Everyday meals in Scarterra

Most staple crops and livestock that Scarterrans are used to eating have ancient roots, dating back to the Second Age or even earlier. While a lot of basic agriculture was disrupted by the Second Unmaking, agriculture and animal husbandry bounced back relatively quickly. The surviving mortal races of the previous age were eager to resume having regular meals and the newly emerging humans were pretty innovative. Various spirits were happy to help early Third Age mortals gain or regain what was lost.   Most basic foodstuffs and common meal etiquette was already well established by the onset of the Feudal Era, so things haven't changed much. Though transportation and trade networks have improved a fair bit relative to the Red Era leading to the spread of more crops. rice was and is the staple food of Umera, but now rice can be found everywhere. Potates were and are a major staple of West Colassia, but now potatoes can be found everywhere. To a lesser extant luxury foods like coffee and tea are becoming more widespread with each generation.

What do they eat on?

  Among humans and elves, wooden plates and bowls are the norm for most of the lower classes, while wealthier people might eat on ceramics (often considered middle class) or metal (usually only for very posh people or events). dwarves have ready access to metal and clay so even even poorer families rarely use wooden plates and cups.   tengku care about displaying signs of wealth even if they are not well off so they tend to eat with fanciest dishes they can get, and they often off poor man's meals on a rich man's plate. There is even a somewhat racist expression that a "tengku box" or a "tengku jar". Whether it's food or not, a "tengku container" is said to be a very pretty looking container with unremarkable contents.   On the opposite extreme, unless they are trying to impress outsiders gnomes rarely bother with fancy dishes and will focus on the food on the plate rather than plate.       Some trenchers are too stale and hard even for poor people because Scarterran dentistry is not great. In this case, trenchers are still not wasted, they tend to get passed on to pigs or other livestock, even in wealthy houses wasteful behavior is deeply frowned on.   Ceramic cups are more common than ceramic plates, even among lower classes though wooden cups are hardly unheard of. Metal goblets are often more common than metal plates and while they are not exactly super common in poor households, metal cups are not an automatic signfier of great status.  

What do they eat with?

  It is fairly common for Scarterrans of various social classes to eat with their fingers. Most peasants and princes alike usually wash their hands before dinner (thank Mera and her Tenders for that one). Even after hand washing, eating with one's left hand is often taboo because left hands are traditional for wiping of one's butt.   Higher end households might have special napkins or finger bowls to clean ones finger between bites or courses. Use of this varies from culture to culture.    

Most commoner's household meals are prepared by women. Most noble households' professional cooks are male, as are most professional cooks that serve commoners en masse via businesses such as town bakeries and pie shops.   Exceptions are plentiful though since everyone has to eat, so that means that often everyone has to cook at least once in a while. People like to eat well, so people with reputations as good cooks tend to be asked to cook regardless of their sex or background.

The Most Important meal of the day?

  The food eaten varies by regional availability and cultural preferences but most non-nomadic Scarterrans have their main meal at midday along with a decent sized midday break. Most humans, surface dwelling dwarves, and most elves eat about half of their daily calories at the midday meal. Often this meal is followed with a nap or an extended work break of some kind.   For the morning breaking of the fast or the evening meal, most Scarterrans eat something fairly simple, often but not always cold. Often the cold rations of the evening meal and morning breaking of the fast were prepared for at midday or are outright leftovers from the midday meal.   Most peasants and princes alike rely on the sun as their primary light source rather than some sort of artificial lighting and they like to see what they are eating when they have a nice meal. It is noteworthy that underground dwelling dwarves (who obviously rely on artifiical lighting much more) often their main meal of the day at the end of their work day rather than in the middle of it.   Wood elves, generally prefer to eat three roughly equal meals each day (or five very light meals), but after enough of them got used to eating human meals on their Rumspringas, wood elves have gradually adopted the practice of making their midday meal the main meal.     This is harder to in the twilight of dawn or dusk or the darkness of night. Good lighting is also important if a cook needs to fillet a fish, separate tasty vegetables from the husk or do any sort of cutting, mixing, grinding, or anything that requires to be able to clearly see what one is doing, and if people eating something nice, they probably want to see what they are eating.