Welcome to Food World Building Part 3: Herb Lore and Spice Wars

What would my kitchen be without my herbs and spices?

A pretty bland kitchen.

I love using a lot of flavor in my food. Cumin, cinnamon, oregano, basil, rosemary, cayenne, and paprika are all ingredients I swear by. If I could, I'd put cinnamon in everything.

Spices bring out so much in food and are beneficial to living a healthy life. For example, cinnamon has been shown to help with diabetes and ginger helps with stomach aches. Before the advent of modern medicine, a lot of people had gardens where they grew herbs for cooking and medicinal uses.

The difference between herbs and spices are which parts of the plant they come from. Herbs are the leaves, while spices come from the non-leaf parts. A plant can produce herbs and spices, though under different names such as coriander (spice) and cilantro (herb).

Many religions use herbs and spices in ceremonies and ritual practices. Frankincense and myrrh hold special meaning for Christians as they were two  of the three gifts given to Jesus by the Three Kings. Wiccans and those who practice witchcraft use them in their rituals and ceremonies.

Picking up what you need isn't too hard. Most stores have an entire section dedicated to fresh and dried seasonings, some have oil extracts sections, and it's pretty easy to pick up a tea mix. With so much variety and availability, it can be easy to forget that a lot of these herbs and spices weren't always readily available.

The ancient trade highway, The Silk Road, was famous for it's spice trade. Connecting China with Southern Europe, The Silk Road was the only route available for hundred of years for trading in spices and luxury goods. Whoever controlled the road could gain incredible wealth. Today, along the road, there are ruins of the ancient outposts that would protect the traders from bandits and raiders on their journey.

But some weren't satisfied with the slow over land trade routes. For those who lived at one extreme end of the other of The Silk Road and other major trade routes, the demand and, by extension, the prices for exotic spices skyrocketed.

And it help fuel European exploration and imperialism was an interest in obtaining spices. Between the 15th and 17th century, Europeans sought to create and control their own spice trade routes, particularly in India and China. Competition was fierce and hostile take overs of local governments common.

Seasonings are an integral part of human history. Yet, today, herbs and spices are so easy to come by, that it feels like we don't always think about them the same way our ancestors did. Exploration, medicine, and culinary advancements can all be attributed to their existence.

I find that small details, like what kind of herbs and spices are being used, can make or break a fantasy or historical fiction media. Just because seasonings are easy to obtain now, doesn't mean that it would have been on hand 500 years ago. I think that a fantasy setting can seem more believable, yet still otherworldly, if it is established how trade is used in the world building. Often times, I am disappointed to see that these small details are left out entirely.

Incorporating the use of herbs and spices into stories shouldn't be left to the works of fantasy and historical fiction. Science Fiction has a whole spectrum of possibilities for how we might treat them in the future. Imagine what kinds of spices we might find on an alien world, or how explorers might find that they are missing herbal teas from their home world. Will replicators, like those seen in Star Trek,  be able to capture the culinary qualities of seasonings as well as the medicinal? Will new trade wars happen for exotic spices from galaxies far far away?

For more information for hallucinogenic and trans-dimensional properties and trade of spice in Science Fiction please read or watch Dune.

In all seriousness, I can't write about the human relationship with food without bringing up our relationship with herbs and spices. It's amazing how much of an impact on human history these staple kitchen ingredients.

Until next week.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Welcome to Food World Building Part 2: Of Humans and Plants

Happy Earth Day!

Spring seems to have finally shown up in my area. Trees are in bloom, robins are bouncing about, and hikers are soaking up the sun. We’ve had such weird weather lately that the plants around here don’t seem to know what to do.

Pick a season!

It does worry me though. March and April are usually the first months to start planting crops. The odd weather could cause problems for the growing season in my area.

Thankfully, my area isn’t completely dependent on the local farmers (though I highly recommend you support your local farmer). We’re able to import food from all over the world. I can get cheese from New Zealand, avocados from Mexico, and tea from India.

Crop failure is still something that can happen. The many people during the Great Depression of the 1930s were hit even harder when a dust bowl struck the main area of the United States where wheat is grown. A lot of people had to relocate because they could no longer feed themselves nor their families.

There are many reasons crops might fail. Locust swarms, volcanic eruptions, wild fires, droughts, floods, and erosion can all contribute to the loss of food sources. Many ancient civilizations built their culture around agriculture and blamed angry gods for the natural disasters that could destroy their crops. Demeter, Freyr, and Xipe Totec are examples of gods and goddesses who presided over agriculture or relate to the changing seasons.

