Smaldgian Food

This is an article about Smaldgian food.

You are probably a hunter-gatherer. If you are not, you are probably either pregnant, ill or a scrounge. You never store your food for more than a few days because food quickly becomes off or fermented in the equatorial climate at the most so you always make sure to only hunt and gather as much as can be eaten within the next day or two. You also never hunt or gather if you already have enough food from previous days. You do these things to make sure you do not damage the sacred forest. Most food you eat is available all year round. Meat from terrestrial animals makes up about a third of your diet, honey about 10%, fishing about 10% and plant food the rest.

Meals

Meals are eaten straight after food is brought back in the evening and prepared if any preparation need be done. You later eat some more after having games, dancing or stories. Breakfast is eaten from leftovers from the night before. You eat your food either outside or in your home. You'll probably eat it by the fire you cooked it on if you cooked your food. Mealtimes are far from set in stone though.

Preparation

Everyone, or else a fair number of the people, in a community has to be there before the food is shared out. You only cook your food if it is meat or a root vegetable. If you catch a large animal such as a crocodile or monitor, you will cook it in separate chunks by wrapping it in leaves and burying with hot coals. For eating human, you will boil it. For meat, the first part of preparation after it is cooked is that the person who killed the animal should drink some of its blood.

Table Manners

You make sure to use a spoon and bowl for liquid foods. Make sure the youngest person is served first because they are the most important. You should make sure to contribute to the conversation and not be quiet and don't talk so quietly that people can not hear you. Do not waste your food or play with it as this would make it seem that you do not enjoy the food or are ungrateful for it. Conversely, burping and farting are considered signs of your enjoyment and are thus encouraged. You usually get served first if you're a child or pregnant woman. Othewise it's on a first come, first served basis. You eat your food once you have been served it. It would ridiculous to try eating beforehand and it would be just wasteful to leave any of the food you take.

Narcotics

Narcotics such as pandanus leaves and magic mushrooms are allowed for anyone that wants some but people are always encouraged to use them responsibly. It is not considered anything wrong to give it to children than adults although children should use less. Narcotics are often used for spiritual means, such as to communicate with spirits or the dead.

Edibility and Quality

You wouldn't eat any dairy product as milk is for babies. You don't consider live human to be food. Unless it's part of a punishment. You don't consider horses or cows food either but that's just because you've never seen one. You do consider frogs, lizards, bats, snakes and sharks food though. You do consider arthropods or worms to be food but not good food - they're too dirty and wee. The only parts of bodies you usually do not eat are the bones, teeth and keratin. Bones are used for decoration or sometimes ritual instead. You would never eat anything fermented. Eggs are really tasty and usually eaten raw. Honey is also one of the most highly priced food items. It is considered always worth the risk of getting bitten (Smaldgians bees can not use their sting to defend themselves; they bite instead.) Fatty meat is tastier than that without lots of fat.

Fish and other seafood is usually not a major part of the diet, although it is more so on the coasts. This is partly because Smaldgians see themselves as part of the forest and protected by it so do not want to go outside it. Fish are a highly valued part of the diet though. On the coast, the most highly valued food is aquatic mammals. Bivalves, on the other hand, are only a last resort.

Hunting

You probably kill your own food, whether it lives in your back yard or if you have to go further to find it. If you knew what fast food referred to other than a difficult hunt, you'd puke. You wouldn't hunt or kill animals for any other reason other than for food or self-defence though. Because of the dense undergowth in the forest, you can neither hunt on your own nor from a distance by most methods and must employ techniques which require company. Before you go for a hunt, you come up with plans as to how you're going to hunt. Hunts usually last about 5 hours and are done on average every second day.

One method is of setting traps and coming back to them later. This method generally can not get the more highly valued large animals but it is reliable and contributes a significant amount to the diet. It is usually done more by the elderly and is the only method which can be always done alone.

For getting animals out of their burrows, you would use a burning branch to scare them out at 1 entrance and have another person waiting at others, making sure all the entrances were blocked off. In the case of there only being one entrance, a new entrance is made down which the branch is put.

You also use bows and arrows to hunt aquatic animals sometimes. You use spears to hunt most of the time though. The way you use them is to have a group of people scare the animals out from whereever they are and then another person is ready with the spear as soon as it is sight.

If you live by the sea, when you hunt for aquatic animals, you row out into the sea on a canoe made of strips of bark tied together at night and spear or shoot the animals once they can be seen.

Males generally hunt large animals whereas the women hunt wee animals. Hunting is considered more exciting than gathering and meat is considered to be the best food you can get.

Gathering

Young children usually help with the foraging. Unlike with gathering other foods, it is usually the males who gather honey. The most commonly gathered foods besides honey are fruit, nuts and mushrooms.

Firewood and Water

These are gathered by women, either with other women or their husband.