What do the people of Gor eat and drink, and how, and what foods are served at the tables of the poor and the rich? What can you find at the market?

Anyway, let’s talk cooking! (And drinks too), a subject I love as I’m a skilled cook in real life… and a gourmet too. And we’re going to start with a bit of history and context, and take the opportunity to debunk some customary beliefs about food in the ancient and medieval past.

1-How did people eat in Antiquity and the Middle Ages?

Well, we ate rather well! In a very simple, statistical way, from archives of the time kept in abbey and church repertories, we were able to find out what the inhabitants of many European villages ate, and thus estimate their daily caloric intake. And the figures aren’t bad at all!

Let’s talk calories

A simple peasant could count on 2100 to 2900 calories per day, while a craftsman could exceed 3500. Nobles and monks, on the other hand, could easily consume 6,000 to 8,000 calories a day! By way of comparison, in Switzerland, a country not renowned for its need to tighten its belt, the average daily calorie intake is 2231 in 2024, with a peak of 2300 for active young adults.

The figures are similar (but even better) during Roman antiquity. Thanks to everything we’ve learned from Pompeii, we’ve been able to make very precise estimates: between 2,500 and 2,900 calories a day, with peaks for workers doing heavy physical activity at 3,700.

Incidentally, I wondered which country consumes the most daily calories per capita in the ^21st century. And it’s the Sultanate of Bahrain, with 4,000 calories a day. The USA, Ireland and Belgium follow close behind.

Now, these figures simply indicate how much energy food brings to its consumer, and the high ancient and medieval figures have a certain logic: manual workers, laborers, peasants, artisans, largely dominated the trades of the time. With the mechanization, automation and outsourcing of primary industries and trades, the modern Western world doesn’t need to stuff itself to keep up with the effort of back-breaking physical labor.

But if all this tells us that everyone ate pretty well in the Middle Ages, it doesn’t tell us what they ate.

Really varied (but seasonal) food

Now that we’ve debunked the myth of medieval peasants starving to death in their hovels, let’s debunk another myth: no, they didn’t eat gruel and black bread at every meal!

In fact, archaeological digs in the Paris region and in the ancient city of Lyon (Lugdunum, in Latin) have shown that there were whole hectares of vegetable gardens. Taking into account the population, the workers available to tend these gardens, and farming methods from the first to the tenth century, it was easy to estimate the productivity of these gardens, and oh surprise: they could produce a great deal and in a wide variety of ways. An average of one kilo of vegetables per person per day, for the city of Paris, which had 15,000 to 20,000 inhabitants.

As for animal foods, they abounded at the table. Even for peasants! How do we know? Thanks to their garbage cans, but also thanks to the period archives that have survived to this day. Cheese, butter and eggs were commonplace, as was pork, fresh, salted or smoked. Fish was less common, but many villages had not only river fisheries, but also real fish farms. The eel, for example, a delicious fish, was very easy to raise. Last but not least, small animals was hunted, often with traps, to liven up meals! Only sea fish has always been uncommon. Sea fishing is dangerous, and transporting fish is very limited, with no modern means of preserving it.

But then, how many times a week did people in antiquity or the Middle Ages eat meat? We’ve been able to count and estimate that, for the Middle Ages, it was on average once every two days. And once a day for dairy products and eggs. In Roman antiquity, however, it was a little less: they ate a lot of fish, on the other hand. That said, meat was quite expensive, especially cow or horse meat, as these animals were only killed when they were too old to work, and not raised for their meat.

On the other hand, in the absence of modern means of transport and preservation, i.e. refrigeration and sterilization, everything people ate in those days, with rare exceptions, was in season. In summer, lettuces and onions, squash, lots of varieties of cabbage, celery, radishes, summer fruits and so on. In winter, parsnips, leeks, garlic, winter cabbage, roots like Jerusalem artichokes, walnuts, dried fruit and a few other vegetables that could be kept dry, or in brine. If you want to eat strawberries, wait until spring, and if you like larmas, you can only have them between summer and autumn. Which also means that during seasons of low vegetable production, meals are less varied, and bread is massively consumed, even if it’s always at every meal in quantity, all year round.

Efficient cooking methods

Before the invention of the gas stove, then the electric, there was only one way to cook food: with fire. So it was on how to make the most of fire, and on cooking containers, that progress was made.

And you’re going to laugh, but between the end of the Neolithic and the end of the Middle Ages, cooking methods didn’t change much, as innovations were rare: ancient man had already learned how to create air-circulating fireplaces, ovens, closed charcoal hearths, wood-burning stoves and so on. In fact, cooking by fire – a simple open hearth or campfire – is the most primitive, least efficient and, in fact, one of the least privileged cooking methods.

Why? Because a simple open hearth loses most of its heat capacity around it, and so consumes a lot of fuel, much of which dissipates into the air. Wood and coal are slow-renewing resources that dry up if overexploited. In the ^1st century, for example, there was no forest left within a 55 km radius of Rome (until protected woodlands were established). This was a good incentive to find the best way of producing heat with the minimum of fuel, and this was already the case in the middle of the Neolithic period. The Gallo-Roman world and ancient China further improved these techniques with fired bricks, followed by the Renaissance with refractory ceramics. But all the basic principles are very old.

As goreans are more eco-friendly than earthlings, and remain highly ingenious, combustion systems for heating, cooking and industry are necessarily highly sophisticated! They’re as good as 17th-century Europe!

2- Special features of Gor

Norman attributes the very good general health of the Goreans to their healthy and abundant food. Well, I’ve already explained elsewhere that, while this may help (a body weakened by hunger is more prone to disease), it remains a fantasy: the high average mortality rates and pandemics of the Middle Ages and antiquity amply attest to the fact that good food is no substitute for modern hygiene and preventive medicine. As he’s an American, I imagine he meant to suggest that Koreans eat better and healthier than his compatriots, and indeed, it’s not difficult. The American diet ranks very, very low in WHO nutrition reports. Being of Mediterranean origin myself, my Mediterranean diet, which remains my favorite, is in fact considered one of the healthiest on average by nutritionists. It’s a diet that gives pride of place to vegetables and fruit, fish and fresh produce, and above all not to excess meat and sugar, ready-made or ultra-processed foods.

