FAMINE FOOD

A 'famine food' or 'poverty food' is any inexpensive or readily-available foodstuff used to nourish people in times of extreme poverty or starvation, as during a war or famine. Quite often, the food is thereafter strongly associated with the hardship under which it was eaten, and is therefore socially downplayed or rejected as a food source in times of relative plenty.
Foods associated with famine need not be nutritionally deficient. A number of famine foods are extremely nutritious--thus their use to nourish and ward off hunger--but the conditions under which they were eaten are often the primary cause of people's subsequent aversion to these foods.

Contents

Examples of famine foods

Positive uses of famine food

See also

Examples of famine foods

A number of foodstuffs have been strongly associated with famine, war, or times of hardship throughout history:

★ The breadnut or Maya nut was cultivated by the ancient Mayans, but is largely rejected as a poverty food in modern Central America.

★ Rutabagas were widely used as a food of last resort in Europe during World War I, and remain particularly unpopular in Germany.

★ In Polynesia, the Xanthosoma plant (known locally as 'ape) was considered a famine food and was used only in the event that the taro crop failed.

★ The fruit of the Noni, sometimes also called "starvation fruit," has a strong smell and bitter taste which often relegates it to the level of a famine food.

★ The nara melon of southern Africa is sometimes eaten as a food of last resort.

★ Several species of edible kelp, including dulse and Irish moss, were eaten by coastal peasants during the Irish Potato Famine of 1846-1848.

★ Sego lily bulbs were eaten by the Mormon pioneers when their food crops failed.

★ Tulip bulbs and Sugar beets were eaten in the German occupied parts of the Netherlands during the "hunger winter" of 1944-45.

Positive uses of famine food

The term "famine food" has also been used to describe underutilized crops--edible plants which are not widely cultivated as food, but which could be cultivated as an alternative food source in the event of widespread crop failure.

See also

★ Staple food