The Sartarite Diet.

[Mirza]

I've long been wondering about the diet of the Sartarite Orlanthi, as a modern person, I feel so divorced from the very basics of everyday sustenance that the kind of subsistence farming that the Quivini live by, but I know that food is the absolute basis of societal structure in our world, so to understate it, food's rather important, and perhaps I should start by breaking things up into a list of what I'm aware of or have questions about:

Grains: Made into bread, the most common and densest form of caloric intake, I'm unsure how many different grains, and ways of preparation exist for the Sartarites, also how much grain does a person need per year? And does each village have a baker making the bread or is it made household by household?

I know grains and ancient farming are a huge topic of actual historical debate, so keeping it a generalist overview might be to everyone's benefit.

Alcohol: Here's the big unknown to me, is it just something for feasts? Or is their everyday water consumption have some diluted wine added to it to make it safe? Is everyone making some non-distilled hooch in an amphora in the house? Or is there still a single or small group of Minlinster (through Orlanth) cultists making the clans beer in the chieftain's longhouse?

Meats: Only eaten during feasts or from small game hunting for the common man, more commonly eaten by nobles/priests from more commonly having the time for big game hunting (or trading for it), still not an everyday thing, farm animals require Peaceful Cut by a Waha layperson to slaughter the animal so a holy ritual, not the primary barrier to eating meat, but still one that exists, commonly there's a day of slaughter for the animals that aren't going to make it through the winter, but how often are meats preserved instead of directly used after the slaughter?

Milk/Cheese: Milk isn't directly consumed regularly, a person might drink it when prescribed by a Chalana Arroy or Ernaldan healer for a pain in the stomach (ulcer), I know the Grazelanders ferment horse milk into Kumis, an achoholic beverage, but cheeses are the most common dairy with rennet from bull calves stomachs (which subsequently the carcass gets used for veal), goat cheeses are never eaten due to the animal being taboo, but how often do they prepare cow cheese and consume it? Butter I'm unsure about since it spoils quickly, do the Orlanthi make Ghee? or is Sartar cold enough that butter is more common there compared to Esrolia? Yogurts?

Eggs: The primary reason to keep chickens (the potential meat is a side benefit), an egg a day keeps Humakt away.

Legumes (I could be completely wrong here): Speculatively a common source of protein in the commoner Sartarite diet, similarly to grains, I don't know the varieties, how much they eat, or if they even do.

Fruit/Vegetables/Leafy Greens: Added primarily for either their vitamin content or their flavorings, not the primary source of calories, but (like Apple Lane) enough to devote acreage for a farmer to work, trading for grains? Or is it more common for merely a smaller household garden or individual fruit tree for these with Apple Lane as the cash crop exception?

Forage Findings (Mushrooms, Wild Herbs, Tubers(?), Wild Eggs, Others): As can be found, but unless the people are near a forest or something, not likely to be commonly found, I know pigs can be used to find truffles in forests so maybe the same happens in Sartar?

Fish: Good source of protein when it can be caught, everyone fishes to some extent, but there are fisher underclasses in clans like in the Red Cow that make their trade exclusively off it (not a proper Orlanth approved way of living, but he does support taking what you want, he certainly did). Do the Sartarites use rod and tackle, or do they use nets? I'm inclined to say that nets are more used by the peoples on the main flows of the Stream or the Creek, with rod and tackle used everywhere there's a reasonable flow of water for fishing.

I think that hits the major categories of food that a Orlanthi Sartarite would deal with on the daily, there's probably more exotic stuff I've missed or just plain forgot about, I know there's a tediousness in asking this to be listed out for me, but genuinely knowing a people's diet makes them far more comprehensible to me.

[Qizilbashwoman]

5 minutes ago, Mirza said:

I've long been wondering about the diet of the Sartarite Orlanthi, as a modern person, I feel so divorced from the very basics of everyday sustenance that the kind of subsistence farming that the Quivini live by, but I know that food is the absolute basis of societal structure in our world, so to understate it, food's rather important, and perhaps I should start by breaking things up into a list of what I'm aware of or have questions about:

Grains: Made into bread, the most common and densest form of caloric intake, I'm unsure how many different grains, and ways of preparation exist for the Sartarites, also how much grain does a person need per year? And does each village have a baker making the bread or is it made household by household?

