Fjorgyn

The Great Poisoning had a huge impact across all facets of life on Eryia, not the least of which was the molding and shaping of the dietary habits of Jordbani survivors. Agricultural communities in different territories in Eryia have all experienced some degree of Magichem contamination of their fields, leading to a general distrust of food grown using traditional methods. Over the past several hundred years, the loss of magic based technology has crippled the ability of the farming community to efficiently provide healthy foodstuffs and distribute them on the massive scale required to sustain the human population. Traditional sources of food have become expensive, undesirable and distrusted, so new solutions such as winnowing have ‘risen from the dust’, but the most obvious and popular example of this is Fjorgyn, or “The Earth’s Root”.

Classification

Fjorgyn is a catch-all name for several closely related species of edible fungi. These mushrooms are known for producing large, edible, fruiting bodies rich in essential vitamins and trace minerals. The origins of these fungi is uncertain, as their presence was not recorded by the ancients prior to the Jordbani, but according to taxonomic records preserved by the Convocation of Sol , the first mention of the use of the fungus as a dietary supplement occurred seventy years after the Great Poisoning. This use was recorded in the journal of Raphael Deimas, a researcher separated from his team on the sixteenth expedition into the Miorskrípi . While the consumption of Fjorgyn was recorded by Deimas, the safety of consuming the fruiting body was not determined. It was later found that Fjorgyn was both edible and not very toxic if cleaned of surface contamination. Use of Fjorgyn as a nutritional food soon caught on in the decrepit, decaying cities, especially among the scroungers , who would supplement their income by scavenging for this fungus as a meal while also looking for more traditional scrap and loot.

History

While the first record of what is suspected to be Fjorgyn belonged to Raphael Deimas, the fungus was not mentioned again for another seven decades, when it appeared in the tattered remains of “Mama Goelle’s Big Fat Cookbook”. This cookbook contained a recipe for “Roasted & Stuffed Whitepuff”, which gave specific directions that during preparation that the fruiting body must be entirely white after being washed and dusted, or that it would “make you sicker’n’a trip to that there hellhole that started this mess”.

Since these early references, Fjorgyn has been cultivated as a regional specialty in the south central area of the country and everywhere that the mushroom has taken root it is seen in the vast majority of households on dinner tables as a staple due to its cheap easy supply, filling nature, and surprisingly complete nutritional profile. Of note, its caloric value is low and oftentimes needs to be supplemented with calorie rich fats, or it leaves a person feeling lethargic, an issue in a Scrounger ’s physically demanding line of work. Recipes that feature Fjorgyn sauteed in butter or animal fat are extremely common.

Many villages without the resources to trade or otherwise survive have subsisted for weeks on Fjorgyn. The longest verified account of subsisting on Fjorgyn alone belongs to Louise Thane, who reports that she and the children of her village lived on the mushroom, and only the mushroom, for 31 months while they traveled between her old village, which had died due to an sharp increase in acute Magichem Poisoning cases among the adult population, to a new tribe which agreed to adopt them.

Modern Day

Today Fjorgyn (under a variety of names, including “Earthroot”, “Whitepuff”, and “City Potato”) is a dietary mainstay of most households in Eryia. It is incredibly well known and referenced, but due to a very short shelf life and difficulty to preserve outside of dehydration, its use as a fresh product is constrained to locales in which the fungi grow well naturally. Unfortunately, these regions seem to be in areas of concerning or even severe magichem contamination such as the Miorskrípi.

The benefits of fiorgyn are not universally available to the population. Many individuals experience Fjorgyn Intolerance, a reaction which causes hives and swelling, and result in death. Fortunately this is level of reaction is extremely rare, and people with fjorgyn intolerance rarely die the first time the victim eats the fungi.

While Fjorgyn is functionally one of the healthiest foods available in Eryia , it has a reputation for being ‘peasant’ or ‘unclean’ food, and is looked down upon by the fyrir bjod. Depending on the size and breed of mushroom, the flavor of these treats has been described between “filling and inoffensive” to “earthy” or “meaty”, though for all species, the flavor becomes “nuttier” when cooked.