The Knick Knack Shelf

if you put potatoes in your medieval european style fantasy world people will by and large not find it jarring and accept it as a normal fantasy trope

if you put, say, black people in your medieval european style fantasy world a whole demographic of people will get very angry and accuse you of breaking their immersion

thought 1:

it absolutely is possible to justify the presence of potatoes in fantasy medieval europe; however, important to consider if you are actually trying to write a less eurocentric fantasy world or just trying to prop up your existing potatoes

& ultimately, the core issue here is less about the presence of potatoes and more about the absence of south america.

thought 2:

"imagine what a european cuisine without potatoes would be like" was perhaps poor phrasing given that, as several people have pointed out, pre-potato european cuisine is well documented. 'engage with' perhaps a better way to express this.

i think possibly a related issue here is that some people have a, wrongfooted idea about what pre-colonial european cuisine was like? I think some people have heard 'europe invaded the rest of the world for spices' and extrapolated that pre-colonial europeans were all eating flavourless grey porridge & then I suppose don't want that for their fantasy world. in actuality medieval europe did have interesting and tasty cuisine going on - here's a list of medieval european recipes.

thought 3:

it's true that this does, at least some of the time, stem from ignorance, the fact that people are able to be ignorant about this is itself part of the problem.

additionally, i think there is a difference between the average person on the street being like 'oh, I always thought potatoes were from ireland' and someone writing a fantasy novel set in medieval europe being so incurious about history that they've never clocked that potatoes are American. I'm happy to hold writers to a higher standard on this.

thought 4:

for anyone who is just now learning that potatoes come from South America:

if you put potatoes in your medieval european style fantasy world people will by and large not find it jarring and accept it as a normal fantasy trope

if you put, say, black people in your medieval european style fantasy world a whole demographic of people will get very angry and accuse you of breaking their immersion

thought 1:

it absolutely is possible to justify the presence of potatoes in fantasy medieval europe; however, important to consider if you are actually trying to write a less eurocentric fantasy world or just trying to prop up your existing potatoes

& ultimately, the core issue here is less about the presence of potatoes and more about the absence of south america.

thought 2:

"imagine what a european cuisine without potatoes would be like" was perhaps poor phrasing given that, as several people have pointed out, pre-potato european cuisine is well documented. 'engage with' perhaps a better way to express this.

i think possibly a related issue here is that some people have a, wrongfooted idea about what pre-colonial european cuisine was like? I think some people have heard 'europe invaded the rest of the world for spices' and extrapolated that pre-colonial europeans were all eating flavourless grey porridge & then I suppose don't want that for their fantasy world. in actuality medieval europe did have interesting and tasty cuisine going on - here's a list of medieval european recipes.

thought 3:

it's true that this does, at least some of the time, stem from ignorance, the fact that people are able to be ignorant about this is itself part of the problem.

additionally, i think there is a difference between the average person on the street being like 'oh, I always thought potatoes were from ireland' and someone writing a fantasy novel set in medieval europe being so incurious about history that they've never clocked that potatoes are American. I'm happy to hold writers to a higher standard on this.

thought 4:

for anyone who is just now learning that potatoes come from South America:

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Shockwave art experiment. Just having fun with messy paint.