So, it’s a given that Goreans eat well and have a healthy, varied diet. Spending your life eating gruel, i.e. cereal porridge cooked in water, won’t ensure good health or longevity: you’ll quickly suffer from nutritional deficiencies, and your health will collapse.

Goreans eat fresh, seasonal vegetables, meat, fish, eggs and dairy products, and plenty of cereals and starches in the form of bread, porridges and cooked side dishes such as rice or suls. In short, apart from the fact that the products are different, whether vegetables, cereals or animal meats, the setting is rather familiar and resembles that of the Middle Ages.

That said, there are a few differences, and I’ll try to summarize them:

1- Gor is a planet with a milder, warmer climate than Earth. Not only is this mentioned in the novels, but it’s considered attested to by all the players, so I agree with them. Seasons are therefore less extreme, and benefit vegetable growing. They also allow more cereal crops to be harvested in a year, and benefit animal and fish farming: with less harsh seasons, there’s less animal mortality in winter. As a result, Goreans eat less bread, as it’s not difficult for them to vary the contents of their plates. And then there’s the suls: basically, a potato that’s easy to grow and grows everywhere. And since this has been observed on Earth, there’s no reason why it should be any different on Gor: sul is a good substitute for bread, which is then less consumed and less essential in quantity.

2- Gor’s agriculture is more advanced than that of Earth’s Middle Ages. In fact, it’s comparable to what’s known as the Agricultural Revolution, which took place on Earth between the 18th and 19th centuries. While on Earth, this technical revolution was due to the birth and explosion of agricultural capitalism, on Gor, it was rather a slow evolution of techniques through close collaboration between the peasant caste and the engineer caste, surely aided by the merchant caste because they saw it in their interest. While slaves in the fields often replaced the strength of animals and the arms of free peasants in some of the vast estates of wealthy merchants, the agricultural techniques of drainage, fertilization, deep ploughing, agricultural hydraulics, or the cycle of fallow land and joint planting (what we now call integrated agriculture, as opposed to industrial agriculture) were widespread, ensuring efficient productivity. Yeah, clearly, Goreans eat well, and it’s rare for the people of Gor to experience famine. But they are not immune to periods of famine, of course.

3- Goreans clearly drink far fewer fermented beverages than people of the Middle Ages. Instead, they drink far more teas and herbal teas. It’s worth noting that, from ancient Egypt to the turn of the 18th century, beers and other fermented beverages, like wine, were low-alcohol drinks, consumed for two reasons: they were nourishing (haaa, a good thick beer to recover from a day’s patrol in the desert, bliss) and water was… how can I put it?…. Let’s just say it wasn’t recommended. Drinking water from the Seine, around Paris, in the 13^thcentury was an effective way of falling seriously ill with dysentery. And even wells weren’t considered safe. In ancient times, the Romans had made the supply of clean water a top priority for their cities, and even they were reluctant to drink such water, preferring spiced wine cut with water, or water boiled with herbs to give it flavor. Goreans have less of this fear, but they still avoid drinking fresh water too often, preferring teas and herbal teas, while alcoholic beverages remain above all festive pleasures.

4- Goreans have wide access to steel and ceramics, and know how to make high-performance iceboxes. As a result, they have many cooking utensils, good insulators, ovens and stoves that consume little wood and coal, but are efficient for cooking food, and more accessible systems for keeping food cool or cold, which means that a wide variety of cooked dishes is possible, far more than a Middle Ages household could cook.

3- What do Goreans eat?

Now that we’re done with introductions and a bit of contextualization, let’s talk about the main topic: what foods and drinks do goreans eat?

So we’re going to tackle the two topics separately: food, then drinks. And we’re going to present them by type. I’ll try to present the food, but also the common dishes. But before we start, let’s talk about what exists on Gor and is of Terran origin. I’m not sure I’ve made a complete list, but it should be fair enough:

Vegetables of proven earth origin cited in the novels: Beans, Cabbages, Carrots, Corn, Onions, Peas, Potatoes, Radishes, Squash, Turnips, Broad Beans, Garlic, Peppers.

To these we can add olives (since olive oil is mentioned), manioc (which you know as tapioca, the starch powder made from it), zucchinis, leeks, broccoli, and tomatoes, which exist but don’t seem to be widespread (in my opinion, the tomato is, for example, a recent import).

Fruits of Earth origin mentioned in the novels: Apricots, Lemons, Melons, Cherries, Peaches, Pears, Plums, Apples, Pomegranates, Grapes, Sweet gourds, Dates.

These include watermelons, mangoes, bananas (which are mentioned, but not clearly), various berries, rarely named, so I think strawberries, raspberries or even blueberries and blackcurrants are common. Various nuts and almonds are also mentioned, but without specifying their origin. That said, walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, chestnuts, peanuts and cashews clearly seem to exist. No oranges, obviously. Why not? I don’t know, oranges are just as widespread and of the same origin as lemons.

Meat/fish of proven Terran origin cited in the novels: bees (for honey, of course), eels, carp, bosk (which on Gor is actually a domesticated buffalo – not a cow), gant (which is the common goose), verr (which is the woolly goat of Earth’s mountains), vulo (which is simply the domestic pigeon, obviously a little bigger than on Earth), tabuk (which is an Earth antelope).

Breads, starches & cereals

Gorean cereals and starches are mainly :

Sa-tarna, a cereal quite similar to wheat, is still the most widely grown cereal around Vosk. Goreans use it like wheat, mainly to make bread and baking recipes. There are different qualities of sa-tarna, but mainly soft sa-tarna, suitable for bread, and hard sa-tarna, which is reserved for porridges, semolina and gruel.

Buckwheat, which isn’t wheat but buckwheat, isn’t even a grass. Gluten-free, it is not suitable for making bread, but can be cooked in patties, porridges and animal feed. Less productive than sa-tarna or maize, it is hardy and resists cold well.

