#feda cheese

#1- we know that cattle farming exists in Wof as in book one, Clay’s mother tells him that he was sold for two cows, for the purpose to have them multiple and create a larger food supply. So the practice of having livestock for food isn’t unheard of but the idea of milk is another.

This means someone had to have done one of two things. Figure out how cows produce milk, find a way to obtain milk, figure out the methods of cheeses making, then find a market that was interested in buying such a food product. Or, saw scavengers milk cattle, take the pre existing cow and attempt to learn pre existing knowledge that the scavengers already had and do it on a much larger scale. Both are kinda bonkers.

#2- dragons would have some sort of knowledge about The active cultures present within cheese. So salt baths and dry aging are things. However since we know that it at least exists in the sky kingdom (because Peril knows what it is) I assume they would have goat cheese because goats would be better suited for the mountain environment. So maybe it’s more like ancient forms of Greek cheese like feda, being something that was discovered on accident but revers engineered afterwards.

#3- after some digging I found that reptiles are unable to digest lactose, being that they are not adapted to it like mammals. So if they can’t eat it, why can dragons? This could mean that after a long while of consuming dairy, they adapted a stronger gut to digest it. Now to get back to the topic of feda cheese, you may say “well since feda cheese is the most realistic form of cheese to exist in both the sky kingdom and Wof in general, then they wouldn’t actually be consuming lactose because there is none in feda”. To that I say WRONG!! It is in feda but I’m just a smaller amount!! Knowing this it’s not hard to come to a few conclusions and

Cheese is only consumed by higher class individuals and is seen as a luxury item

Cheese is only common in SkyWing culture and they adapted to eat it

All dragons have the ability to eat lactose or at least those who have access to dairy producing livestock

Tui just thought cheese sounded funny and didn’t really think about it because it was a throw away line in one book

In conclusion…… the most reasonable explanation was that a long time ago in the sky kingdom, a dragon saw a scavenger getting milk from a goat. That dragon took the goat and started making milk part of SkyWing diets, but only for Royals and nobles due to the novelty. Sooner or later feda is created on accident by transporting milk in animal stomachs and dragons considered this pretty great. Cheese becomes a standard practice for sky wings and probably some surrounding kingdoms, however they focused more on the livestock aspect as it was a more simple job. That leaves us to book 8 where Peril references cheese as she would have probably stumbled across it at a sky wing party.