mel

his grandfather says, “I’ve fed him at my table for six years…I’ll not feed him any longer…Let him be fed by him what got him.” almost certainly, his grandfather can’t feed him any longer. when fitz ate that night, he “wasted no time filling [his] mouth” and “stuffed as much bread into [his] mouth as [he] could.” he was starving! given how desperate his mother was to keep fitz and his grandfather’s emphasis on food, their family had to have been experiencing severe food insecurity to finally have the grandfather give fitz up.

food insecurity can be defined in two ways: 1) limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate or safe foods 2) limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways. while we don’t have confirmation for the nature of food insecurity fitz experienced before moonseye, we do know afterwards. the first day fitz arrives at buckkeep, cob and burrich obtain food for fitz but out of his sight and neither show him how to properly acquire food in the keep. during the time period after the first day and before burrich takes nosy away, burrich leaves before fitz wakes up and pays no mind to fitz as long as fitz is in bed every evening.

burrich’s negligence causes fitz to experience both of the definitions of food insecurity. he acquires food in socially unacceptable ways by learning to steal from the kitchens and town, as well as scavenging other food (burned crusts, raw sheel - this can be dangerous to eat, seaweed, fish) which is a nutritionally inadequate and unsafe diet. fitz mentions that burrich sees fitz “fed well enough to grow heartily,” but we can presume from fitz’s descriptions of daily life that he uses the word to mean burrich perceives fitz to be fed and the measure of “well enough” is clearly ambiguous. basically, anyone that’s eating burned crusts is not being fed well enough.