Ori's Worldbuilding Notes, Research, and Writing

[oribuilding]

Research 1 - Fonio

Okay so last time we talked about rice a bit. And this time we’re gonna talk about more grains. Grains are one of those staple foods that many societies use at least one of. If you’re from the US, chances are you’re familiar with Wheat, Rice, Corn and you’ve probably heard of Barley, Quinoa, Oats, Rye and maybe Buckwheat, Spelt, and Sorghum. And those are all cool and I like them all and there’s even more grains that are common in other places that aren’t on this list!

Just recently Bon Appétit (BA) put out a new video where Andy goes and meets a Senagalese chef named Pierre Thiam, who has a restaurant in New York City called Teranga. One of the things Pierre talks about is a grain called Fonio. The Fonio we’re talking about today is Digitaria exilis. He has a Ted Talk about it, cw colonialism (worth watching, lots of good inspiration for folklore and cuisine design,). Fonio can grow in climates that don’t get a lot of rainfall as it’s drought resistant. AND it doesn’t require high soil quality unlike other grains (I’m looking at you, corn). It has a really small grain that is a bit difficult to process, but as we see in the BA video Fonio expands to around 4 times its volume after being cooked so a little goes a long way, and machines to process it have been made so that it’s less labour for the workers.

Pierre says in his Ted Talk that it has a nutty, earthy flavour (which sounds delicious to me) and he says it could be used to make breads, sushi, pasta, salads, etc. So its versatility and its ability to grow in places like the Sahel (Sub-Saharan Africa, but north of the tropical savannas) makes it really fantastic as a way to combat desertification and he hopes it will add job and food security to the peoples in that region!

So, what does that have to do with worldbuilding? Well, personally I know next to nothing about African cuisine and due to my food allergies I can’t just go to one of the few restaurants in the area that serve food from African cuisines or really like any cuisines (pancakes, sushi, and desserts are like all I can order, woo >.>). So anything I can do to learn about other cuisines helps to make cuisines for fictional groups. On top of that Pierre says that the Dogon people of Mali call Fonio “the seed of the universe” and that it plays an important part in their creation story, that “the entire universe sprouted from a seed of fonio” as he put it.

Something else to know is that Fonio is related to what Americans call Large Crab Grass, or Digitaria sanguinalis. Crab Grass is often considered a weed but it was brought over to North America as a staple food from Central Eruope. As a grain it’s called Polish Millet. As it turns out Polish Millet also doesn’t need high quality soil to grow and is also drought resistant. At this point in the US I don’t think anyone still uses Crab Grass as a grain, but we theoretically could should we need to. The biggest issue with using Polish Millet is that harvest isn’t all at once but rather over several weeks meaning people have to go to the plants frequently. Unlike Fonio which is done with a sickle. When you make staple foods, think about making plants related to that staple food and how that related plant can be a staple food in another culture or could even be a weed in a different environment (as with Crab Grass).

So what have we learned?

Grains don’t just grow where there’s lots of water from flooding or rainfall.

Fonio is a cool plant that can prevent desertification

Crab Grass aka Polish Millet was actually a staple food in central/eastern Europe

Grains can be a vital part of your culture’s diet just about in any climate

Grains can be so important to a culture that they can be part of the creation story

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digitaria_exilis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fonio

The BA Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSgbPZOIBHk

The Ted Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjtCDgjxRAw

photo by FatimaBuka: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fonio#/media/File:Acha_(Fonio).jpg

[oribuilding]

Blog 0

I wanna say up front, I'm not an authority on worldbuilding, I've not been doing this for forever, I've never published a world or even put it out to the public, but what I do share is part of the process I’m doing and part of helping me. 

One of the things that does help me is sharing things I’ve learned, so even if you’re like “well that’s obvious” to a thing, there might be someone who didn’t know about this, that, or the other. And at the very least it lets me keep the knowledge I’m gaining, cause I do better when I take notes like I’m sharing with people.

 And because I’m not really involved in worldbuilding communities that may mean that something I say or do may be common practice, especially when it comes to the cuisine design stuff that we’ll be getting to.

Another thing I’ll be doing is essentially enumerating what I need to do for myself so it’s kinda a journal in that sense. I hope you end up liking the blog and I hope we all learn things along the way!

[botanyshitposts]

so i learned yesterday that theres a tiny plot at the corn research/breeding nursery i work at thats full of what the breeders call “zoo corn”??? its like. corn that got mutated by accident when they were breeding and they just kept the lines as separate varieties bc its interesting to see and might come in handy some day (it doesn’t get bred into other stuff or developed, just kept in the zoo plot for display). zoo corn includes:

-”bloody butcher corn”: corn that has red streaks all over the ears 

-”rainbow corn”: corn plants that are covered in red streaks

-”glass corn”: the breeders say this exists but they dont have it at our facilities??? its corn thats normal corn but the yellow pigment in the kernels got mutated, so the kernels are literally just translucent 

-”lazy corn”: corn plants with the protein that helps keep them upright mutated so they grow straight and then when they reach adulthood, they bend all the way over in graceful arcs. like they’re perfectly fine they’re just having a good time on the ground

-”hosta corn”: its corn but its short and bushy and has square stems instead of round stems 

i love my mutated corn babs they are beautiful and good

[botanyshitposts]

okay so a lot of people have been asking me for pics of the beautiful mutated corn children!!

first of all, hosta corn:

its about 2 feet tall, idk if you can tell from that pic. its also hard to articulate how square the stems are but i did my best:

then, some rainbow corn. turns out that its more than red streaks (before hunting out the plot itself for these pics i had only heard verbal descriptions of these plants!!!)

i have no idea what this is but he got pretty yellow streaks???

finally, lazy corn. turns out these are not the graceful creatures i was imagining and are actually hilarious

thats. thats what a row of lazy corn looks like??? like they’re actually not dying (except the one on the far left that flopped into the alley and got walked on a little)????? they’re just??? perfectly happy plants just having a great time on the ground???????????????????????????? guys i cant do this 

p.s. apparently non-USA countries use “corn” to mean several types of crop so to clarify, these are Maize plants.

[oribuilding]

Could give some inspiration

[hydrogenperfoxide]

When you do research for worldbuilding and then find that you cant stop thinking about a specific topic you learned about. And then you realize it's a new special interest

Its rice. I watched a few videos and have been reading a big cause I the rat people in my world eat rice. I really like rice, could eat it for every meal.

Did you know that rice can come in a few colours? White rice has the bran removed where as brown rice doesnt. But there are other rices that can be whole grain, like black and red rice! Black rice has a purplish bran and also a purple endosperm (the bit that's left with white rice) and when the whole grain ones cook the endosperm expands, breaking open the grain!

Theres tons of varieties of rice from all over the world! Multiple rices that are used in risotto, multiple kinds used in china and japan. Theres glutious rice (sticky rice, its actually gluten free) and sushi rice and jasmine rice and theres a type of black rice in china too and more! Theres even green rice!

Technically true rice has to be in the Genus Oryza. If it's not in that genus it's not actually rice. That means Wild Rice from the Great Lakes region, which is of the genus Zizania, isn't technically rice. My understanding is that the Ojibwe people of those lands traditionally would (and I think still do, if anyone has more info please add it, I swear I remember seeing a post about buying wild rice from indigenous folks saying that we should make sure to support the people who traditionally ate/eat/harvest the grain) harvest the grain by using their boat to travel along side the plants, pull the stalks down so they're hanging over the boat and then smack the stalk to release the grain into the boat! That way you dont have to kill the plant to get your food!

Rice is awesome and there's so much more to learn!