brand new The Worst Witch TV series.

Some of you know that I am a great fan of Mildred Hubble and her adventures, since I started a thread about the original series some years ago. In the new series, at certain moment Mildred asks why is it that Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches is equipped with functional kitchens instead of just preparing food by magical means.

One of the older students answers that magical food has no nutritional value, and that's it!

The answer is really great in my opinion, so simple and beautiful. In contrast, in the world of Harry Potter it's explained that the Witches and Wizards cannot obtain food by magic because that's one of the few things that their transfiguration powers cannot do.

I mean, they cannot transform a rock into a sandwich? How silly (and this comes from a fan of HP), I really prefer how it works in Mildred's world!

So, how about your Fantasy worlds?

Are your magical characters capable of producing their own food by means of magic? Is the resulting food just as good as ordinary food? What is the difference?

It's something quite funny to think about.
 

Queshire

Auror
Mages in my pet setting can make manna out of condensed mana, which I imagine tasting something like a sweet vanilla wafer. They have all the nutrition that you can live off of them, and there's a stereotype of nerdy mages doing just that while engrossed in their research.

Other classes can make basically the same thing, but it takes more work. Generally they'll just buy them at a store before heading out for a day of monster slaying.

Actual cooking is still the most popular. It gets boring eating the same magically conjured food all the time and the natural magic of the ingredients results in the food having magical effects of its own when properly prepared.
 
Unless they're one of the few actual reality warpers in the world, they generally can't. They can however, enhance food and drink with it. Some through rituals, some with spells to make that apple pie taste so much more delicious or just to entrance someone with it. It can be multiplied with magic, in some ways. But mostly, it's all about doing it on ones own. Or letting one of the races that are good at cooking do so. This is all generally Eld though. My only other fantasy world doesn't have any sort of magic. It's all the old fashioned way.
 
In the story marinating in my brain that actually DOES contain magic of that sort, creating or summoning or altering food would violate the rules, which forbid creating or fundamentally altering matter.

I like the explanation that magical food has no nutritional value, but people eat things with no nutritional value all the time :p
 
On the other hand, a magic system centered around food and cooking would be really cool! People could gain powers by eating certain things, but such things have to be prepared carefully in a special way or else they either won't work or will backfire. Different foods grant different powers.

I also like the idea of a candy shop of magical candy.
 

elemtilas

Inkling
So, how about your Fantasy worlds?

Are your magical characters capable of producing their own food by means of magic? Is the resulting food just as good as ordinary food? What is the difference?

It's something quite funny to think about.

In The World, this is something you just wouldn't want to try. Not if you're smart, anyway.

Technically it's feasible. In theory, any kind of transformation is simply the result of pushing tiny beads and strings of matter about in different directions. But in practice it's quite a different story. The concentration and focus required to turn SiO[SUB]2[/SUB] into a terribly complex riot of cooked, partially cooked and uncooked organic molocules plus an array of aromatics to tickle the palate would be stupendously excessive. You could probably take a glass marvel and, some while in a fortnight or so, turn it into a wee steamed pea with salted butter, steaming fresh.

But, what's the point? It would be far easier to get your lazy backside off the workbench, go down to the local green grocer's, get a little jar of Jolly Jotun's jarred peas, go home, pop it open and warm it up over a little magically powered quick cooking fire ring. You'd at least get a whóle serving of veg that way!

So, it's not so much that the magically created pea has no nutritional value per se, it's more that the nutritional value extracted from the pea doesn't come anywhere close to making it worth the effort.

Also, dabbling in this kind of magic is perilous. In the extreme. There was, for example, the story of Wilbert the Wanwise, a great wizard, formerly of Narfoun in Angera. He discovered a way of quickly poufing kernels of corn into existence. Being rather fond of grits of a morning, he thought this magic would be a capital idea to implement.

Magic and living things being what they are in The World, and having eaten three ears of his corn for luncheon, it happened that by mid afternoon he began feeling rather ill at ease. This turned to bloat and by the early evening, while he was entertaining several other wizards about his project, to rather uncomfortable cramps which hs tried to keep hidden from his guests. What he couldn't keep hidded was the incessant churning of his belly. This churning and roiling was noted by several colleagues at the dinner buffet, and they turned to take an interest in what might happen.

Well, when the haze of blood spatter and flying bits of Wilbert Wanwise settled to the floor, his corpse was found to be at the center of a wild and healthy field of corn that had sprouted inside him and was undoubtedly quite happy to get out.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
I'm with others on this--no creating food by magic. No magic as microwave.

But what is food? I'm thinking here of plant magic, by which magicians create, enhance and control plants. So, why not wheat or olives or cauliflower? Medieval priests not only blessed the fields before planting, they were *expected* to do so by villagers. I could see the same expectations of wizards. After all, what activity is more important than feeding the people? Even kings gotta eat.
 

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
Some great answers here, thanks everyone!

It does not surprise me much to see that most people do not have effective magical food in their Fantasy worlds. I am not sure why, but the idea of having nice and easy meals out of thin air is not very popular.

Who knows, maybe in most stories it would make life too easy for magical characters?

In my first ever Fantasy trilogy, Mages can easily create almost anything out of nowhere and that includes all types of food. They do it in order to get everything from bread, rabbit and cake to the plum juice that they love. The magical food is indistinguishable from ordinary food, and non-magical people can enjoy it too without adverse effects.

Curiously, these Mages in particular have the belief that magical plum juice is not as good as the natural one... this explains why they travel a great distance in order to purchase ordinary plum juice in a part of their world that is famous for it, and they really believe that they are getting the best of the best.

In reality both juices are exactly the same thing, so it's just a psychological thing.