Corn, grown in the warmest, sunniest regions. It requires large quantities of water. It is made into flour for patties, can be boiled or roasted, ground into flour for groats and semolina, but cannot be baked at all. Corn bread must contain sa-tarna.

Rence, it’s… rice! It can be cooked and prepared in the same way as common rice on Earth. It can’t be made into bread either, but is eaten cooked, in boiled pasta, in crushed grain semolina, and in many forms of pastry.

Apparently rye doesn’t exist, but oats do, if I’m to believe a few details about slave gruel. It’s a cereal used for animal feed and some porridge recipes, and on Earth, on Gor, it would be one of the essential components of slave porridge.

You’ve heard of the potato, so I won’t elaborate. For those who are skeptical, a quote from the novels for confirmation:

“Dorna the Proud,” said the slave, who tumbled onions, turnips, radishes, potatoes and bread into the feed trough.

Outlaw of Gor

The sul is a tuber quite similar to the potato, with a sweeter taste, obviously even hardier than the potato, and capable of growing just about anywhere. It is used in cooking like the potato, and is very important in the production of a cheap and highly prized strong alcohol: sul-paga.

Bread and cereal-based foods are therefore a little less important for Goreans than for medieval Europeans, mainly because of the widespread use of suls (as for potatoes, I don’t know, I’ve often wondered if they weren’t actually the same thing…). That said, they still eat a lot of bread and cereals cooked in various forms. Cereals are the basis of many baking and pastry recipes, and are very important for feeding livestock… and slaves.

Barley, a hardy cereal that grows well in cold, damp climates, is mainly used for making beer and animal feed.

Dairy products

There are two types of milk used by Goreans: bosk (i.e. domestic buffalo) and verr (i.e. goat). Bosks produce a lot of milk, which is generally both fattier and milder than verr milk, which has a very strong taste. Verrs produce less milk, but this is offset by their sheer numbers and the ease with which they can be bred.

So, while bosk breeding is widespread, it’s not all that common either. In short, it’s not a docile cow, but rather a Swiss mountain cow, the herens cow, very old and rustic, renowned for the fights between the dominant females of each clan. The animal is dangerous enough that everyone is warned never to enter a mountain cow meadow. A bosk also requires more space, more forage, more care, and it doesn’t eat just anything, whereas a verr, which is a goat, eats anything and everything as long as it’s vegetable! So verr milk is the most widely used, and also the least expensive.

Without sterilization and refrigeration, milk doesn’t keep for more than a day, and goes bad very quickly, becoming undrinkable. While Goreans drink fresh milk and use it in recipes for cooking and baking, milk is primarily intended for processing into two products that can be kept for varying lengths of time: butter and cheese.

Butter a staple food, a very important fat in cooking, baking and pastry-making. Verr butter is very strong and tasty, so it’s best used in cooking or on toast, while bosk butter is ideal for pastries. Butter is often salted, to preserve it longer. If stored in a cool, sheltered place, it can last for months, whereas sweet butter can be kept for no more than a week or two.

Fresh cheeses are simply cheeses that have been drained to remove the whey, thus obtaining a soft paste and concentrated fresh milk. They are never ripened, and can be kept for a few days in a cool place. They are intended to be eaten sweet, savoury, with herbs and spices, or as a pastry ingredient. Yogurt is a form of fresh cheese. But there are lots of different recipes for fresh cheeses.

Soft cheeses are generally the most flavorful, with a creamy texture that spreads more or less easily on toast. They are not intended to be kept for more than a few weeks, and are often produced in spring, to be eaten in summer. Yes, without sterilization or refrigeration, you’ll never find this kind of cheese in winter, and very rarely in autumn.

Hard cheeses have a fairly thick crust and hard paste, which can be fatty or grainy, and get a stronger taste the longer they are matured. A hard cheese can be matured in a dry, sheltered room for a year or more before consumption. It will then have a powerful taste. But most hard cheeses are never matured for such a long time, and have a milder, more subtle taste.

Cheese is an incredible source of calories and the best way to preserve milk, so it’s highly prized and consumed. Verr cheese is always stronger and tastier on average than bosk cheese. There are lots of cheese recipes, each with its own taste. Cheese can also be blue (odoriferous, non-toxic molds), flavored with beer or wine, peppercorns or other spices, more or less salted, have a crust protected by wax, or washed in brine, etc….

In short, making cheese isn’t all that difficult, but it is quite an art, and there are countless recipes to choose from. For example, there are 1,200 different cheese recipes in France and 700 in Switzerland!

Oils

Oil is a kitchen essential, in all its forms – and it’s also indispensable in many mechanical uses. The only oil named in Gor is olive oil, one of the tastiest and healthiest oils around. Its only non-vegetable alternatives are butter and lard, i.e. rendered animal fat. On Gor, it’s mostly tarsk or gant fat.

If Norman doesn’t mention other oils, I can imagine, from the plants mentioned in Gor, that you can also find corn oil, walnut oil, sesame oil (also very tasty) or peanut oil. Flaxseed oil also exists and, yes, it’s perfectly edible. It has been the most widely used oil in the coldest regions of Europe since ancient times.

Vegetables

So we start with the earthy vegetables found on Gor: beans, cabbages, carrots, onions, peas, potatoes, radishes, squash, turnips, beans, garlic, peppers, olives, cassava, zucchinis, leeks, broccoli and finally tomatoes…

Don’t forget that vegetables come in many varieties, some with very different uses and tastes. For example, there are white, green, red and black snap beans, white, yellow, orange and red carrots, and so on…

Now, which Gorean vegetables are mentioned in the novels?

Katch is a herbaceous plant with broad, crisp leaves, eaten raw in salads or cooked in soups and stews. In short, it looks and tastes like lettuce.

Kes is a small tuber gathered from the roots of a shrub (kessier, I presume) and eaten boiled and in soup. Apparently, it has a bitter, slightly pungent taste.

The kort is a cucurbit (like the melon or watermelon), a ball averaging 15 cm in diameter with a thick skin. Its flesh is yellow, fibrous and rich in seeds, rather like pumpkin. It’s not really sweet, but can be eaten raw and salted, with melted cheese and nutmeg powder.

