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Introduction
This chapter will be dedicated to the depiction and use of food within the context of both real and fantasy foods in a roughly medieval European setting. We will tackle this topic form two angles, the first will present food in a medieval historical, cultural and medical context. Our second context will be that of a narrative tool, more specificity to look at how fantasy literature uses food in order to describe build and contextualize their worlds.
The Medieval cookbook
We will star this chapter by examining the concept of medieval food form a series of different angles. Food is closely linked to the social and economical situation of the individuals that prepares and consumes it. (Towle, et al 2017)
Food and alchemy
The food of medieval Europe was closely tied to health and having a healthy life. The most prevalent theory of medicine at the time consisted of Hippocratic School of medicine, or the theory of the four humours. The idea that the body have four essential liquids, which is in turn tied to one of the four elements of western alchemy.
In order to keep a healthy body, one must make sure that their humours are properly balanced. One of the easiest, and most practical was to balance once humours was simply to eat a diet that contains al the needed humours. If one for example needed to have more phlegm, which is tied to water, one need to consume something related to waters two properties (wet and cold). One things that would work for this would be fish, as it comes from water (wet and cold), and as a result, has some of the elements of water, and as a result, the properties of phlegm.
Of Borth and Bread
Bread and porridge seems to have been a common staple of most British individuals living in the Medieval ages, regardless of social class. As noted before what the lower classes forced to sustain themselves on whichever foods that were the most readily available to them, so fish for example was mostly consumed near bodies of water where edible fish where found. This means that they were not able to follow the rules ranging the four humours as closely as those of higher social and economical classes.
The study performed by Leschziner et al (2011), seems to indicate that the medieval cooking more wildly combined different flavours throughout the meal. For example was sweet flavours not simply used as an end to the meal, but used equally as much as the other tastes. This was done party because the way meals were first and foremost created to make sure that the meal contained al the four elements needed to keep a harmonious balance of the four humours. Sugar is also believed to have been seen as another spice, and was as a result used as one. Sugar was also used as a preservative at the time. Medieval Europe also saw the split of pickling from other general cooking Leschziner (2011).
Class and food
As I have hinted at was, and is food very much tied to your class and status within a given community. What you ate was, even more then today tied to where and how you lived. Some studies, for example the study by Towle et al (2017), shows that the diets of many city dwellers were indeed rather diverse, and contained a lot of fruits and greens. Individuals in rural areas were mostly limited to eating whichever foods were produced and sold nearby, so seafood and fish was usually eaten amongst the coast or other bodies of water for example.
Fantasy food
There is no secret that many fantasy books are filled with talk of food. The sheer number of cookbooks, both official and unofficial attests to just how big of a part food plays in many fantasy narratives.
Food as narrative
Food used as a narrative device is by no means limited to fantasy narratives. A commonly brought up example is the Oranges in the Godfather. Every individual handed an orange in the film, is killed shortly after. In fantasy narratives on the other hand are food often used to create a sense of the world and how it functions. These is especially true in fantasy, where a lot of the setting is needed to be described and contextualized for the reader in order for them to understand the stakes and themes of the narrative. Food is an excellent way to tie the world in to a larger context, as well as to use it as a shorthand to compare it to other real life settings. The heathy and rural food of the Hobbits in the Lord of the rings series, draws clear ties to the English countryside. By introducing the eating habits of the Hobbits as comparable to that of the British countryside, especially during the 18th centenary, does the writer go a long way to tie the entire region and people of the hobbits to the British countryside as well, (if a rather picturesque and idyllic version of it).
Food as a exposition device
Food can be used to explain how certain aspect of the world works. An easy example would be the Lembas bread. These magical breads are able to sustain oneself for weeks. This dry bread can keep an individual not only alive, but also healthy for long periods of time. Food, especially in relation to magical and mystical topics, can help ground otherwise abstract subjects in more mundane terms. The preparation and serving of food (see, the cooking tools, producers and types of storing), can also be a good indicator and pointer on the overall state of technology in the setting of the narrative, as well as the characters relationship to said technology.
Food and social class
As described earlier in the text, is food, especially in medieval settings, very much tied in to the class of the individuals consuming it. The ice and Fire series uses food to a great extent to show the differences between the squallier of the peasantry and the opulence and grandeur that the noble houses live in. Food is also a good indicator of the different cultures and traditions present in the narrative.
The abundance of food in Hogwarts, where Harry feel safe and welcomed is put in to stark contrast to the near starvation he faces at the hands of the oppressive and cruel Dudley’s. The examples of this trope are to numerous to list, but needless to say, there is no accident that food has been used within fiction, fantasy and otherwise, to show the wealth and statue (or lack there of), of characters within fiction.
Conclusions
Food plays a large part of human identity, real as well as fictional. you can learn a lot about a culture from what they do and do not eat. In this text I have tied to show how you can understand both fictional and real cultures partly tough their food. As always are these chapters simply meant as an introduction to these topics, and I have provided a series of further reading in the sources.
Sources
JURAJ DOBRILA UNIVERSITY OF PULA DEPARTMENT OF HUMANITIES SUB DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
https://dcplive.dekalblibrary.org/2011/05/20/food-in-fantasy-literature/ https://www.tor.com/2019/03/14/the-fantastical-food-of-fantasy-fiction/
Dietary and behavioural inferences from dental pathology and non-masticatory wea Towle, Ian & Davenport, Carole & Irish, Joel & De Groote, Isabelle. (2017). Dietary and behavioral inferences from dental pathology and non-masticatory wear on dentitions from a British medieval town. 10.1101/222091.
Leschziner, Vanina & Dakin, Andrew. (2011). Theorizing Cuisine from Medieval to Modern Times: Cognitive Structures, the Biology of Taste, and Culinary Conventions.
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An Unused Frequency 
