Porridge and water (food in fantasy books)

I grew up on porridge with water.

It's how my mum made it, and how she taught me how to make it. At some point, I went to half milk and half water after watching someone at uni make theirs, but that was me rebelling.

Years later, when my dad came to visit me in Australia, I watched him make himself porridge with full milk and asked about it. The little child in me felt a little like I lost out.

He was surprised I didn't make porridge the same way of him. He'd always made it like this, apparently. I said never. Mum always made us use water. And how funny that he hadn't known.

Surprising how that happens in the same house.

Anyway, I've since made my porridge with 100% soy milk. And now it tastes like luxury.

But how does porridge link to fantasy books?

In my current WIP, which I'm calling The Seven Deaths of the Heather Bride (for now, what do you think of the title?), the MC lives in a slightly fantasy version of pre-historic Scottish highlands.

Core food? Porridge. Made with water.

And recently I had to make my porridge with water again, because we'd run out of soy milk a day before our weekly shop and I wasn't going to run out just for that. I'd survived childhood on water-only porridge, I could survive a day now.

I put a teeny bit of salt in, as is traditional, and put honey on top because I'm a princess who needs that if she's eating porridge with water again. A luxury, though they would have had that back in ancient Scotland sometimes to sweeten it back then too.

They'd also have put it with a drop of fresh milk or cream after making, to pair with the porridge. Which I also did sometimes as a child. Traditionally, they'd also have added ground herbs, like meadowsweet, which is my new MC Sorcha's favourite. Recently, I've been adding ground wattleseed to mine, as an exploration of indigenous Australian native foods, and it's delicious.

So there I was, eating my porridge a little more aligned with my main character. And I feel like food is one of the best ways to be able to relate to fantasy characters and to be fully able to immerse into the world of the book.

It's fun to read what a character likes to eat, or what they suffer to eat, and then to think about how you would be in that situation. It also helps you to try new foods you've never tried before (and then feel cool to be a bit like the character you like).

Growing up, porridge just felt blank or boring, especially when other kids around us ate chocolatey or frosty cereal. But over the years, I've grown to love it. Especially after years of not being able to eat it because I couldn't find a gluten-free brand in the new countries I moved to over the years. So now I've found a wheat-free version, I'm happily eating it daily. No grumbles.

And now there's that added layer. I think about how Sorcha would be eating it, and how people thousands of years ago in my heritage countries would have eaten it.

Scotland with water. Adding a drop of milk or cream. Bits of honey or infused with meadowsweet or sweet herbs.

My dad (perhaps a northern UK think) and his fancy all milk version!

The history of food is fascinating. But even more so when you can see the culture of a book and the habits of the characters with the food in the book.

I think that's what is often lacking in stories. People barely mention food in fantasy books. If they do, it's basic apples or gruel. Hard dried meat.

And don't get me wrong, I eat an apple as a snack pretty much every day, so no dissing apples. But as variety in fantasy books, when you could use that opportunity to write anything and really introduce people to new types of foods? Or the culture of the book you're writing?

What do your characters like or hate?

What grows in that region?

Is anything imported or traded?

What's daily? What's special?

What does the pretty baker your MC likes eyeing up make well?

What's the culture of your story and the traditional foods of the areas?

What's high in cost? In budget?

Can your character afford luxury and therefore their tastes in food are skewed and their poorer friends stare at them like WTH when they talk about fancy foods they have no experience of?

Food tellls so much about a world and characters in books. It teaches readers new things. Helps us explore a new world and feel closer to the characters.

I love thinking of Sorcha as I eat 'brochan'.

I love thinking of Gora from my debut series Dynasty Codes as he eats a Japanese sweet potato straight from a stone hearth.

I love thinking of Rina dragging Celyn around the cafes in the royal city to introduce her to all the new foods, because food is Rina's love language, and you bet she's taking the girl she's got an eye on to all her favourite places.

And I'm so curious to try making cawl from scratch this winter to think of Celyn and her family back in her home village.

There's so much food can tell us about books and characters, and I'd love to see it more.

(I've actually started a mini series of making the food from my books as little recipe reels, so I'll be sharing that from here on, so you can try making the food in my books too! I'll shout out when that's up on here too. For now, you can see the first one, making bara brith, a traditional Welsh fruit bread my MC Celyn from Iron Angels eats in her hometown.)

Making bara brith, a Welsh fruit loaf featured in my book Iron Angels.

I'll stop waffling now. But I'd love to know what you think of this topic, and whether there are any books you think do this really well. Let's share the best fantasy foody titles!