I know grains and ancient farming are a huge topic of actual historical debate, so keeping it a generalist overview might be to everyone's benefit.

Alcohol: Here's the big unknown to me, is it just something for feasts? Or is their everyday water consumption have some diluted wine added to it to make it safe? Is everyone making some non-distilled hooch in an amphora in the house? Or is there still a single or small group of Minlinster (through Orlanth) cultists making the clans beer in the chieftain's longhouse?

Meats: Only eaten during feasts or from small game hunting for the common man, more commonly eaten by nobles/priests from more commonly having the time for big game hunting (or trading for it), still not an everyday thing, farm animals require Peaceful Cut by a Waha layperson to slaughter the animal so a holy ritual, not the primary barrier to eating meat, but still one that exists, commonly there's a day of slaughter for the animals that aren't going to make it through the winter, but how often are meats preserved instead of directly used after the slaughter?

Milk/Cheese: Milk isn't directly consumed regularly, a person might drink it when prescribed by a Chalana Arroy or Ernaldan healer for a pain in the stomach (ulcer), I know the Grazelanders ferment horse milk into Kumis, an achoholic beverage, but cheeses are the most common dairy with rennet from bull calves stomachs (which subsequently the carcass gets used for veal), goat cheeses are never eaten due to the animal being taboo, but how often do they prepare cow cheese and consume it? Butter I'm unsure about since it spoils quickly, do the Orlanthi make Ghee? or is Sartar cold enough that butter is more common there compared to Esrolia? Yogurts?

Eggs: The primary reason to keep chickens (the potential meat is a side benefit), an egg a day keeps Humakt away.

Legumes (I could be completely wrong here): Speculatively a common source of protein in the commoner Sartarite diet, similarly to grains, I don't know the varieties, how much they eat, or if they even do.

Fruit/Vegetables/Leafy Greens: Added primarily for either their vitamin content or their flavorings, not the primary source of calories, but (like Apple Lane) enough to devote acreage for a farmer to work, trading for grains? Or is it more common for merely a smaller household garden or individual fruit tree for these with Apple Lane as the cash crop exception?

Forage Findings (Mushrooms, Wild Herbs, Tubers(?), Wild Eggs, Others): As can be found, but unless the people are near a forest or something, not likely to be commonly found, I know pigs can be used to find truffles in forests so maybe the same happens in Sartar?

Fish: Good source of protein when it can be caught, everyone fishes to some extent, but there are fisher underclasses in clans like in the Red Cow that make their trade exclusively off it (not a proper Orlanth approved way of living, but he does support taking what you want, he certainly did). Do the Sartarites use rod and tackle, or do they use nets? I'm inclined to say that nets are more used by the peoples on the main flows of the Stream or the Creek, with rod and tackle used everywhere there's a reasonable flow of water for fishing.

An overview of tribal pastoralist lifestyles in general: meat is more common than in cities, but protein is largely fish, eggs, mushrooms, and pemmican equivalents (dried fruits and meats pounded together for storage, a kind of portable sausage with high caloric, protein, and vitamin values). If you eat non-supermarket diets, or are older, you'll be aware of seasonality: you eat vegetables and fruits by season, and that means a lot of cabbage all winter (because it grows in the cold).

While the exact climate of Sartar is not entirely known, we do know it is not Europe, but rather more like West Asia. There's snow and cold in the mountains but relatively warm but very dry weather in fall; winter (Dark to Storm) is cold and rainy. Cabbage grows in the cold, but still you are mostly eating stored foods. Food preservation is crucial: cold storehouses for meat, fruits and berries, and grain storage is largely in things like little watchtowers: these are protected from vermin entry with tall legs with rodent-blocking rings (like rat guards on ship lines) and removable ladders.

Access to seasonal meats is great! Chicken, pig (for places by water), cattle, and small cattle (camelids, caprids, sheep, antelope, etc.). Cattle and pigs are slaughtered in the Dark Season (November/Dec), after autumn has ended. Caprid and sheep slaughter I'm less sure about, but sheep in particular are primarily sources of wool and are only killed when they are old. Animals are raised for offerings and are shared by various cult communities after sacrifice.

Bread is made from a multitude of grains, but also from nuts and seeds, including acorns.

