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?