Mushrooms are mentioned in Gorean dishes, but without ever specifying names or precise descriptions. We can, however, describe two types of mushroom in the diet: wild mushrooms, which are harvested (with experience and care!) in woods and meadows in spring and autumn, depending on the species, and many of which can be dried and thus preserved for months. And cultivated mushrooms, i.e. those that can be grown, often in cellars, on layers of straw and mixed humus. By the way: mushroom cultivation is first and foremost a centuries-old Chinese invention. As mushrooms are highly productive, generally tasty and nutritious, and goreans are ingenious, they quickly learned how to grow them.

Suls, which are basically potatoes, and so I speak above.

Tur-pa, a large herbaceous plant with thick, curly red leaves and a rich, bitter taste, is eaten cooked as a stew or soup.

Meat & eggs

Here, we’ll focus on what can be done with different meats and animals.

The vulo: this is a pigeon, weighing between 200 and 500 grams, which flies very well indeed. Its eggs are small, but much eaten. Vulo meat can be roasted or cooked as a ragout. Pâtés are made from its offal, and there’s even a popular dish of fried vulo brains on toast. It’s pretty much the easiest meat to find in an inn or a street rotisserie stall. On the other hand, you can’t smoke it or salt it to preserve it.

The gant: it’s a goose… and yes, it flies pretty well too. And if the gant is less productive than the vulo, and less easy to raise, what you can do with its large eggs and meat is far more interesting than with the vulo. The gant is big, between 6 and 10 kg, fat, and its generous fat makes very good lard for cooking and preserving certain foods. Its flesh is red and tastes rather like beef, but a little stronger and more tender. You can even cut magrets, i.e. fillets from the bird’s flanks, and salt or smoke them, to preserve them for many months. Of course, liver of gant in pâté is highly prized, and other offal is ideal for pot-au-feu.

The tarsk is a cross between a wild boar and a warthog, and is basically a large domesticated pig weighing between 60 and 180 kg. Its advantage is its speed of growth. In one year, a young tarsk can reach 80 to 120 kg, if well fed. As an omnivore, you can feed it anything, and it’s very happy to eat leftovers and edible detritus, including meat. With its rich, fatty meat, which is easily soiled and smoked, and its fat, which produces a light-tasting lard, you can do just about anything you can do with a pig. And as the French saying goes, everything in pork is good. There’s no part of the animal that can’t be cooked! Except perhaps the eyes and hooves. The meat can be cooked in roasts, stews and pot au feu, and can be used to make delicatessen meat, smoked or salted hams, pâtés and crusted pâtés. You can even cook the feet, then preserve them in brine and eat them long afterwards! In short, it’s the most common meat in Gor, and one of the two least expensive, along with vulo.

The tabuk: this golden-orange antelope with a single horn lives in many parts of Gor, including the sub-polar regions. Apparently, Gor people don’t breed them, but hunt them for their meat and skins.  Tabuk in the south weigh around 50-70 kg, those in the north twice as much, and their meat is a powerful, fragrant venison meat that is mostly cooked on a spit (but which, in my opinion, makes excellent venison stews) and can be preserved dried or smoked. In the city-states of Gor, it’s considered a luxury dish, but in isolated villages it’s more common to eat it, and a welcome source of protein when tarsk meat is in short supply.

The bosk: I’ve talked about this in detail above, so I won’t go into it again. A bosk weighs between 700 kg and 1.2 tons. They are bred primarily for their milk, and for their labor in the fields and in the transport of goods. So, a bosk is only killed if it’s too old to work or produce milk, and only then is bosk meat available. Bosk meat is eaten in the same way as cow meat: it can be sausaged, but above all it can be salted, dried and smoked, and it can be roasted, boiled or stewed, and its fat makes a powerful-tasting lard. But, as you’ll have gathered, it’s still a rare meat, and therefore expensive and prized. And because it’s so sought-after, it’s usually eaten fresh, so there’s not much left to preserve.

The verr: a little like the bosk, the verr, which weighs from 25 to 120 kg, is bred primarily for its milk. But as they grow quickly, their meat is more common than that of the bosk on markets and in kitchens, especially that of the young, raised a few months before being slaughtered. It’s the most prized verr meat, because it’s tasty, but doesn’t taste too strong. Adult verr meat has a very strong taste, which is not always pleasant. That said, it’s not too expensive, and it’s perfectly edible. It can be cooked roasted, for baby verr meat, or as a stew for adult meat. It can be dried and smoked, but it never keeps very well, and is not at all suitable for delicatessen meat. Verr giblets aren’t very prized, so I imagine they end up in the slaves’ gruel to provide them with protein.

The hurt: not to be confused with the urt, which is a type of rat. The hurt is a marsupial that looks like a woolly kangaroo, weighing 35 to 50 kg. It is bred primarily for its wool, in the northern regions of Gor. Its meat is also eaten, but in broths, stews and pot-au-feu, as it’s not a highly prized meat.

The leem: a type of Arctic rodent, comparable to a ptarmigan hare, weighing 1 kg at best. It is not bred, and is mainly hunted for its fur. But its meat is prized in these regions, where any food is good enough to eat. And on the face of it, it’s a rather delicious meat. You can probably find live leems to kill and cook in large city-states, but that’s a luxury.

Do we eat kaiila, tarn or tharlarion meat? So, one point that’s fairly widespread is that humans avoid eating the meat of predators. There are two reasons for this, the first being that the taste is rarely pleasant, and the second being that predators are the animals with the highest concentration of health-damaging parasites. So… it’s not a good idea.

But… there are omnivorous kaiila, the desert kaiila, and herbivorous tharlarion, the working tharlarion, which incidentally stand on all fours, not two. In the regions where these animals are employed, they are quite common, so the same rule surely applies to them as to bosks: once too old to serve, they are killed, and their meat eaten. It would be foolish to waste it.

