You have to have a balance, though. If you have too much description, it can bog down your story, which is why I think description of food in certain areas is better than across the board.

Yeah, that is definitely true, you wanna focus on the story at hand and the things that are most important to the moment...and besides not everyone cares about how a fantasy version of tapioca pudding was invented anyway.

*laughs * That is true. We must pick and choose the important things.

Aubrey, I suspect (based on the principle that you're designing from Germanic-language roots) that even if the grains weren't quite the same, they'd still call it "corn", or whatever the German for that is. The question is, what (plants and/or knowledge of how to use them for food) would and wouldn't have made it through the Great Darkness? I expect any crops then ripening, and possibly even many trees, would have died---but then once light returned any seeds that hadn't been eaten in the cold darkness should still work as seeds, so long as they didn't get too cold.

In my own writing (while I haven't thought much about this) it'd be most reasonable for the food to mostly be as it is here, since the continents on which most stories are mostly set were originally settled by people from our world, many quite probably bringing seed corn and whatnot with them ... (Which gives me an idea for a story ... but that's way off topic for this thread ) There wouldn't be much different in the preparation than you'd find somewhere in our world, since one of the principles of my "applied metaphysics" is that the "mundane" way is usually cheaper or otherwise better. (The one obvious exception is that, until the necessary industry for modern refrigeration developed, they'd use applied metaphysics to keep food safe and fresh when they could.)

In re real-world "equivalents": If your work becomes sufficiently popular (may God provide!), and involves food notably, you may be asked to provide recipes. I know of two examples of this (though neither is a Christian author): I've read a collection of maps and other worldbuilding data about Anne McCaffrey's Pern (The Dragon-lover's Guide to Pern I think was the title), which included a couple of recipes, including one for "klah", their stimulant beverage brewed from the bark of a Pernese tree (I think the "recipe" included tea, coffee, and chocolate, but I'm not sure). And there's a story in Patricia Wrede's anthology Book of Enchantments about "The Frying Pan of Doom" that includes a cooking contest and, in passing, a description of the winning entry, a barbarian's "After-Battle Triple Chocolate Cake". And then in an author's note she says that immediately after reading the story, her editor called her to demand the recipe, so she created it and it's printed (in the barbarian's "original measurements and instructions" plus a "translation for modern kitchens") in the anthology after the story. (It's become a perennial favorite in our house.)

kingjon, I'm impressed and honored that you remembered all those details about my world. Those are excellent points which I hadn't considered. I will have to mull over that and mash it together with my other world-building and see how that changes things.

It's worth noting, in regards to your mention of the German language, that the only food I've invented so far comes from another culture and therefore has a name loosely sourced from French.

Right now my naming system for the Volk (such as it is) dictates that if an object is the same as it is in our world, it has the English name. If it's an invented object, they use a German word. So, if I stick with that system, if I have corn in its "original" form, it will be called corn. If I alter or invent a grain, they would use the German word for the closest equivalent.

I think my point was (at least partly) that "corn" has historically just been the word for "our primary grain"---in Europe it's wheat, in the English-speaking New World it's maize, and the word in the Bible translated as "corn" might (I speculate) have been (at least sometimes) referring to yet a different grain---so whatever grain it actually is, the word would likely be "corn" anyway.

*nods* I agree, and that's a very good point. Personally, for clarity, I don't want to call it "corn" if it's not, unless I plan to explain that it's not. Otherwise anyone who reads the word will automatically assume it's "corn" as we know it.

Thus the other suggestion , the equivalent German(ic). A quick look at Google Translate shows that there's a German word "korn"; spelling it that way would reveal the difference.

As far as I know (Since my Dad's a farmer), corn is its own individual plant family with different variations.

Maize is a type of corn.

I haven't thought much about this, but I have a drink called mulla which is sort of a tea/wine/cider cross.

In Europe, "corn" generally means what we call "wheat"---with lots and lots of different varieties with their own names, such as einkorn and spelt. (There was a Smithsonian article on wheat last year, and I've been doing some research on my own for the strategy game I'm designing.) The "corn" we Americans know is maize, which has its own family with lots of different varieties. But "corn", in compounds, just means "cereal grain" i.e. "kernel"---there's a folk song about "the little barley-corn", for example.

I haven't refined the recipe yet, but stuffed snake is a common and popular dish.

A large snake is skinned and gutted. It can be stuffed with vegetables, grains or meat similar to our Thanksgiving turkeys. It is then cooked in an oven or put in a leather bag and buried in the embers of the fire. Because of the many ribs, it is best to rake the meat off the bones with a fork, but since Lamar has no forks yet, most people use a very thin skewer.

Wow, that's pretty cool! Like stuffing turkey, but way cooler!

Sounds tasty. It would probably take a fairly large snake, though...

Reasonably large, yes.

I envisioned it being about a foot in diameter...then you can fit lots of stuff in it!...but how big were you thinking of it as, Lady Kitra, creator of this amazing idea?

Well, I'm not sure how much elasticity a snake maintains after death, but it could be stuffed really very full, beyond it's original size by a great deal I should think. I was thinking of a reasonably sized rattlesnake but that would only feed about two people so there would have to be several. A proper python would be about 6 or 8 inches in diameter and several feet long. That would be enough for a good amount of people. It could be any tasty snake though, really.

Cool! Yeah...sometimes I get carried away with the "bigger is better" concept...

I invented a plant that has rectangular berries of a ruby-red color, and they grow on a small bush with yellowish leaves. Koon eats them, and although tart, I suppose they're used (if commercially grown) for jams or jellies...

That sounds right, for size.


Rectangular berries are unique.

Those sound interesting...I like their shape!