Food, glorious food

’Tis the season to be crazy and crazy was in plentiful supply here over the holidays… all the schedules, all the food preferences, make meals this time of year challenging. It ends with the new year, which at least is a simple menu: we eat a collection of ‘good luck’ foods from all over. Greens, cabbage, pork roast, black eyed peas, as well as different sweets in hopes it’s a sweet year.

A topic near and dear to my heart, food came under close consideration when I started creating the Justiciar’s Redemption world. And given the setting, it was one that was going to cause a lot of difficulties.

Within the world I was creating, the enclaves- the high-tech areas where the wealthy live — are restricted in size, meaning that food had to be cultivated Outside; a dangerous place, full of monsters, Ridden, spirits, and desperate people. Initially, intensive agriculture techniques were used, such as hydroponics and rooftop gardening. This worked for a few years, but after several spirits allied with the Ridden (possessed enemies of the Union, a post apocalypse government covering the majority of what was once the US, Mexico and Canada) and animated those plants. A combination of magic, rapid growth and the plants themselves attacking led to destroyed buildings and dead people. Once the threat was contained by battlemages, an elite group of combat hardened mages using their magic and high technology, the decision was made to limit plants to only a few parks protected behind stringent wards.

To explain more concisely, the world of the series is a very different one from the one we know. As climate changes forced warming on what was the vast plains of Canada and North America heavy cultivation of crops, such as wheat and corn, as well as a variety of ranches, moved into those northern regions. Further south, south, the more variable weather makes crop choice a gamble. In some years there is no frost, in others the entire crop can be lost with late season cold snap. Successful farmers in this region don’t take those gambles, with so few choices they can control.

In the torrid zone, the opposite problem — too much heat- blights crops in many areas and makes animal husbandry without technological intervention difficult.

So, the enclaves chose to send ‘volunteers’ (coincidentally, lower income or persons with a criminal record) Outside- with small grants- to cultivate the necessary food. It’s a system you might recognize, one the United States had used in earlier centuries. This helps to control excess population and gives economic incentive to risk growing food in the farther areas, rather than forlornly clustering just outside the enclave.

The downside to the spread of agriculture, however, is difficulty in transportation over long distances. Mysterious creatures called the alvar, speculated to be spirits of the air, are territorial and smack long distance flights out of the sky for fun. The Road, another transport mechanism, permits nothing more sophisticated than a wheelbarrow to transport items. Why it permits guns is anyone’s guess.

As a result, the market for out-of-season food or exotic foods is exclusive and expensive. Gourmet foods now include most fruits and soft vegetables. Technology has improved greatly but isn’t available to all citizens. And seafood away from the coasts or a river? That’s a luxury food with an added tinge of danger. Due to a magitech virus released into the wild Many fish have gained size and more intelligence. Ocean-going vessels need impressive weaponry to deal with the really big pelagic species, and even close to shore, in shallow waters or rivers, small boats usually mount defensive measures just in case.

The food in the enclave of Capitol is from all over the world, since it’s the luxury market of the Union.

Most of those offerings would be unfamiliar to a person who’d lived their life Outside. Further north, agriculture is careful cultivation of high yield crops- beans, quinoa (in higher elevation areas or cooler areas), and potatoes; as well as chickens and the occasional pig. Fruit and nut orchards are kept as well; while acquainted with apples, pears and cherries, a person north of the torrid zone has likely only tasted oranges a few times. Honey is the usual sweetener, even though beets are grown for sugar it’s an uncommon treat.

In the south, less heat-sensitive plants are cultivated. Many have been genetically modified to tolerate higher heat; tomatoes, sweet potatoes and eggplants are diet staples.

Corn and wheat are grown communally where there’s appropriate soil and climate, as well as rice near the coasts.

In a good year, the meals Outside over the holidays will make use of luxuries such as sugar, eggs, and wheat flour to celebrate the coming of a new year.

In Capitol, more extravagant foods are eaten in celebration. Salmon, tuna, beef, tropical fruits — all rare items and eaten partly as a demonstration of status and power. Of them all, chocolate is the rarest.

Cacao plants aren’t grown in the Union; spirits guard them in the Dominion, the empire that sprang up and covers the entirety of South America. The beans are a high value trade item; rumor has it that the spirits guarding the wild cacao plants are kindlier and will take offerings that aren’t blood or bone (normally human) in exchange for their beans.

So that’s holiday food in that world.

All hopes for a great new year for everyone!