As for spices, these are grown in gardens and bought at markets from specialists and very valued. Western European foods now are infamously bland largely because rather recently, spiced food was seen as "common" and "real connoisseurs" would just boil the chicken, but early modern, medieval, and earlier cookbooks attest to the value of very good spicing.

If you want some more inspiration, just remember that traditional Irish foods were originally like Indian foods, the only difference being the kind of spices to hand. (Chiles are a post-Columbian arrival.) Dairy products like yogurts and farmer cheese, flatbreads, prepared meats, chutneys, and sauces resembling curries. These foods were entirely destroyed by colonialism. (The Irish also ate a ton of seaweed, which is still present in some very rural places.)

[Qizilbashwoman]

I'd like to add that a very traditional spice is Levantine za'atar. It's made of oregano, marjoram or thyme; toasted spices like cumin and coriander, with sesame seeds, salt and sumac. This blend dates back to the Pharaonic age!

[David Scott]

1 hour ago, Mirza said:

the diet of the Sartarite Orlanthi

See Jeff's facebook posts, archived here (includes photos):

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/?s=food+facebook+jeff

https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/?s=drink+facebook+jeff

Covers other areas as well as Sartar, part of the fabled Glorantha Cookbook

 

[hipsterinspace]

4 hours ago, Mirza said:

Alcohol: Here's the big unknown to me, is it just something for feasts? Or is their everyday water consumption have some diluted wine added to it to make it safe? Is everyone making some non-distilled hooch in an amphora in the house? Or is there still a single or small group of Minlinster (through Orlanth) cultists making the clans beer in the chieftain's longhouse?

The primary brewers are the Ernalda cult, to which Minlister is a subservient cult (I’d imagine, if nothing else, providing the single rune spell Brew). It makes a lot of sense, her cult grows and keeps the grain and fruit as part of the whole palace economy. Sartar is famous for its white wines, but I’d imagine beer and ciders are also very common. Mead is said to be rarer and more expensive, a special sort of mead called Crazy Black Widebrew is said to be able to cause potent visions and is often used only during rituals. As it gets quite cold in the winters at high altitude, we’re told that they also make ice beer in some places.

Edited March 28, 2023 by hipsterinspace

[kara]

Don't forget sheep's cheeses.

Peas and field beans may be unexciting but often are successful crops even if the grain harvest fails.

 

Also, grain storage in clay-lined &sealed bell-shaped pits: very Asrelian.

 

 

 

[Eff]

4 hours ago, Mirza said:

Legumes (I could be completely wrong here): Speculatively a common source of protein in the commoner Sartarite diet, similarly to grains, I don't know the varieties, how much they eat, or if they even do.

Legumes, especially pulses (dried legumes used like grains), are a curious lacuna in Glorantha discussions and sources. For context, the "Neolithic founder crops" are eight plant species that were domesticated in Southwest Asia about 12,000 years ago and then went on to be the basis of the agricultural economies of most of Europe, North Africa, and South Asia along with Southwest Asia until the Columbian Exchange, and are still important today. They consist of flax, an oil and fibre crop, emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, barley, three cereal grains- and four pulses. Bitter vetch, chickpeas, lentils, and peas. 

Much later, the fava or broad bean also came into cultivation in this area. In East Asia we have the adzuki bean (which is used to make red bean paste, among other things), the soybean (many many products you're familiar with) and the mung bean (bean sprouts as a specific food item are from mung or soybeans). And in the Americas, we have the common bean, which is so broad you probably only recognize it via its cultivar groups- kidney beans, navy beans, pinto beans, and the non-pulse wax beans. There's also the scarlet runner bean, or just the runner bean, as well as the lima bean and the tepary bean, as well as peanuts. 

For most of the world's population throughout most of history, pulses have been the critical source of dietary protein, and in (for example) North America, common beans and maize are seen as two of the Three Sisters of pre-Columbian agriculture, clear equals. Glorantha texts focus on the cereals, however, and it's only in Pamaltela, where things are weird and upside-down, that beans are treated as prevalent. So what do Sartarites grow and eat as far as pulses go? What's their particular crop package? Are we looking at lentils and yellow peas, fava beans and chickpeas? Or do we have frijoles negros? Bao filled with sweet bean paste? These are perhaps the questions of unrepentant bean counters, but maybe the thought of falafel at the Swenston Bob's Bison Burgers sets some gears turning. 

