Whether It's Utopia or Dystopia, Food Can Make The Difference
To quote my friend Super Girl (who is always worth quoting): "They say you are what you eat... Thats funny... I don't recall eating a sexy beast today!"
Assuming it's true that we are what we eat (I'm seriously trying not to think about that entire pumpkin pie that my husband and I ate by ourselves over the last few days. Cause pumpkin pie thighs just can't be pretty), what about the rest of our lives--our day-to-day business. How much of it is affected by what we're buying and cooking and eating? What about Earth? How much of our world is what it grows and sells and consumes?
Since food is a major part of pretty much everything we do, every author has to figure out how food will play into their story. Whether it's an abundance or a lack of food--what or how or when their characters eat is bound to be part of the story.
This is especially true when the author creates an entirely new world. Hunger Games didn't get its name by accident. The world Collins has created has a set of citizens who are fed every whim of their heart; and another set whose entire existence is spent furnishing those whims. In Matched, food is served in customized portions to each citizen and plays a pivotal roll in controlling the lives of those citizens.
When I went about creating the planet Nreim in ExtraNormal, I wanted Mira to experience the wonder of food as part of her Earth experience. In order to accomplish that I had to create a planet that was devoid of food. The result was a nutritional source called The Cube, ingested five times daily. The Cube eliminated the need for restaurants and grocery stores. It reduced transportation needs, improved health, decreased healthcare, increased life expectancy, and improved the environment. Ka-pow! It was, in fact, considered the most revolutionary advancement in the history of the world. (The world of Nreim, of course.)
As part of Mira's conditioning for her visit to Earth, she is taught that the words food and repugnance are synonomous.
When Mira eats a cheeseburger for the first time, she begins to see the cracks in what she thought was a perfect world.
Here's a quick peek into Mira's world:
------------
I shoved three fries in my mouth and decided that The Cubewas, in reality, a wide-scale tragedy of untold proportions.
"Mira . . . areyou okay?" Lacey asked, her blonde eyebrows lifted in concern.
"Yes . . . thank you . . . " I mumbled as best Icould with my mouth full. I chewed the last of the bliss and swallowed beforeattempting to speak again.
The girls hadn't stopped staring.
"I've never been better."
---------------
Mira doesn't celebrate any holidays in book one of ExtraNormal, but she had so much fun discovering things like chocolate and candy and cookies, I think book two will definitely be set during the holidays.
So can you think of any other stories that go the extra-imaginative mile in the handling of food? And if you happen to blog about food and fiction this holiday, make sure you post your link in the comments so we can check it out!
Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving, you sexy beast!
Assuming it's true that we are what we eat (I'm seriously trying not to think about that entire pumpkin pie that my husband and I ate by ourselves over the last few days. Cause pumpkin pie thighs just can't be pretty), what about the rest of our lives--our day-to-day business. How much of it is affected by what we're buying and cooking and eating? What about Earth? How much of our world is what it grows and sells and consumes?
Since food is a major part of pretty much everything we do, every author has to figure out how food will play into their story. Whether it's an abundance or a lack of food--what or how or when their characters eat is bound to be part of the story.
This is especially true when the author creates an entirely new world. Hunger Games didn't get its name by accident. The world Collins has created has a set of citizens who are fed every whim of their heart; and another set whose entire existence is spent furnishing those whims. In Matched, food is served in customized portions to each citizen and plays a pivotal roll in controlling the lives of those citizens.
When I went about creating the planet Nreim in ExtraNormal, I wanted Mira to experience the wonder of food as part of her Earth experience. In order to accomplish that I had to create a planet that was devoid of food. The result was a nutritional source called The Cube, ingested five times daily. The Cube eliminated the need for restaurants and grocery stores. It reduced transportation needs, improved health, decreased healthcare, increased life expectancy, and improved the environment. Ka-pow! It was, in fact, considered the most revolutionary advancement in the history of the world. (The world of Nreim, of course.)
As part of Mira's conditioning for her visit to Earth, she is taught that the words food and repugnance are synonomous.
When Mira eats a cheeseburger for the first time, she begins to see the cracks in what she thought was a perfect world.
Here's a quick peek into Mira's world:
------------
I shoved three fries in my mouth and decided that The Cubewas, in reality, a wide-scale tragedy of untold proportions.
"Mira . . . areyou okay?" Lacey asked, her blonde eyebrows lifted in concern.
"Yes . . . thank you . . . " I mumbled as best Icould with my mouth full. I chewed the last of the bliss and swallowed beforeattempting to speak again.
The girls hadn't stopped staring.
"I've never been better."
---------------
Mira doesn't celebrate any holidays in book one of ExtraNormal, but she had so much fun discovering things like chocolate and candy and cookies, I think book two will definitely be set during the holidays.
So can you think of any other stories that go the extra-imaginative mile in the handling of food? And if you happen to blog about food and fiction this holiday, make sure you post your link in the comments so we can check it out!
Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving, you sexy beast!
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