Sustenance and the lack of it has driven wars, informed politics, caused revolutions. The humble potato is a great example of food’s potential to drive history and narrative. It was introduced to Europe after contact with the Americas, and then became the staple food of a third of Ireland’s population. A potato blight then caused the Great Famine which killed a million and triggered the mass emigration of Irish people to the US.
The potato itself would not have been as important to the Irish cottiers had they been allowed to own their own pasture land or sow other crops. Those two factors were driven by English corn laws and the policies of absentee landlords. Food was in fact still being exported from Ireland even in the worst of the Famine - beef, dairy products and grain among them. It was not the lack of food that had killed so many people, but rather its unaffordability due to such policies.
A great banquet and its many subtleties sets a very different scene from a supper of rough bread and pottage. Food can be used as a reward or payment (Seven Samurai), a plot device (the newts in Ethan of Athos) or a punishment (nutra-loaf). The price and origin of food can also make a large difference to a setting. The European hunger for sugar drove much of the triangle trade of the Atlantic in the 1800s. Profits from the sale of sugar were used to purchase trade goods, which were bartered for African slaves, and profits from the sale of those slaves (to a sugarcane plantation owner) were in turn used to purchase more sugar.
Access to spices drove the colonization of Southeast Asia, which then allowed cheap spices to enter the markets of Europe. Their availability to the lower classes devalued spices in the cuisine of the wealthy, which led to a new emphasis on the natural flavors of food. Lobsters and salmon were formerly the food of the poor, until increasing scarcity turned them into delicacies for the rich.
An army marches on its stomach, according to Napoleon. The logistics of food can provide entertaining obstacles for PCs fighting in remote areas. Froissart’s Chronicles makes note of the Scots, who marched their food with them in the form of cattle. They baked bannock on griddle-stones heated on a fire, and slaughtered the cattle as they needed. The meat and organs would then be boiled in the raw hide of the cow, stretched over the flames. In this manner they avoided relying on a supply train, which afforded them more mobility than their English counterparts.
Food can even be used as a McGuffin as in the Norse myth of Loki and Idunn. In that myth Loki, after threats from the giant Thiazi, lures the goddess Idunn into a forest. Thiazi then abducts her while in the form of a great eagle, stealing her and the apples she carries - the apples of eternal youth. Denied the apples, the gods begin to age, and Loki has to hatch a plan to return Idunn to Asgard.
Check out my next column two weeks from now to read more about how one can use food in worldbuilding and setting creation.
Contributed by M.W. Simmes. See her previous worldbuilding article in this series here.
The potato itself would not have been as important to the Irish cottiers had they been allowed to own their own pasture land or sow other crops. Those two factors were driven by English corn laws and the policies of absentee landlords. Food was in fact still being exported from Ireland even in the worst of the Famine - beef, dairy products and grain among them. It was not the lack of food that had killed so many people, but rather its unaffordability due to such policies.
A great banquet and its many subtleties sets a very different scene from a supper of rough bread and pottage. Food can be used as a reward or payment (Seven Samurai), a plot device (the newts in Ethan of Athos) or a punishment (nutra-loaf). The price and origin of food can also make a large difference to a setting. The European hunger for sugar drove much of the triangle trade of the Atlantic in the 1800s. Profits from the sale of sugar were used to purchase trade goods, which were bartered for African slaves, and profits from the sale of those slaves (to a sugarcane plantation owner) were in turn used to purchase more sugar.
Access to spices drove the colonization of Southeast Asia, which then allowed cheap spices to enter the markets of Europe. Their availability to the lower classes devalued spices in the cuisine of the wealthy, which led to a new emphasis on the natural flavors of food. Lobsters and salmon were formerly the food of the poor, until increasing scarcity turned them into delicacies for the rich.
An army marches on its stomach, according to Napoleon. The logistics of food can provide entertaining obstacles for PCs fighting in remote areas. Froissart’s Chronicles makes note of the Scots, who marched their food with them in the form of cattle. They baked bannock on griddle-stones heated on a fire, and slaughtered the cattle as they needed. The meat and organs would then be boiled in the raw hide of the cow, stretched over the flames. In this manner they avoided relying on a supply train, which afforded them more mobility than their English counterparts.
Food can even be used as a McGuffin as in the Norse myth of Loki and Idunn. In that myth Loki, after threats from the giant Thiazi, lures the goddess Idunn into a forest. Thiazi then abducts her while in the form of a great eagle, stealing her and the apples she carries - the apples of eternal youth. Denied the apples, the gods begin to age, and Loki has to hatch a plan to return Idunn to Asgard.
Check out my next column two weeks from now to read more about how one can use food in worldbuilding and setting creation.
Contributed by M.W. Simmes. See her previous worldbuilding article in this series here.