[Squaredeal Sten]

There is a lot to unpack there, and I'd like to point out things Marza's adventurers will see little of:

First, don't expect loaves of baked bread.  Look at the list of food in RQiG: It suggests flatbread.  The ordinary  household will not have an oven.  You can make flatbread on tbe hearth, or if you object to a few ashes then use a griddle or flat stone.  Think of anything from focaccia to naan to tortillas to those tasty Navaho flatbreads in Rick Meints' article.

In my Glorantha a risen loaf bread is an urban delicacy, something you would expect in Nochet or maybe Boldhome.  Perhaps baked in a jar Egyptian style rather than in an oven.  A new thing.  YGMV.

Flatbreads are cheap, ten for a clack per RQiG.  Everyone eats them, the poor eat little else but flatbread and pottage.  Your Adventurer will eat flatbread on campaign, as they keep fairly well.  There are no MREs or C-rats in 1625 ST.

Grains and also peas and lentils will often be eaten as pottage, otherwise known as mush.  This has the advantage that all you need to cook it is a pot, a fire, and maybe a spoon or a stick.  Pottage was a major food of the poor in pre industrial RW historical times.  The only pottage you probably eat today is probably oatmeal if you don't count rice, which needs a high tech accessory, the pot lid.  That small pot listed in the RQiG equipment list is likely the only cooking utensil your Adventurer has.  He probably carries a bag of meal, maybe some peas, and makes pottage on his camp fire.

Meat: You are unlikely to find a butcher shop in the village.  Most of its inhabitants will not eat meat every day, and most of the meat they eat will be a communal meal after a sacrifice.  Your animal sacrifice not only pleases the god but also pleases your fellow cultists.

Don't expect much salt meat with salt at the salt prices in RQiG!  In the RW we use about a tablespoon of salt per preserved pound of meat, maybe a little less when brining it, but remember for brining you use a saturated solution.   It is more likely that Gloranthan people will smoke or jerk meat, Jerky  is meat sliced thin and then smoked dry.  A little dried meat in the pottage or the vegetable stew will improve it.  Your Sartarite Adventurer might have some jerky in the field.  Your Praxian is much more likely to have it.

Any Sartarite professional  hunters will find their fellow villagers appreciate some of their meat and will return favors.  Others in the hunter's household will probably provide most of the grain and legumes the hunter eats.  The rich may eat meat every day, the small middle-class maybe two times a week. 

Inns will have meat per RQiG and W&E: a little in the pot for the average guest's meal; sausages or slices for the more prosperous guests.  Probably one type of meat a day, not a lot of menu choices but the inn may also have dried sausages.

 

Edited March 28, 2023 by Squaredeal Sten
Just kept adding. Also spell check keeps turning pot'tage to postage.

[Darius West]

17 hours ago, Mirza said:

also how much grain does a person need per year? 

One bushel per adult.  It is like a koku of rice in old Japan.  Acreage will have a fertility rating based on how many bushels it produces.  Hârn products have each manorial district with a figure for land fertility next to them as you generate your income from this number in that game.  You really want to have a fertility of anything over 1 bushel per acre.

17 hours ago, Mirza said:

Alcohol: Here's the big unknown to me, is it just something for feasts? Or is their everyday water consumption have some diluted wine added to it to make it safe? Is everyone making some non-distilled hooch in an amphora in the house? Or is there still a single or small group of Minlinster (through Orlanth) cultists making the clans beer in the chieftain's longhouse?

You want 4-7kg of malted barley for 5 gallons of beer, plus whatever other grains you want to ferment with it for flavor.  Wine is a lot more intensive.  5 gallons of wine requires 40+kg of grapes.  There are also all the ciders, scrumpies, perries, meads etc.

17 hours ago, Mirza said:

Meats: Only eaten during feasts or from small game hunting for the common man, more commonly eaten by nobles/priests from more commonly having the time for big game hunting (or trading for it), still not an everyday thing, farm animals require Peaceful Cut by a Waha layperson to slaughter the animal so a holy ritual, not the primary barrier to eating meat, but still one that exists, commonly there's a day of slaughter for the animals that aren't going to make it through the winter, but how often are meats preserved instead of directly used after the slaughter?

