Thread: Food in the Pokémon World

It's my first time posting in this forum, so pardon me if I did something wrong/unnecessary. Not to mention that my English grammar isn't perfect :P

Here's the thing: I'm trying to do Worldbuilding of the Pokémon World that I'm portraying, which includes a large bit of history. I've already written some events at the beginning of the world, when people still lived in tribes made up of shelters,

2000 years before the modern days (yes, you read it right, 2000 years, why can't I make the world at the time so rudimentary and make it advance faster than the real one?)

but I'm struggling with something that could be ignored in modern-world portrayals of the Pokémon World: the food. I know I could just make the humanity entirely vegetarian, but we know that meat gives lots of calories and energy for people, if consumed moderately, and if we add the physical exercises, people become really healthy and strong. I also want Pokémon flesh consumption to exist to make a world similar enough to our real one that it can be recognized, yet enjoyed by other differences that I'll attempt to create later.

So, can anyone suggest Pokémon that would be hunted by humans back then (only from Generations I-IV) for meat?

Hmmm... Farfetch'd? Oddish? Slowpoke?

Stanler...

Magikarp. It's even mentioned being eaten in the fourth-gen games.

Taurus and Miltank, of course. And maybe some Torchic.

EAT MOR BLAZKIN

Well, there's a book in DPPt that says something about thanking the spirit of the Pokemon before you eat it. So I'd imagine that even if Pokemon are consumed as meat, they're still given some sort of tribute.

NOW THEN.

I'd imagine that while vegetarianism would by no means be the norm, a lot more foods woulds be vegetarian in the Pokemon world than what we're used to. Modern-day Western culture has grown to accept meat-centered meals as the norm, but in the past, a lot of dishes were vegetarian or used meat economically (for example, cutting it into small pieces so it could be scattered among the other ingredients) because meat was damn expensive.

As for specific categories...

Dairy:

• Miltank, of course
• Stantler. Hear me out; reindeer have traditionally been milked by the Sami people of Scandinavia. The fat content of reindeer milk is 22% though, which is six times that of cow's milk.
• Mareep line: I don't think this is going to be too popular, but sheep CAN be milked and their milk is used to make some kinds of cheeses (I know Roquefort is one, but I can't remember others)

Poultry:

• Farfetch'd
• Pidgey, Taillow and Starly lines: Smaller birds like quails and pigeons are eaten in real life.
• Doduo/Dodrio: They resemble ostriches. Ostriches have red meat, but it's got a very low fat content.

Domestically Raised Meat:

• Tauros
• Stantler: just like their milk, both reindeer and other kinds of deer are often used for meat
• Mareep Line: Lamb and mutton are also eaten, though I'd think trying to prepare the carcass of an electrical sheep would be hell.
• Spoink and Grumpig

Game:

• Stantler (again)
• Sentret and Furret. No lies; some people eat squirrels and possums.
• So by the same extent, Pachirisu
• And Zigzagoon/Linoone
• Bidoof and Bibarel; as far as I know it beavers are perfectly edible
• Buneary
• Some people eat bears, and I think in ancient times this has been connected to different rituals. You can TRY to hunt a Teddiursa or Ursaring to eat, but I don't think that would go over very well.
• Depending on your interpretation, Ekans, Arbok, and Seviper. Rattlesnakes, for example, are edible because the venom isn't in their entire body, just in glands near the fangs.
• Lots of people hunt wild boars, and in quite a few places feral hogs are even encouraged to be hunted because they're pests. So I think Swinub, Piloswine and Mamoswine could be used for meat.

Seafood:

• Magikarp
• Qwilfish
• Krabby and Kingler
• The entire Poliwag line
• Remoraid and especially Octillery, though octopus flesh is a bit rubbery
• Mantine
• Corphish and Crawdaunt. They'd be eaten the same way you'd normally eat crayfish or lobster.
• Wailmer and Wailord
• Slowpoke tails seem to be edible, though consuming them also seems to be illegal. I think it's the same deal as, say, foie gras: they're prized as a delicacy, but banned in a lot of places because the means to get them involves extraordinary cruelty. (Yes, the tails grow back, but it leaves the Slowpoke unable to hunt for who knows how long)
• Whiscash, preferably with lots of batter
• Sharpedo, though preparing shark meat takes quite some effort. It also reeks of ammonia.
• Shellder and Cloyster
• Clamperl
• Huntail and Gorebyss resemble eels, and eels are edible, but their Pokedex entries make me think that maybe it's not worth the effort.

Eggs:

• Chansey produce eggs and seem to have no problem with sharing. Their rarity makes me doubt that they're raised on a large scale for eggs, though Chansey/Blissey owners probably eat the eggs without too many problems.
• Ostrich eggs are HUGE, so Doduo and Dodrio would make one hell of an omelet.
• The eggs of songbirds, by contrast, make tiny omelets, so anything in the ridiculously common bird lines would be the same.
• I think a Farfetch'd would be a good source of eggs, since duck eggs are comparable to chicken ones. If you follow the idea that Psyduck is a duck and not a platypus those work too.

Other stuff:

• Combee and Vespiquen canonically produce honey.
• Maybe Beedrill do the same, I dunno.
• Tropius has a beard made of bananas. The Pokedex also says that it encourages others to eat from its banana-beard and that these neckbananas are highly delicious.