Today, crop failure isn’t as likely as it once was in the United States, but that doesn’t mean that natural disasters and climate change don’t still pose a threat, though they aren’t caused by angry gods. There are still places where crop failure does happen and to devistating effects on the people in the area. Scientists have worked tirelessly to monitor these places that are most affected by disasters and climate change. Pesticides and even modifying plant genetics have been used to help prevent loss of crops.

Genetically modifying our food isn’t exactly a new practice.

When I was still in college, I took a class on agriculture and how it has evolved over time. There was an entire section on how humans have been selectively modifying our food science the beginning of agricultural practice. Evidence suggests that tomato plants were once very tiny, about the size of peas, but because humans liked having larger fruit to eat, evolved to become much larger. Corn has a green husk wrapped around its seeds. This doesn’t really benefit the plant as it needs the wind to spread the seeds to create the next generation, but it does benefit humans trying to keep birds and insects away from a staple food source.

This isn’t to say that I necessary agree with all modern practices surrounding genetically modified food. There’s a lot of controversy that I don’t want to get into, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing if scientists are able to help create a nutritious sweet potato that also doesn’t require a lot of water to grow, especially in areas prone to droughts. But the belief that the food we eat has always looked or tasted the way we think it does today, isn’t accurate.

Humans learned to cultivate plants through trial and error. Some plants that were once poisonous to us, such as almonds and apples, have become edible. We figured out how to irrigate crops even if it doesn’t rain everyday.

Apples were a later addition to the human diet.

So, if you are doing some world building in fantasy, science fiction, or historical fiction, don’t forget to include some information about the plant life. Which crops are staples of the culture’s diet? It’s usually some type of grain or starch like rice, wheat, corn, or potatoes. Are there any plants people have superstitions about? Does the culture have a god or goddess they worship specifically for agriculture or the changing seasons? Was there once a great disaster that caused major crop failure and led to a mass migration?

It might not seem that important, but small touches like that can really bring a fictional world to life. After all, much of human civilization centers around agriculture and our relationship with the plants that we eat. It’s fascinating how much we rely on plants for our society to function.

I hope you all were able to go outside and spend some time in nature today. Earth Day helps me remember that I’m thankful for the planet we live on and the wonders I find here. Please go out if you can and enjoy what our world has to offer.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off), please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope y’all like hearing from me.

Until next week.

Welcome to Food World Building Part 1: An Introduction

When I started writing this, I honestly thought that it would be one post. Then it started to get longer and longer. I quickly realized there were a lot more topics I wanted to talk about and things I wanted to expand on. So, here's to my latest blog series, food.

I haven't recently talked about food on this blog. Probably because I have another blog where I can talk endlessly about my latest kitchen experiment (click here to see Cooking with Spirits - updates Mondays at 13:00).

Crock pots for the win!

We all have some type of relationship with food. The act of eating give us the energy we need to live. Food gives us the nutrients to live healthy lives. The kinds of foods we eat often help to identify our cultural background. Experimenting with different recipes shows our creative and adventurous side (especially if it involves whatever I find at the back of my pantry).

Food has a big social impact on our lives. It's recommended that families sit down and eat dinner together to help with child development. Friends go out for lunch to catch up with each other. A romantic date likely starts off with a fancy dinner. Parents pass down family recipes to their children.

There are entire industries built around food. There are dozens of cooking shows and at least two networks I know of in the US that are totally dedicated to food. Celebrity chiefs have created empires around their cooking. There are travel shows dedicated to showing off a new city or country's best places or most unusual places to find a bite to eat.

Many communities have distinct foods that they identify with.

Roasted marshmallows - a summer time staple

The United States has a lot of these subcultures entirely based around food, occasionally leading to food wars. New Jersey, New York, and Chicago all claim to have the best pizza. The city of Chicago once sent the comedian Jon Stewart a Chicago Deep Dish Pizza after he insulted it on his show to prove that their pizza was truly the best. The southern part of the United States will never agree on who has the best BBQ. An argument that I won't touch with a ten foot pole (but I'm partial to Eastern North Carolina's style). And Old Bay seasoning and blue crabs is probably it's own food group in Maryland.

Food is also how we connect with cultural heritage. In many cities in the US you'll find a Little Italy, Chinatown, or Latin Quarter. These neighborhoods were where newly arrived immigrants from one country could live and be close to other people who were from the same country. People brought their favorite foods with them and would open restaurants.

I grew up eating a lot of different types of food. Between my family and my friends' parents, there were tons of home cooked dishes I got to try from many different cultures. I had friends whose mother's cook make samosas from scratch. I grew up eating a lot of traditional Japanese and Guyanese food (that I rarely find in restaurants). And I swear that nothing beats my mom's goulash or her homemade humus and tabbouleh.