Most people are very happy with a 6oz steak, which is crudely about 1/6th of a kg. One point of SIZ (according to the CoC size table) is between 1 and 12 lb, or approximately 7kg per Size point, given that most creatures being eaten will be larger than 1lb (1 SIZE=12lb=7kg). Only 50% of most animals can be eaten however.

It is worth pointing out that when a clan sacrifices cattle to the gods, the meat doesn't go to waste.  The animals aren't cremated, they are cooked (os they should be).  In the ancient Mediterranean region only the fat of the sacrificed animal was cremated for the gods.  The rest went to the priest and their family, and much was distributed to the poor.  I think Orlanthi cultures would follow this pragmatic model.

17 hours ago, Mirza said:

Eggs: The primary reason to keep chickens (the potential meat is a side benefit), an egg a day keeps Humakt away.

Some chickens lay an egg every day, others lay about 2 per week. So 1d6+1 eggs per hen per week.

17 hours ago, Mirza said:

Milk/Cheese: Milk isn't directly consumed regularly, a person might drink it when prescribed by a Chalana Arroy or Ernaldan healer for a pain in the stomach (ulcer), I know the Grazelanders ferment horse milk into Kumis, an achoholic beverage, but cheeses are the most common dairy with rennet from bull calves stomachs (which subsequently the carcass gets used for veal), goat cheeses are never eaten due to the animal being taboo, but how often do they prepare cow cheese and consume it? Butter I'm unsure about since it spoils quickly, do the Orlanthi make Ghee? or is Sartar cold enough that butter is more common there compared to Esrolia? Yogurts?

Cheese is the best way to turn excess milk into an edible product that keeps over time.  It takes 2.5 gallons of cows milk to produce 1 kg of cheese.  Goat is 1.75, sheep is 1.5 and bison is 1 gallon per kg.  For the record, Impala cheese is spectacular as they produce a sweet milk that lends itself very readily to cheese making.  My game includes these 3 Impala cheeses (and cheeses for other Praxian tribes where appropriate) as a result:

Impala Lippawaha

As strange as it may seem, Impala cheese is very palatable.  Impalas produce a rich creamy milk full of butter-fats and protein that can be made into a number of delicious cheeses and is in many ways superior even to the milk of cattle.  The most popular Impala cheese in Prax is called Lippawaha, as it was favored even by Waha.  It is a rich pale yellow-to-white cheese that is very similar to mozzarella, only able to form longer strands and with less taste of fermentation, and more of a sweet whey flavor that mixes with salt to become very savory and more-ish.  Lippawaha is nearly everyone’s favorite cheese and is effectively the cheddar of Prax due to the vast numbers of impalas (though arguably it is a better cheese than cheddar with better texture, and taste).

Impala Trade Cheese

One of the problems of Impala Lippawaha cheese was that it didn’t travel as well as it might.  As a result, traders would enjoy the product, but never actually consider it as an item they might risk trading for.  This was before a mysterious individual from the early years of the Third Age, known only as “Face-bear”, a tall outsider, taught the Impala Pygmies the mystery of how to make their cheese grow a thick tasty white rind that vastly increases the shelf life of the cheese.  This greatly increased the shelf-life of impala cheese, and produced a cheese that is highly reminiscent of a high quality wheel of softest, creamiest brie.  While the cheese spoils quickly after being cut, it seldom lasts an hour once people taste it.

Impala Sweetmelt

Impala sweetmelt is closest to Havarti in its character.  It is a very soft, sweet cheese that pairs well with fruit, honey and berries and other sweet things.  It is also around 1% alcoholic.  It is called sweetmelt as it is typically served as a form of fondue for one, having been heated to the point of melting before being served. While not as popular as Lippawaha, it is still a very palatable and desirable cheese that can be used with sweet foods as a sort of  "long life" cream substitute.

Edited March 29, 2023 by Darius West

[DrGoth]

The sources give some information on this

Guide to Glorantha (p.36) "Barley is the staple grain of the Orlanthi, supplemented by wheat and oats"

Weapons and equipment (p.27) heavily implies flatbread is the common bread form.

