imaginary food

[truepenny]

Talk to me about food in fantasy. (And science fiction, if you like.)

Readers, what kinds of details do you like to see? What makes a culture's eating habits come alive for you?

Writers (oh, please, writers, you're my only hope), how do you go about inventing cuisines and delicacies and what the street vendors sell? Especially when you are not relying on the old trick of, "I'll make this culture !Japan or !India or !France." How do you figure out what people eat?

Comments

[heresluck]

I'm always curious about things like the major meal of the day (when is it?), what people have for breakfast, beverages, treats (sweets and pastries), comfort foods, and how social status affects food (both the types of food and the distribution of labor around acquiring and preparing it). I'm also interested in regional and family variations on particular foods. Oh, and how food intersects with work: if someone has to pack a midday meal, what's that involve? or is food provided on the job, brought out from the house, etc?.

Speaking not as a writer but as a foodie... There are certain types of food that are common to most cultures (dumplings, flatbreads or quickbreads, soups) that are fascinating to compare precisely because within those basic parameters there are so many variations that tell us something about the basic flavor combinations and key ingredients, not to mention the things a particular region typically adds to meat in order to stretch small amounts to feed more people. Street food is always stuff that can be eaten with fingers alone and that's portable, either because it's a self-contained package (hot dog, frybread) or can be easily contained in some sort of cup and eaten piece by piece (spiced nuts).

One thing that might be worth thinking about is how a culture preserves food; there are relatively few ways of doing this -- cold storage (including root cellars), dehydration, smoke, salt, spices -- and the appropriate methods depend on which preservation techniques are locally feasible, what kinds of conditions one is trying to protect the food from (climates have different requirements depending on whether they're hot or cold, dry or wet), and of course the extent to which preservation is necessary (in climates where things can be harvested year-round, preservation is less important than in an area with winters like, oh, say, Wisconsin). How and to what extent do meals change seasonally?

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Yes to seasonality! Wishing for e.g. strawberries or asparagus in December, or lamenting that the root veg are getting all flabby towards the end of the winter. Or eating fabulously out-of-season dishes as a marker of wealth.