One of the strangest back handed compliments I ever received was that I grew up eating "a lot of weird food". The person I was with claimed to have grown up eating "normal food"- whatever that means. Needless to say that relationship didn't last. As far as I'm concerned, there's no such thing as "normal food". There's just food.

So it stands to reason that with food being such an important part of everyone's culture, it would be easy to write about. Right?

Well, sort of. Much like portraying food visually is an art (one that usually involves a lot of fake food), writing about food can be equally challenging. There are only so many times I can write the word delicious in my blog and not think I'm just being overly dramatic about my own cooking.

There's an entire vocabulary around food, one that is as vast and rich as any delicacy.

Not only does a writer have to think about the vocabulary, but the culture surrounding that food. What kind of food does a dessert community have that would be very different than a community on a tropical island? What goes into preserving food when there isn't a fridge to be found? There's a lot of research that needs to go into writing about food.

As this introduction has concluded: FOOD IS IMPORTANT.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Welcome to Creative Burn Out

I've been staring at this blank page for about ten minutes. Ten minutes of me trying to figure out what I want to write in this week's blog. As I write these words, I still haven't decided what my topic is. The title is blank. My mind is blank.

At least there are now words on the page.

Writing when I'm creatively drained is a nightmare. I have so many stories and ideas buzzing around my head, yet when I sit down to put words on the page, there's nothing.

It's frustrating.

How do muggles banish dementors?

I want to write. I want to create. But there's this terrible disconnect between my imagination and reality.

There's also a bit of fear. I'm scared that instead of expressing myself in a constructive way, I'm just ranting or whining. My blog is a public space and anyone can read it. It can reflect who I am as a person.

Writing is hard.

Occasionally I'll throw random words on a page and try to connect them, like playing with those fridge magnets to form silly sentences. But that doesn't mean what I've written is any good. I've created lots of "crap" over the years.

Last week, I wrote about the art of failure and how I'm scared to fail. A few weeks before that, I wrote about my love of destruction and how it can lead to creation. One post was a lot better than the other and I wish I could replicate that success 100% of the time.

But if I've learned from my art, some things can't be recreated.

Except I can't. Even as I write this post, I've come to realize that I don't know what I want to say. So far these words feel more like a stream of consciousness than one of my actual blog posts (at least I'm not including every thought that's crossing my mind, that would be really annoying).

I've been struggling to find inspiration. I've worked on my melted crayon and acrylic paintings. I've written a poem for each day so far in April. I've gone hiking and worked out at the gym.

Maybe I'm burnt out.

Creative burn out isn't something I've ever really dealt with before. It usually comes so naturally to me. It's a great distraction from all the other stress I'm under.

Except now it's not.

Until next week...if I'm not still burnt out.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off), please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Welcome to the Art of Failure

Failure is scary.

Failure is bad.

Failure is not an option.

All things I have said to myself, but not everyone has that attitude towards failure.

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." - Thomas Edison

I have a fear of failure. I fear feeling like a failure. I fear seeing my failure. I fear not living up to my potential.

Our society has a love-hate relationship with failure. I have a love-hate relationship with failure.

On the one hand, I remember growing up in schools that emphasized the importance of excellence and achievement. Failing meant that I were falling behind, my grade point average was going to suffer, and I wasn't meeting expectations. I felt a lot of shame if I thought I was failing.

On the other, failure meant I found a way that didn't work or that I needed help or a new way of looking at a problem. Failure teaches acceptance and is a great motivator to try again. Learning how to handle failure at an early age helped with emotional maturity later in life.

Thomas Edison still failed 10,000 times while inventing the light bulb. He's just really good at dressing up that failure with different words that don't sound as negative.

I've been trying to sell my short stories and poetry lately. I haven't sold any yet and at times all of the rejections can get discouraging, but I keep trying. I want other people to enjoy reading what I write as much as I enjoy writing it.

But is success selling my work? Or is the act of writing success itself?

I don't know.

Measuring success now isn't the same as measuring success in school. Things are a lot more subjective and answers aren't necessarily right or wrong. I might have succeeded in one area and still feel like a failure in another.

I'm scared to fail, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't keep trying new things.

Short poem and art work...

This month I am challenging myself to write and post (on Twitter and/or Instagram) a poem each day in the month of April. For those of you who don't know, April is National Poetry Month. It's a personal challenge that doesn't cost me anything. The poems might not be the best or the most polished, but that's not the point.

And if I fail to write a poem for social media daily, oh well. I'll just have to try again next year.

If you enjoyed this post (or if it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me. Until next week!