Delicious in Dungeon
This seems like a good week for this topic. After watching the first season of ‘Delicious in Dungeon’, I started wondering why monsters aren’t eaten more often. Nobody in any of these worlds thought of making griffin wings or selkie pot pie? They just kill them and move on. Sometimes, parts are taken for spells or trophies, but there’s rarely anything taken for food. Why?
Well, I guess the most obvious reason is that monsters tend to be ugly and magical in nature. Authors didn’t put them in the world to be eaten, so they aren’t made to look or appear edible. This is enhanced by real world animals existing such as cows, chickens, and pigs. If a person is going to choose between killing a cow or a minotaur for steaks, they’d go with the safer choice. Not only in killing, but the idea of eating a monster with magical or ‘dark’ energy can throw a person off. I mean, we don’t really eat the poisonous animals and plants of our world. Some people do, but it involves a lot of prep and is considered a delicacy. Looking at you, pufferfish.
Food preparation is another issue, which ‘Delicious in Dungeon’ focuses on. The only reason the characters can eat the monsters is because they team up with someone who knows how to make them edible. It’s shown to be special knowledge, which is easy to believe since he lived in the big dungeon for years. Nobody else would learn this since they get food from the city above. This means that preparing monsters for food would be done out of necessity instead of desire. If you’re staring and only have these creatures to eat, you’ll give it a try. This means it wouldn’t be common, so any character with this skill set would need a creative backstory.
All that being said, I really do wonder why authors don’t do this more often. I’ve done it a few times with civilizations that live in the wilderness, which is another ‘eat monsters out of necessity’ thing. All of those creatures were designed to be eaten too, so it isn’t like I made them ugly and magical. I made them look like something that one would want to eat even if they had fur or feathers. For example, I designed a creature called a ‘bog hare’, which was a bulbous rabbit that bounced around. It was harvested for water and meat as if it was natural.
Maybe that’s another factor. If we write a story where characters are natural about eating monsters then it won’t phase the readers. ‘Delicious in Dungeon’ made this activity bizarre, so it was shocking for me to see it unfold. Yet, I don’t think I would have been confused if they simply at monsters without bringing attention to it. For me, that would mean it’s what is done in that world. Eating a dragon to them would be no different than us having spicy duck, but with scales to get through. Probably closer to alligator, but I wasn’t a fan of that when I tried it. Guess personal preference is something to take into account too.
Personally, I think I would like to see more fantasy stories with monsters being used in recipes. Maybe they’re out there and I never noticed. Yet, I don’t remember it being done in most of the big ones. Is this just something that authors without gigantic fandoms do for some reason? Probably not. It is interesting though.
So, what do you think about a fantasy story where people eat monsters?
Legends of Windemere 
I never thought about eating monsters, but what a fun idea. It is certainly an interesting twist on monster hunting. 😊 And since as you mentioned we eat puffer fish, why not? I’ve eaten an alligator. Well, not the whole thing, but at least some of it. It’s interesting how some animal species are poisonous and therefore avoid being eaten. In such a story about eating monsters, I wonder if monsters became evil to avoid being eaten.
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I’ve had alligator and didn’t like it. Tasted like sour chicken. With monsters becoming evil, that would interesting, but they really be evil? It might be more like self-defense, especially if they’re being over hunted.
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Self-defense for sure, which could be misinterpreted as evil by those who wish to eat them. 😄😊
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Great topic, Charles – Terry Pratchett had CMOT Dibbler sell ‘Rat on a stick’ and other unusual sounding items ‘in a bun’ which were not necessarily animals as we know them 😂 At some time in the distant past our ancestors would have eaten practically anything (some modern cultures still do) that westerners would balk at.
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Good points. One day someone had to look at fish, take a whiff, and think it was edible.
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Yep!
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In thinking about the first person to drink cows milk, I think a great story could be written about trying a monster for the first time.
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I do wonder how the cows milk thing started now. Why cows instead of other animals?
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It is anybody’s guess. I could see someone grabbing a sheep instead of a cow.
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I have to know – was ‘phase’, (instead of ‘faze’) a deliberate choice or one of those dastardly autocorrect things that regularly plague us? Because I like the notion of eating monsters ‘phasing’ humans out of their little cow-eating cocoons. 😀
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That was me choosing the wrong word. I get those two mixed up a lot because I don’t see ‘faze’ very often. Think I’ve seen the misuse so much that it doesn’t faze me.
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😀
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An interesting idea, Charles. Eating monsters that are just big and ugly, with no magic, might be considered.
Does what they look like in life have an effect on whether they are eaten or not? After all, when butchered and cooked, they’ll look like any other near, surely?
But then, some people won’t eat bunnies or lambs because they’re cute.
There’s a thought. Monsters are always ugly, scaly and maybe big. Why are there so few cute-looking ones? Evil doesn’t automatically mean ugly.
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I think ugly monsters are originally from mythology. Those stories were made to have scary creatures to either teach a lesson or give a sense of dread. Cute doesn’t do that unless the lesson is ‘looks can be deceiving’. Though the more attractive versions of mermaids and sirens who still eat people can count.
Another issue is that most monsters are predators. Humans don’t typically eat straight predators. The meat is tough and there’s a higher risk of disease than by eating prey animals.
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That’s true, Charles. About eating predators, that is. I’d not thought about that.
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The first guy who looked at a raw oyster and said, “Yeah, baby. This will be great,” was a brave man. I think you can include eating monsters in a tale. Probably get more out of it by having characters struggle with the fact that it spoke and showed other signs of intelligence.
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That’s if they eat the speaking monsters. We typically won’t do that because of their intelligence.
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Wait a sec. You just had Mab eating herself. I suppose that is a bit different. And you did say “typically.”
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Yeah. That was a unique situation of self-cannibalism.
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That is a fun show, and we are eagerly awaiting the next season. However, I do feel there are elements of satire about cooking shows. The way they have the dazzling lights fly around the completed dishes is quite silly.
On the other hand, “you are what you eat” comes to mind. Horror writers can probably think of a dozen ways a human who ate monsters would become one.
In fact, I’m just playing the latest Dragon Age game. A faction of characters known as Gray Wardens drink a diluted brew of archdemon blood. Some gained special powers, some died outright, and others slowly changed into ghouls who served the archdemons.
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There’s another cooking anime called ‘Food Wars’ that does something similar with cooking. It’s closer to SFW porn though because the food makes the characters orgasm without saying it does.
‘You are what you eat’ gets used a lot lately. A character in My Hero Academia had the power to grow adaptations of a I and he eats. There’s one in Demon Slayer that gains demon strength if he eats the flesh of one.
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