You can certainly make flatbread from barley https://rootsandwren.com/barley-honey-flat-breads/

Both wheat and barley were some of the earliest domesticated grains (roughly 10,000 years ago in the Middle east).

https://factsanddetails.com/world/cat54/sub343/entry-6026.html

According to this

https://theecologist.org/2009/aug/25/know-your-oats-grow-your-own-grains

Barley is easier to grow and doesn't require the same quality soil as wheat - which sounds to me about right for Sartar. 

I'd go with Squaredeal Sten and have risen bread as a delicacy. You could stretch that - as far as I know, yeast in breadmaking was first used by the Egyptians about 3500 years ago. But anything to emphasise this is not medieval is a good thing (tm).

The guide also gives some other useful pointers. For the Orlanthi its says lamb is the most common meat (not chickens I ask? maybe it means red meat, as poultry is mentioned). "Beer is the staple beverage".  Which probably means the common ale in Sartar is the thicker barley ale on p29 of weapons and equipment, not the thin Ale. I don't know about you but I can just imagine Orlanthi tribesmen muttering into their cups "Bloody Lunars, knew you could never trust anyone who drinks ale that thin, mutter, mutter, grumble."

That's just the Orlanthi of course. For the Pelorians, in the Guide, (p41) we have "Rice, barley and maize are the staple grains". If you go back to one of the references above it says "wheat, rice, corn and sorghum evolved a common ancestor weed that grew 65 million years ago". Maybe that says something bout the Grain Goddesses?

[mfbrandi]

1 hour ago, DrGoth said:

risen bread as a delicacy … as far as I know, yeast in breadmaking was first used by the Egyptians about 3500 years ago … "Beer is the staple beverage".

So prayers to Mee Vorala are definitely in order.

[Squaredeal Sten]

All this builds desire for the rumored Gloranthan Cookbook.  

Which should have sections on Making Flatbread - which people may well do at-home in the Real World- as well as on making beer (also done by hobbyists in the RW) and making impala cheese (rather hard to do in the RW, first catch your impala).

For the record making alcoholic  fruit beverages is something we have done in my house as a byproduct of making "Brandied fruit", which is a great topping for ice cream.  If you do this with over-ripe figs (I planted two fig trees the year that we bought this house and the harvest varies greatly from year to year) the result is pretty powerful.  Fig "wine" as well as date wine  is something to think about as products of Prax and southeastern Sartar, because figs grow well in a dry climate and IMG the oasis people grow dates.  These are potential trade goods as well as items of descriptive game flavor.

 

[mfbrandi]

1 hour ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

date wine  is something to think about as … IMG the oasis people grow dates.

This is great, and palm wine suggests plot hooks:

• in a bizarre bid to improve cult relations, the Crimson Bat and Mallia cults collaborate to use megabats to spread Nipah virus;
• palm wine addicts — drinkards — may develop the ability to deal with the dead and gods, as per Amos Tutuola. (“By the glaze in his eyes I knew he was on a Heroquest” — Cults of Prax, p. 94)

[Qizilbashwoman]

8 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

This is great, and palm wine suggests plot hooks:

• in a bizarre bid to improve cult relations, the Crimson Bat and Mallia cults collaborate to use megabats to spread Nipah virus;
• palm wine addicts — drinkards — may develop the ability to deal with the dead and gods, as per Amos Tutuola. (“By the glaze in his eyes I knew he was on a Heroquest” — Cults of Prax, p. 94)

fig wine as well, which might be even easier to make than palm wine because figs start to ferment if unharvested on their own

[mfbrandi]

12 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

fig wine … might be even easier to make than palm wine

Maybe, but 2 hours from freshly tapped sap to 4% alcohol is pretty easy and quick.

Quote

Typically the sap is collected from the cut flower of the palm tree. A container is fastened to the flower stump to collect the sap … An alternative method is the felling of the entire tree. Where this is practised, a fire is sometimes lit at the cut end to facilitate the collection of sap. — Wikipedia

There has to be a Trickster tale of Eurmal torching an entire oasis in search of a quick fix.

[Squaredeal Sten]

On 3/29/2023 at 12:20 AM, Darius West said:

One bushel per adult.  It is like a koku of rice in old Japan. ....

Eff's " clan economics"  thread from Oct 31 2020 [ link here:

gives a considerably different figure for how much grain is required to feed a person for a year: A bushel is 27 kg and at 1500+ kilocalories per kg of barley a person doing heavy labor will need about 2-3kg of barley a day if they eat nothing else. 