And some things I think would not be edible/impractical:

• Grass-types, apart from the aforementioned Tropius, probably aren't going to see a whole lot of eating. Mostly because it's probably easier to just raise regular plants if you're going to be eating something that's a plant anyway.
• Steel, Ground or Rock types, unless you're a Goron
• Ghost-types, because they're not physical beings
• Anything with intelligence on around the same level as a human's, like Alakazam or Gardevoir
• Miltank is totally going to be used for diary, though IMO it's too fatty to properly be used for meat, and it produces so much milk that it's probably more profitable that way.

EDIT: Sorry, had no idea it would be such a teal Deerling (teal Sawsbuck, now that I think about it)

If you're talking around 2000 years in the past, you've got a level of civilization where the people could easily still be very tied to spiritualism. I'd imagine at that point some sort of coexistence with Pokémon - certain Pokémon are adopted by humans and made partners, and others are hunted or farmed for food. Humans may not have even figured a way to reliably communicate with Pokémon at that point.

I find the North American natives' attitude to be highly relevant here - they would hunt animals, but only often enough to feed their families and they would make it a point to pray to the animal spirits in apology, explaining that they hunted only to survive. Furthermore, they were notable for using every part of the animal possible - they would eat every edible part, use the bones in tools, use the hides as cloth, etc. It's a form of hunting while keeping the utmost respect for the creature, a policy that seems as though it would fit the Pokémon world very well.

Originally Posted by juiceboxxx

[*]Steel, Ground or Rock types, unless you're a Goron

I love Gorons!

On topic though,

The eating of Pokemon has been mentioned a fair few times throughout all of the different types in which Pokemon is portrayed.
Yet of course, none of us would be particularly fond of eating out team-mates and/or partners.

So, agreeing with juicebox here, the only real edible Pokemon will be those raised domestically or hunted as game and such.

Also, I think implementing the notion that Chromas brought forward would be benifitial to a story aswell, by implementing the Native Americans' attitude into the story, you could really flesh out the story's setting of 2000 years ago!

Sorry for my late answer, but I had life not giving me time and a massive post to write (most of the stuff in it I had written after reading everyone's posts). However I decided that there wasn't a point in posting it here in its entirety (since I would basically writing out a detailed history of the beginning of the world, just to give a context for the meat consumption in it), so it'll end up being much shorter than I wanted. I'm also in a rush, so some mistakes may appear.

Originally Posted by Chromas

If you're talking around 2000 years in the past, you've got a level of civilization where the people could easily still be very tied to spiritualism. I'd imagine at that point some sort of coexistence with beasts - certain beasts are adopted by humans and made partners, and others are hunted or farmed for food. Humans may not have even figured a way to reliably communicate with beasts at that point.

Exactly, in my story Ho-Oh had created the humans recently at the north of Johto, so it was basically their god, and people weren't nearly advanced and knowledgeable enough (at first!) to hunt the Pokémon, nor did they had much experience with the Pokémon. But it would change later.

I find the North American natives' attitude to be highly relevant here - they would hunt beasts, but only often enough to feed their families and they would make it a point to pray to the animal spirits in apology, explaining that they hunted only to survive. Furthermore, they were notable for using every part of the animal possible - they would eat every edible part, use the bones in tools, use the hides as cloth, etc. It's a form of hunting while keeping the utmost respect for the creature, a policy that seems as though it would fit the beasts world very well.

That's a very good point. This is what I came up with, from my script:

"When asked by the humans if they could eat the beasts' (back then it was how they called them, the word "Pokémon" appeared later) meat, Ho-Oh answered that while they could eat them, they could only take one member of each individual family for slaughter (he forbidden them to take a female if it was the only one of the family or the youngest female if there were at least 2 of them) and mark each other member of the family as untouchable. If we actually think about this, it encouraged raising domestical Pokémon, because the humans would need the females to raise more offsprings, so that after they had formed a family they could kill one of its members for meat consumption and satisfy themselves. It also encouraged travelling and discovering Pokémon that would be good for the humans' mouth and other uses.
And @juiceboxxx is right: some Pokémon, like ghost-types just can't be eaten because of them not being physical beings, and some other would just taste horrible for the human mouth. I'll definitely save your post, it would help a lot to build progressively the history of the Pokémon World I'm writing, in terms of Pokémon use.
Not to mention that at that time not too much was known about most of the Pokémon, so it would be just a bit forced and difficult to have a rule that says exactly which Pokémon could be eaten and which ones couldn't, the humans are the ones supposed to give the Pokémon names in the story I'm writing."

Originally Posted by Giustizia

Also, I think implementing the notion that Chromas brought forward would be benifitial to a story aswell, by implementing the Native Americans' attitude into the story, you could really flesh out the story's setting of 2000 years ago!

It definitely helped to make my world building much more detailed, because it's an issue controversial enough to make a whole plot point out of it, with some respecting a rule to only eat a bit of meat and others eating as much as they want purely because of the calories and pleasure they get out of it, etc.

Thanks to everyone in this thread! My writing got back on track.

Glad I could help. Good thing to keep in mind is that if it's not poisonous, indigestible, or otherwise not tangible, someone out there has tried to eat it. And probably succeeded.

They did have agriculture 2000 years ago. However, raising animals for meat was considered more of a luxury than a regular thing because animals cost supplies and time to feed (except for pigs, which ate your trash)

Things like dairy and cultured dairy products also existed, since cheese and yogurt were originally invented to preserve milk. (If I recall correctly, either cottage cheese, yogurt, or maybe kefir was discovered when someone put milk in a skin/bladder to take with them on a journey. While they were riding their horse, the milk became agitated and a culture developed, so they had something entirely different by the time they went to get their milk. And they ate it anyway.)