As for tarns, Norman describes them as a prized meat, generally eaten after battles by tarnsmans. Yes, there are bound to be tarns that die in battle. Personally, I wouldn’t risk eating the meat of a predatory bird, but for them, it’s a festive and clearly luxurious meal. And if it can be eaten in such cases, I imagine that the fate of tarns too old to serve is the same as that of bosks…

Are there other meats? Yes, like seal and sea mammal meat, which can surely be found in the form of fats, oils and smoked meat on the stalls of the city-states from the north of Gor. There’s also the meat of tarsk, bosk and wild verr, the meat of certain reptiles, or that of the few monkeys in the jungles of Gor, not forgetting that of the tumit, a predatory bird that doesn’t fly but is larger than a man and fearsome, and the meat of a whole host of wild birds. But in general, it remains occasional, or only local, or imported at a high price.

Fish and seafood

So, the two fish of terrestrial origin clearly mentioned on Gor are two freshwater, farmed fish: the eel and the carp. Both are easy to raise and feed: carp is vegetarian and eel omnivorous, and both live well in enclosed waters such as a pond or basin. Carp can be eaten fresh, simmered in the oven or roasted, while eels can be roasted or eaten as a stew, but above all, they are very easy to salt, smoke or dry and can be kept for a long time. In short, they’re the kind of fish you’re going to find on stalls and in kitchens all over Gor.

Parsit: a kind of codfish with delicate flesh, abundant in polar and subarctic waters, weighing in at just a few kilos. The Torvis fish them in abundance, then dry and salt them, so they can be kept in barrels for a long time, and traded with the South. The dried and salted fish simply needs to be soaked in water for a few hours before cooking.

The white-bellied Grunt:  a large carnivorous sea fish that is fished more for its roe, comparable to caviar, than for its meat.

The wingfish : I’m not sure it’s a river fish, but okay. It’s a small fish prized for its delicate, pan-fried flesh. Its liver is much sought-after, but given its size – roughly speaking, it fits on one plate – you’ll need several! Note that it has venomous spines, so care must be taken when catching and preparing it.

Oysters & river oysters: Gor oysters are not native to the land, but they are a prized delicacy. Oysters are eaten raw and fresh, but can also be preserved raw in brine, and cooked, fried or boiled in soups and stews. Oysters are widely eaten in the Vosk and its delta.

The sorp: a giant sea shell, quite similar in shape to a scallop, but so large that the largest can be used as a seat. It is sinned for for two reasons: it produces pearls, and its blood and flesh are used to produce a blue dye. Even its shell is prized for jewelry, like mother-of-pearl. And you can eat it! At least, the rencier people of the Vosk delta eat it.

Any other fish or seafood?

Yes, and plenty of them. Shrimps (large and small), crabs, lobsters, river crayfish, octopus and squid are all mentioned, as are mussels (and river mussels) and other small edible shellfish. It would seem, but I have my doubts, that tuna is mentioned in the novels, and is also fished. That said, there are lots of different fish, from the smallest to the biggest, so feel free to invent! If there’s no tuna or salmon, give a name to a similar fish, and off you go!

Soups & gruels

Along with stews, soups are the simplest and most common dishes on Gor. 90% of Goreans are low-caste, with the vast majority being peasants, and a good vegetable soup enriched with a little meat, cheese and a few thick slices of bread makes a very good meal, for very little money. In most taverns, or street kitchens, a good bowl of soup will be the most affordable dish. Note that, as in Roman times and the Middle Ages, market stalls don’t usually provide you with eating utensils. Bring your own bowl and spoon!

The most common soups are ground (finely crushed) or unground vegetable soup; pot-au-feu, often cooked with bacon, offal and marrow bones; bouillon riche, a rich, fragrant broth into which chopped vegetables and herbs, hard-boiled eggs and cured meat are thrown just before consumption, but also bits of vulo, fish or crustaceans, fish soup, which is ground and served with garlic croutons, mushroom soup, or roasted grain soup (I hate it, but it’s a traditional Swiss recipe, found all over Europe in the past).

Cereal porridges are another very common dish, porridge being grains crushed and coarsely ground, then cooked in water or milk. Add salt or sugar, bits of vegetables, crushed nuts, chunks of fresh fruit or even a little bacon or dried meat, and you’ve got a very nourishing dish. It’s not great cooking, it’s not really very good, but it’s not expensive at all, and it’s a great way to save on bread and soups.

And, of course, there’s the matter of slave gruel (and dumplings). Here’s an academic definition of what gruel are:

Gruel (from the Franconian *grût, “coarsely ground grain”) is a preparation of degermed cereal grains, such as oatmeal, pearl wheat or barley, and rice, stripped of their cortical husks by coarse grinding. When gruels are cooked, they turn into wort, a sticky, gelatinous mixture, the gelatinization of the starch making it open to attack by enzymes.

What does Norman say in Gor’s novels?

“I mixed the water with the pre-cooked flour to form a kind of cold porridge. Then, using my fingers and bringing the bowl to my lips, I greedily fed on the thick, bland, moist substance.

Kajira de Gor, “

Clearly, slave porridge is gruel. But…

… and here I’ll put on my biologist’s hat to remind you that we are omnivores, not herbivores at all, and, what’s more, the last descendants of a species that owes a large part of its evolutionary advantage (its brain, not the only one, but the most remarkable) to meat consumption. From our most distant ancestors Homo Habilis to the first Homo Sapiens, a more or less meat-heavy diet has often been the major asset in our evolution. You need lot of protein to feed the brain, which alone consumes 20% of the calories you eat. In fact, the transition from hunter-gatherer to farmer was a painful one for Homo Sapiens, who turned to a diet dominated by cereals, which was terribly deficient, just long enough to find animal proteins through animal breeding!

Why this digression? For Gor’s history, for the importance of the Physician’s Caste, and for Norman’s claim:

“Slave food,” I say, “is designed to keep us healthy, slim and vigorous, just as our masters want. It would be the same for other animals.”

