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WriteOn! What's For Lunch? [1]

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Date: 2022-08-18

We all need to do it, usually multiple times a day. I’m talking about food and drink. Maybe you mention it in your writing. Maybe you have characters converse over a meal or drinks but never say what they ate. Maybe cooking or eating is a big part of characterization, like Nero Wolfe’s gourmet tastes, or the herb and catering business in another mystery series. (Actually I’ve read several with such themes) It can be something that makes a protag look humorous, as when detective Elijah Bailey was introduced to “pachinkas” in The Naked Sun. (some sort of crisp filled pancake treat, he got it all over him)

But food is a very important part of culture, as any immigrant will tell you, or fans who argue endlessly about the relative merits of different pizza parlors, cheesesteak restaurants, or dim sum eateries. It can be a stumbling block for an outsider or a wonderful revelation. It can play a part in the conversation or action .

(I don’t know what half that stuff is. Because it’s imaginary.)

If you are making up a culture, its customs surrounding food and dining together will be a significant part of its uniqueness.

Fingers, forks, chopsticks? Do people carry around their own utensils and mugs or does the host supply them?

In Ethiopia, the various stews offered at a meal are ladled onto a large piece of injera that covers the whole table, and diners tear off small pieces from a pile of smaller injera (teff flatbread) to pick up bites, finishing the meal by eating the “tablecloth” which has soaked up all the flavorful juices. There’s a joke about an Anglo visitor thinking the folded small injera were napkins, and putting one on his lap.

naan is also good for scooping stuff

Elsewhere, small balls of corn mush or sticky rice are molded into scoops for conveying bites to the mouth. Sandwiches were invented to be eaten neatly by hand, not requiring plates or utensils (and no, the Earl of Sandwich was not the first inventor. I’ve got a medieval Middle Eastern recipe for a pressed sandwich.) Taco shells serve much the same purpose. Burritos, pupusas, empanadas, tamales, pasties; wrapped in a breadstuff makes a satisfying and portable meal. Stuff on skewers is handy too.

How is food acquired, foraged, hunted, sold, grown? What does it cost? Are there street vendors of cooked foods, and what types? What if your characters have to live off the land in the wild, what is available?

Carnivorous, vegetarian, vegan, macrobiotic? Are there taboos characters need to be aware of? (Poor Tevye came into What’s For Dinner when the topic was whole hog roasting. With pictures. He joked about vegetarian quietly backing away, closing the door and running screaming down the street.) Are there family or cultural tensions over such choices? (Witness a small handful of Cracker Barrel customers losing their alleged minds because the restaurant now offers a meatless choice among their sausages. Guys, seriously?)

Is there enough for all? A frequent trope in futuristic sci-fi is the masses eating yeast products in order for there to be at least a subsistence diet for all. We may yet come to that, with climate chaos ruining our crops aboveground. But we have a lot of spaces that could be turned to indoor urban farming and aquaculture if we put our minds to it. What sort of ingenuity might your fictional culture come up with in tough times or locations?

Challenge: Depict your characters at a meal, anywhere. Give us a feel for the food culture of their location. No word limit.

Write On! will be a regular Thursday night diary (8 pm Eastern, 5 pm Pacific) until it isn’t. Before signing a contract with any agent or publisher, please be sure to check them out on Preditors and Editors, Absolute Write and/or Writer Beware.

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