Worldbuilding is about making places and people! Whether you worldbuild to write, for an RPG, or just for fun, welcome!
Food in world building
Worldbuilding: Food For The People
We all need food to live. Even in fiction, food plays a part in most stories, whether it is a simple supper at a boarding house or a grand wedding or coronation feast. In fantasy settings, most of the time it doesn't matter where the food comes from or how it was prepared.
I come across this article as I am figuring the local cuisine that one character may serve in a restaurant in a fantasy city I'm playing with. It's actually of interest to me because I have finished The Language of Food: A Linguist Reads the Menu and The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World and both are very interesting read about how we historically select certain traits in our food/pants we grow and how the food we eat are interconnected. For example, I have never realized ketchup originated from salted fish from South China and how apple spread from Central Asia to American West. I feel that that kind of details and connection will make my worldbuilding more substaintial and interesting?
So what's the role of food in your worlds? How do you design and the local food and any experience/tip/resources/thoughts etc. to share?




Yeah! All food has a story to tell. I would be curious to know the following in a world build:
These are all very inspiring questions to ask! I will use them when designing diets for people in my world.
Related, here's an interesting article on sci-fi and food I read awhile ago: Food of the future
It's really interesting and super useful for me because I love to dabble. Scifi. Thanks for your link!
All food is communal. Even in restaurants it's not uncommon for a stranger to ask to sit with you and share your meal. Foreigners find this part strange, but refusal to share is not the basis for offense. Celebrations and parties are catered by everyone in attendance, and it's not rude to come empty-handed and still ask for a share. Usually. Some people will get snippy. The world was settled first by dragons and elves, then humans came later, so they adapted, and adopted the previous culture's habits. In the big city, there's their equivalent of food trucks, called food closets, literally small kitchens with a window to the street, and a set menu. Typically open for lunch, and after dinner these can provide quick meals representing the different regions of the country. Why not carts? The streets are too narrow for foot traffic and carts! Trust me, they've tried.
This sounds really interesting! Will weddings / celebrations be very costly and can everyone afford them??
Not typically, but it depends on the class of the couple, of course the more affluent equates to a more expensive celebration. If someone can't afford something, others will lend a hand.
This is nice.
Very interesting, it makes me wonder what set of circumstances initiated this communal attitude towards both food as a resource and the eating of a meal as a social activity. I would expect food to be plentiful, perhaps a very productive farming culture, otherwise an all-pervasive attitude of sharing food resources would seem out of place if food were hard to come by. As for sharing your meal, even with stranger, perhaps this is a side effect of the food they eat? Maybe the idea of individual portions arranged around a table is foreign to them? Maybe instead, they use a buffet style of food presentation, or maybe all their dishes are served in a large bowl in the centre of the table? Either way, I wouldn't expect each person to use single portion servings of food as this encourages a personal ownership perspective towards food. Does this communal attitude extend beyond food?
(This might be all over the place. Forgive me, I'm on my phone)
The nation is mostly a vast plain, fed by rivers from the mountains on the northern and western borders. This allowed agriculture to advance rapidly. Farming was never a solo activity, everyone helped. Life itself wasn't a solo ordeal. Those who are close to you but aren't directly related are "auntie" and "uncle."
I should add that in this world, dragons came first, so this communal nature is inherently theirs.
Culture spread from the plain to the fringes, and while it expanded, this communal idea followed. When humans invaded, they didn't overrun the draconic culture, they assimilated to it, adopting most of their societal norms. Humans language, Biwoket, and purely draconian //baveta blended to Yaktonven, the de fecto interspecies language. (The // is a throaty growl that has no other way to be expressed.) Humans adopted and blended the pantheon, and all deities appear as dragons and humans. In the more rural towns, the different cults share a space in the form of a large shared temple.
As for portions, and servings, in homes tables are set buffet style, if space allows. The eldest take their share followed by the youngest, then the rest. In restaurants dishes are served at the center of the table.
Despite this happy communalism (my phone corrected that to "cannibalism" lol) relations between the species are anything but easy.
(I might do a write-up on this little world I've constructed.)
This all sounds really fascinating!!
Also fun to work with: what foods are scarce in different parts of your world, and how do people deal with that?
I recall once having two characters, both foreigners to the primary setting of the story (a fairly backwater country), discussing what they missed about "civilization" -- a conversation that inevitably comes around to food.
"Potatoes." "You're joking." "No, really, potatoes." "Lady, if I never had to look another boiled potato in the face again --" "Boiled? Who boils potatoes? No wonder you don't like them; you might as well eat them raw."
Oh those sound like fascinating books! And that's a great article - covers a lot of ground in swift overview, leaving the reader with a whole bunch of points to jump from.
Thanks!