Witness of Gor

Slave gruel, though bland, tasteless and utterly unappetizing, is not just ground grain cooked in water. While the vast majority of gruels are coarsely ground and cooked, then dried to become flour which, with the addition of water, makes a ready-to-eat porridge, they also contain additives designed to prevent nutritional deficiencies. This means that it contains concentrated vegetable and fruit extracts to avoid vitamin deficiencies, and proteins. I believe the proteins are extracted from meat and fish, or from protein-rich vegetables such as beans, lentils, chickpeas and soy. Physician’s caste probably sells these concentrated food additives, which are incorporated into the porridge at the end of the cooking process, to obtain the gruel flour. A whole industry and science of nutrition is devoted to this product.

Dumplings are the other common food of the kajirae, in addition to gruel : obviously, they’re meat- and vegetable-based foods concentrated and coagulated into small pellets that can be eaten in one bite, whose role is to add the necessary proteins and vitamins to the slaves. What they all have in common is that they’re bland and tasteless. This food is really designed to make the person eating it feel like they’re eating cattle feed.

Generally, the slave participates in and enjoys the same meal as her master, with him seated and her on her knees. Sometimes she has to make do with gruel or slave porridge and water, which she has to take from bowls on the floor, which she has to address on all fours without using her hands.

Quarry of Gor

The fruits

Let’s start by listing the earthy vegetables available on Gor: apricots, lemons, melons, cherries, peaches, pears, plums, apples, pomegranates, grapes, sweet gourds, dates, watermelons, mangoes, bananas, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackcurrants.

And what are the Gorean fruits? Norman doesn’t describe many:

The ka-la-na is a purple to crimson fruit that grows on the tree of the same name, and can be compared to a large, very sweet and tasty plum, with a rather unique fragrance. Apparently, the ka-la-na fruit has no pits, but only small seeds.

The ka-la-na fruit can be eaten fresh, dried or candied, and is widely used in cooking and pastry-making, but above all, it is used to create a fruit wine that is highly prized and consumed by the well-to-do. A fruit wine, in this respect, is an alcoholic beverage obtained by fermenting fruit juices other than grapes. For example, in theory, cider is a fruit wine. Yes, ka-la-na wine doesn’t contain an ounce of grape juice.

The larma is a golden fruit, which clearly resembles, in its general description and taste, a very large lychee. It grows on a fruit tree that prefers warm climates and is called… larma! So when I say the fruit is very big, I mean it’s the size of a grapefruit. Its shell is hard, but thin and easily breakable, and its flesh is tangy, fresh, fragrant and sweet (did I mention I love lychees?).

The larma is often confused in Gor SL with a citrus fruit, as its flesh is segmented into quarters, like oranges, but it’s not really a citrus fruit. On the other hand, it is clearly loaded with vitamin C and, along with tospit, replaces oranges in the fruit consumption of goreans. Larma can be stored for a long time without spoiling, simply by keeping it in a cool, dry place. It is eaten in every conceivable way, and is used in the preparation of many sweet and savoury dishes, as well as fruit juices, of course!

It’s a highly symbolic fruit, and is something of a “woman’s fruit”. A free woman can be compared to a larma: hard and brittle on the surface, soft and sweet on the inside. It’s also the fruit a kajira offers her master, silently begging him to use her sexually.

The hard larma is not a larma, and a priori, its only common feature is its golden color. It’s an apple-sized fruit, with firm, juicy flesh and a large central stone, and the fruit is grown in orchards. It’s also called the stone fruit and… and I don’t know much more about it, but obviously, it’s probably cooked in the same way as apples and pears on Earth:

I took a slice of hard larma from my tray. It’s a firm, single-seeded, apple-like fruit. It’s very different from the juicy, segmented larma. It is sometimes, and perhaps more aptly, called the stone fruit, because of its large, single stone. I held it out for him to see. I’d understood that the Urts were very fond of stone fruit. In fact, it was for stealing such a fruit from a state orchard that he had been incarcerated.

Players of gor

The tospit is not a lemon at all, nor does it resemble one! It’s a light yellow fruit, similar to a peach but smaller, with a thin skin and firm but bitter and acidic flesh. Its shrub grows easily, even in cold latitudes. Nicknamed the sailor’s larma, it keeps well, can be easily dried, and is also a highly sought-after source of vitamin C.

Tospit is as widespread as larma, and can be eaten fresh, in fruit juice, or with honey and spices, and is widely used in cooking.

Ram berries and gim berries are two berries, mentioned in the novels as edible berries, which can be harvested in the woods, especially in the Great North Forest. Ram berries are red berries full of seeds, while gim berries are small, juicy purple berries.

The nuts

So nuts are often mentioned in the novels, and sometimes named, but none are native to Gor, although there must surely be some.

But what kind of nuts are there? Well, putting aside the peanut, which is a peanut and not a nut at all, we can mention walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, chestnuts and cashews. These are all rich, nourishing foods that can be stored for a long time, and whose trees can be cultivated in productive orchards. They can be made into oils, flours and powders, and incorporated into recipes for cooking and pastry-making, or used to enhance a dish, or even as travel food!

An important point: chocolate. Yes, Goreans know and cultivate the cacao tree, which originated on Earth, to extract the beans, which are then roasted, ground into flour and refined – our good old chocolate! The cacao tree, like the coffee tree, only grows in tropical climates, so it’s rare and expensive.

“It’s hot chocolate,” I said, delighted. It was very rich and creamy.

“Yes, Mistress,” replied the young girl.

“It’s very good,” I say.

“Thank you, Mistress,” she replied.

“Is it from Earth?” I asked.

“Not directly,” she replied. “Many things here, of course, ultimately have an earthly origin. It’s not unlikely that the beans from which this world’s first cocoa trees were grown were brought from Earth.”

“Do trees grow near here?” I asked.

“No, Mistress,” she replied. “We obtain the beans, from which chocolate is made, from Cosian merchants, who, in turn, obtain them in the tropics.”

Kajira of Gor

Spices & condiments

I’m not going to dwell too much on this subject, and just remind you of two things, concerning salt and sugar.