The same happens in most of my other stories. However, things are a little different in my WIP Alice into Darkness. The Mages in that world can create their own food very easily, and for them it's delicious and nutritional, no problem. Still, this magically created food is not exactly the same as the natural thing.

If ordinary people eat any magical food, they cannot tell the difference and it's all nutritional and good... until the moment when it causes magical poisoning a few days later, and this is a very disgusting and extremely painful way to die.

The Mages in that world cannot just create huge amounts of food for their armies in times of war, since doing this would quickly eliminate all of their soldiers. This is why Queen Amethyst has been forced to cause near starvation to her civilians everywhere, so her armies are extremely well fed and ready to give a good fight against the invaders.

Alice is seen preparing her own food at kitchens sometimes, but that's only because she enjoys cooking and that's how she grew up in her first world, after all. This Mage in particular took a long time to develop her powers.

I love really powerful Magic, but I understand that many stories would not work well with it.
 
In my curent seting you can't create food with magic.
You can't create drinkeble water. You can't water plants with magical water. You can't create crops with magic.

You can cook using magic. One of the best ice magic user also make greeat ice cream.
 
My characters actually can manifest whatever they need magically, be it food or drink or bedding. One of the minor characters in my latest book, Hollowed, is quite skilled at it.
 

elemtilas

Inkling
Haha, it's interesting to see how many people go with no magical food.

Perhaps it's a general feeling, or perhaps it's just me, but I think this aversion to an obvious deus ex machina is a result of too much easy living in Star Trek. Ever since the idea of the replicator came along, it's just been too easy to live and survive in space. Need some antibiotics? Ask the replicator! Need a 12 inch spanner and a couple bolts? Ask the replicator! Need a cuppa tea? Ask the replicator! I hear it does a passable Earl Gray. Hot. And boring. If only because it's too perfect, too quick and too cheap.

It's just sci-fi magic, and I think applicable to our own fantasy considerations.
 
Ever since the idea of the replicator came along, it's just been too easy to live and survive in space. Need some antibiotics? Ask the replicator! Need a 12 inch spanner and a couple bolts? Ask the replicator! Need a cuppa tea? Ask the replicator! I hear it does a passable Earl Gray. Hot. And boring. If only because it's too perfect, too quick and too cheap.

I personaly don't use replicators or other similar free food divices in my space scy fi, because I don't like the aestetic. I prefer a more organic ship design bouth on the outside and the indside.
 

TheKillerBs

Maester
In contrast, in the world of Harry Potter it's explained that the Witches and Wizards cannot obtain food by magic because that's one of the few things that their transfiguration powers cannot do.

I mean, they cannot transform a rock into a sandwich? How silly (and this comes from a fan of HP), I really prefer how it works in Mildred's world!

There's a bit of dialogue in Deathly Hallows that explains that rule a little, so it doesn't seem so arbitrary. Ron is being a jerk to Hermione, comparing her cooking unfavourably to Molly's, Hermione complains that she's getting stuck cooking because she's a girl. Ron retorts that she's stuck cooking because she's supposed to be the best at magic. Hermione replies with this:

You can do the cooking tomorrow Ron, you can find the ingredients and try and charm them into something worth eating[...]

Seems like it's not just lol nope can't do it because you can't do it and more like, can't do it because it's already really flipping hard to just cook by magic, so turning something that's already inedible into something you can eat by magic is too difficult.
 

Queshire

Auror
You know, everybody has said about why they do or do not allow it, but nobody's really said why.

For me, the reason I allow magic to make food is because A) the story isn't about worrying about food or supplies and B) though based around magic, the tone I'm going for is almost like a sci fi space opera or mythic epic and the ability to poof up food is consistent with that sort of tone.

So, to everyone that has answered already, why do you allow or not allow it?
 
I allow it because the characters are often so in-tune with the universe that they can fulfill whatever needs they have instantly, and they are often higher-dimensional beings who live in peace and harmony with everything.
 

elemtilas

Inkling
You know, everybody has said about why they do or do not allow it, but nobody's really said why.

For me, the reason I allow magic to make food is because A) the story isn't about worrying about food or supplies and B) though based around magic, the tone I'm going for is almost like a sci fi space opera or mythic epic and the ability to poof up food is consistent with that sort of tone.

So, to everyone that has answered already, why do you allow or not allow it?

For my part, I did say why. The effort to reward ratio is too skewed. It's like using nuclear fusion to create gold from I don't know. Iron or something. Theoretically, you can smash small atoms together and make big atoms. Then knock of some extra neutrons until you get a wee bit of gold. Although mining and refining are difficult processes, they're easier and more profitable than atom smashing.

Same goes for creating food by dwimcraft in The World. Theoretically possible, but impractical to the point of useless. You'd starve before you ever got a plate of decent food on your table. Not much use that kind of magic!

As for point A, I'd ask in return: okey, so they don't worry about procuring food because a wizard can pouf it into existence without any problems. But that begs the question: why not just pouf up some super weapon that will kill the dragon so you can get the gold?

Or better yet, why not just pouf into existence pots of gold right in your front parlour so you never have to go on mucky adventures at all? At least for me, we're back to the deus ex machina of the replicator. If you have magic or technology to take of all your basic problems (food and so forth), why not just apply that magic or technology to eliminate all your bigger problems too (dragons, Klingons, etc)?

This is just my opinion, but I don't see this kind of magic as particularly mythic or epic in nature. Myth and faerie stories are replete with magic, sure. But it always comes at high cost and usually ends up back-firing on its abuser. I mean, we never hear the Tale of How Clever Johann Bred His Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs and Opened Up a Dealership in the Valley Selling Golden-Egg-Laying Geese to Princes and Potentates Worldwide.

The genie always runs out of wishes. The magic ring always disappears. The fool always insults the Fair Folk and the magic ... poufs.
 
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