This indicates that even if half the calories come from dairy, a little meat, legumes etc., a bushel of grain will feed the person for four weeks or less.  

Edited March 31, 2023 by Squaredeal Sten
added the link to Eff's 2020 thread

[hipsterinspace]

In The Guide, vetches are said to be important enough for the warlord rulers of Porthomeka to exercise a monopoly on in their lands, I’d think that speaks to a broader reliance on legumes for calories if they’re important enough to place such strict controls on.

On the other hand, I’d imagine the Praxian diet is pretty similar to that of the pastoralist Maasai. Meat, blood, fat, and milk for the most part.

Edited March 30, 2023 by hipsterinspace

[Bren]

A koku is 48 gallons. Wikipedia tells me a koku of rice is enough rice to feed 1 person for a year. (And presumably they don't only eat rice.)

A bushel is 8 gallons. Clearly, that is not enough to feed 1 person for a year.

[Eff]

1 hour ago, Bren said:

A koku is 48 gallons. Wikipedia tells me a koku of rice is enough rice to feed 1 person for a year. (And presumably they don't only eat rice.)

A bushel is 8 gallons. Clearly, that is not enough to feed 1 person for a year.

A bushel of wheat converted to flour at a 75% efficiency, assuming a 2500-kcal daily diet (much less than what you need for heavy physical labor), provides enough food for one person for about 30 days. Eating the raw grain as porridge, you'd be looking at about 40 person-days. About 10 bushels of grain to flour, or 7.5 bushels of raw grain, is sufficient for one person-Gloranthan year.

[Darius West]

19 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

Eff's " clan economics"  thread from Oct 31 2020 gives a considerably different figure for how much grain is required to feed a person for a year: A bushel is 27 kg and at 1500+ kilocalories per kg of barley a person doing heavy labor will need about 2-3kg of barley a day if they eat nothing else. 

This indicates that even if half the calories come from dairy, a little meat, legumes etc., a bushel of grain will feed the person for four weeks or less.  

I stand corrected.  It takes about 24 bushels to feed a human adult for a year. IDK where I heard that a Bushel was a years supply of grain.  My memory is failing I fear.

Edited March 31, 2023 by Darius West

[Tindalos]

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

I stand corrected.  It takes about 24 bushels to feed a human adult for a year. IDK where I heard that a Bushel was a years supply of grain.  My memory is failing I fear.

It was Ernalda's Bushel, a unit of measurement in King of Dragon Pass. To quote from the manual:

Quote

The Bushel we use as the unit of food in KoDP is the amount of food it takes to feed one person for a year. A normal bushel is just a medium-sized basket, but our Bushel comes from the Godplane: these are Ernalda’s Bushels, and the Earth Mother’s basket holds enough to feed one of us little people for a year.

 

[John Biles]

On 3/29/2023 at 3:58 AM, DrGoth said:

The sources give some information on this

Guide to Glorantha (p.36) "Barley is the staple grain of the Orlanthi, supplemented by wheat and oats"

Weapons and equipment (p.27) heavily implies flatbread is the common bread form.

You can certainly make flatbread from barley https://rootsandwren.com/barley-honey-flat-breads/

Both wheat and barley were some of the earliest domesticated grains (roughly 10,000 years ago in the Middle east).

https://factsanddetails.com/world/cat54/sub343/entry-6026.html

 

The guide also gives some other useful pointers. For the Orlanthi its says lamb is the most common meat (not chickens I ask? maybe it means red meat, as poultry is mentioned).

Chickens were not a major food item until fairly recently because they were more valuable as an endless stream of eggs than as one meal.  The exception was that you ate most of the males, castrating them, letting them bloat, then eating them; this was called 'capon'.

 

On 3/29/2023 at 3:58 AM, DrGoth said:

"Beer is the staple beverage".  Which probably means the common ale in Sartar is the thicker barley ale on p29 of weapons and equipment, not the thin Ale. I don't know about you but I can just imagine Orlanthi tribesmen muttering into their cups "Bloody Lunars, knew you could never trust anyone who drinks ale that thin, mutter, mutter, grumble."

So with beer in times past, you did a series of brewings off the same set of hops, malt, barley, etc.  The strongest was the first, which was for party time; later brewings were consumed with meals, when thirsty, etc, because it was safe.