Salt: there are salts of different colors, depending on the metallic impurities they contain (there’s even blue salt from a salt mine in the Swiss Alps, but it’s purely decorative). White salt is the purest and most refined, and generally comes from salt works, i.e. from the sea. Yellow salt is also generally a salt from a saltworks, but less purified, and used primarily for food preservation and industry, which uses a lot of salt. Red salt is mentioned as a rarity from Kasra, but apart from its color, there’s nothing exceptional about it.

Sugar: Well, Norman talks about different kinds of sugar, but really only describes two types of sugar: white and yellow. You know the difference? Their degree of purity and refining, and nothing else! Yellow sugar (actually more like brown sugar) will have a slight caramel and vegetable aftertaste, while white sugar will taste like pure sugar. There are other types of sugar, which I think refer to different earth sugars, such as wholegrain sugar, which is unrefined, has a strong taste that doesn’t appeal to everyone, and is light brown (and doesn’t keep well), and brown sugar, an unrefined brown sugar with a special cooking process that gives it a rich caramel taste (and also doesn’t keep well).

But where does Gor’s sugar come from? It’s pretty widespread and affordable, so I’d exclude sugar cane, which requires very special climatic conditions to grow, and I’d be tempted to say that the people of Gor know how to grow sugar beet, and extract the very sweet juice from it, to cook and refine it!

As for spices, Norman mentions pepper, chili, curry, paprika, nutmeg, cloves and garlic. I imagine there must be more!

When it comes to condiments, Goreans appreciate olives and pickled gherkins, vinegar, fermented and salted creams, sesame seeds and hot pepper sauces. They are also familiar with garum, a traditional Roman condiment made from fermented and salted fish, and fermented soy sauce.

4- What do Goreans drink?

Goreans drink less alcoholic beverages than Romans or medieval inhabitants, and consume more tea and herbal teas. But that doesn’t mean they’re sober! Alcohol flows freely, and alcoholic beverages on Gor are quite strong, even beers! For us 21st-century inhabitants, however, we wouldn’t feel the difference.

That’s because the agricultural and industrial revolution is behind us! While the first brandy were invented (by alchemists!) in the Middle Ages, it wasn’t until the 16th century that efficient distillation methods were deployed on a large scale. And, yes, whisky was only invented in 1494. Gin and vodka are even more recent! As for strong beers, they were born in 1920. Even abbey beers, light but rich and nourishing, are relatively recent, born around the 6th century. As for wine as we know it, it only dates back to the 17th century, with the invention of the glass bottle, advanced wine-making and the cork stopper.

As the Goreans are ingenious and technologically advanced, their alcoholic beverages are closer to our own than to those of the Romans and the Middle Ages. They keep longer, are more varied, and are rather rich in alcohol. Another important factor is that water is not considered dangerous by Goreans. While water from rivers and ponds should be avoided, water from wells, springs and aqueducts generally healthy and poses few risks – otherwise, epidemics among slaves, who drink only water, would result in bloodshed.

Non-alcoholic drinks

Teas: the tea leaf is harvested from a low shrub called the tea plant. It’s a plant that requires stable climatic conditions and sunshine, and doesn’t necessarily produce much. But since tea is grown all over Gor, tea plantations must be immense and very well managed. The most highly-rated tea is Bazi tea, which comes from the outskirts of the eponymous city.

There are four main types of tea: smoked tea, black tea, green tea and white tea, plus many others, depending on how the leaves are dried, how they are stored, the type of shrub and the region of production. So there’s not just Bazi tea, but there can be teas with specific names, some accessible to all, others even more expensive than Bazi tea.

The tea is prepared in a cup or teapot, and presented with liquid cream, milk and white, yellow or brown sugar. By the way: there’s no formal Bazi tea ceremony described in the novels. It’s an onlinism.

Coffee: called black wine on Gor, it’s simply coffee, the roasted seed from the fruit of the coffee plant. Coffee only grows in tropical climates, so it’s rare and expensive. The people of Gor store and transport it in bean form, turning it into a fine powder in a pestle only before preparation.

Black wine is prepared by decoction (oriental coffee): An extra-fine grind of coffee mixed with water (about three spoonfuls of coffee powder for 300 ml of water) is brought to the boil in a dallah (an Arabian coffee pot) or other fireproof pot. Spices are sometimes added to the grind, notably cardamom.

The other solution, which requires a filter coffeemaker designed for this purpose (an Italian coffee maker), is percolation: this type of coffeemaker consists of two compartments separated by a filter holder which holds a dose of coffee. As it heats up, some of the water in the closed vessel evaporates, producing steam which pressurizes the vessel (steam occupying more volume than liquid water): the still-liquid water then rises through the filter tube, passes through the coffee and overflows at the top of the chimney, finally falling back into the coffee pot. The machine is used for both preparation and service. And yes, Goreans know how to make this kind of coffeemaker, which is quite an affordable luxury.

And the formal black wine service? Well, it’s anecdotal. It’s something of an onlinism, since it’s described as being practiced only in certain corners around Vosk and remains little known and widespread… We don’t even know what the formal service is in Thentis and  Tahari, the cultures that consumes the most black wine.

“Second slave”, I said, which in river towns and some cities, particularly in the north, is a way of indicating that I would take the black wine without cream or sugar, and as it came out of the container, which, of course, in these parts is handled by the “second slave”, the first slave being the girl who sets out the cups, takes orders and ensures that the drink is prepared according to the preferences of the person being served.

…

The expression “second slave”, by the way, is used to indicate that you don’t want cream or sugar in your black wine, even if only one girl is serving.

Guardsman of Gor

Susan, as “first slave”, took orders, measured and mixed; I, as “second slave”, served.

Kajira of Gor

Herbal teas: A herbal tea is a very common beverage, prepared by macerating, infusing or decocting herbs, spices or fruit in hot (or, more rarely, cold) water. As a general rule, it’s the same recipe as tea… but without the tea, and instead of herbs and aromatic and medicinal plants, spices or even strips of fruit. And it’s not uncommon to mix the three to create powerful, flavorful aromatic blends with proven medicinal virtues.

You can do the same thing by adding tea, for a fragrant tea. And it’s easy to make blends before preparation, letting the fragrances of the different components mix, for example in a closed jar and bag, leaving the components to dry in a cool, dry place.

Fruit juices: first appearing and consumed around the Renaissance on Earth, but really coming into vogue with the invention of refrigeration, I’d be tempted to say that fruit juices aren’t a common drink in taverns and inns. It’s a bit of a luxury, in fact. But since Goreans have very good iceboxes, and ka-la-na, larmas and tospits grow quite easily everywhere, all you need to do is keep a supply of fruit in a cool place, squeeze it, harvest the juice, and off you go! So, while fruit juice isn’t a common drink, it’s still a popular one.

Milk: nothing to say on this subject, except that the most common type of milk is not bosk, but verr, i.e. goat’s milk, which has a rather strong taste, but is still very pleasant to drink. Oh, yes, did I mention the health risks associated with fresh, unpasteurized (i.e. unsterilized) milk? You run the risk of several bacterial infections, including brucellosis, salmonellosis, listeriosis, and tuberculosis of cattle, which is rare and slow-moving, but absolutely fatal without proper treatment.

An alternative, which is less risky from a health point of view, is fermented milk, which is bitterer and fatter, but whose fermentation generally kills the other bacteria present. It is consumed in warmer regions.

Alcoholic beverages

Wine obtained from the fermentation of grape juice in a process known as winemaking. Depending on the process, which is very different, the taste and even the color of the wine change. Rosé or white wine doesn’t come from pink or white grapes, but from bunches of red grapes. It’s time and the winemaking process that give it its color. There can be sweet, sparkling or very dry wines, and each terroir has its own way of making them, so the tastes are very different. Wine is vinified in barrels, but ages better in sealed bottles.

What determines the price of a wine is the reputation of the terroir in which it is made, the time it takes to vinify and the time it takes to age. The result is wines that can be worth next to nothing, right up to decades-old bottles worth the price of a tarn. I haven’t seen much mention of the Goreans cutting their wine with water and adding spices, like the Romans. The Romans did this to make a light, tasty drink that wasn’t too acidic.

Ka-la-na wine: it’s not wine, because it doesn’t contain an ounce of grapes, but fruit wine, i.e. an alcoholic beverage made by fermenting fruit juices other than grapes. And contrary to popular belief on Gor Second Life, it’s not a very expensive drink either. Ka-la-na wine is widespread everywhere, and is reputed to have aphrodisiac virtues for women, which seems to be the case, but I’ll leave you to judge.

The guards had thoroughly enjoyed us, and had apparently come to expect it, for, much to our delight, they had bought a small bottle of Ka-la-na wine in a wicker basket, which they allowed us to share, sip after sip. I’d never tasted such rich, delicate wine on Earth, yet here in this world, it cost only a tarnished copper disk and was so cheap and plentiful you could even give it to a slave girl. I remembered each of the four sips I’d taken. I was still savoring them, along with the meat and bread I’d eaten. It was the first fermented Gorean drink I’d ever tasted. Ka-la-na is said to have an unusual effect on women. I think it’s true.

Captive of Gor

“They say,” says Verna, “that Ka-la-na wine makes any woman a slave, if only for an hour.”

Captive of Gor

Beer is produced by fermenting a cereal wort (originally barley), which is brewed until a bacterial reaction takes place, giving the beer its alcohol content and its bubbles! Originally, beer was rarely preserved. It took the perfecting of the keg, followed by sealed bottling, to preserve it. On this subject, the hop additive in beer is used both to give it flavor and to improve its preservation! Okay, so, are there barley and hops on Gor? You can make beer without them, but given the descriptions in the novels, clearly there is.

Beer may not be as common in Gor as wine or brandy, but it’s still quite common. There are three main types of beer: lager, which is light and fresh; red ale, which is a little more full-bodied and alcoholic; and brown ale, which is the strongest in taste and alcohol. Color depends mainly on how long the beer has been fermented.

Paga is a brandy, like whisky, produced by distillation from a grain mash, usually sa-tarna. The result is a beverage with a high alcohol content, whose taste will vary according to the length of maturation in the barrel, or the additives added to the must.

Old Tarl and I may have drunk a little too much of this fermented drink concocted with diabolical skill from a yellow cereal, Sa-Tarna, and called Pagar-Sa-Tarna, “Pleasure of the Daughter of Life”, but almost always “Paga” for short.

Tarnsman of Gor

Sul-paga is also a brandy, but replace the cereals with suls, and you get a very strong spirit with little taste. Distilling suls is easier than distilling grain mouts, and produces more brandy. So sul-paga is a bit like the poor man’s paga.

When distilled, sul paga is as clear as water, although the sul itself is yellow. Sul is a tuberous root of the plant of the same name, and is a Gorean staple. The still, with its vats and pipes, was located in the village of Tabuk’s Ford, where Thurnus, our host, was caste chief.

“Excellent,” said my master as he sipped the sul paga. He could have been referring to the strength of the drink, for sul paga is almost tasteless. You don’t drink sul paga in big gulps. Last night, one of the men held my head back and forced me to take a sip. Within moments, everything went black and I lost consciousness. I’d only woken up this morning, sick, miserable, with a splitting headache, chained up with the other girls.

Slave of Gor

Mead is a beverage produced by fermenting water, honey and yeast. Contrary to popular belief, it’s a fairly strong drink, more alcoholic than wine or beer. It can be kept in barrels, but not for long, and the best way to preserve it is by bottling. You can tell the quality of mead by its color: when it’s young, it’s light yellow, and as it ages in casks, it takes on a golden hue, sometimes even turning light brown for the oldest.

A word about Gorean mead: it’s the favorite drink of the Torvis, and a recipe especially common in the north of Gor. Yes, it can be flavored with various spices, but… never when preparing the glass or the horn! These spices are added during fermentation, to enrich the taste of the mead, but never at the moment of serving – it’s also an onlinism!

In the north, mead – a drink made from fermented honey, water and often spices and other ingredients – is generally preferred to paga.