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When constructing a fantasy world, there’s a great number of buildings you have to account for. They all help make the world feel dynamic and real and nowhere is this more evident than the fantasy food shop. There’s nothing better than smelling the aromas of freshly-made pastries or the seasoning on the meat.
The fantasy food shop comes in many different versions, each one different than the other. Though it offers something everyone needs to survive, the shop is much more than that. Each business is representative of the town/city it’s in as seen by what it carries. They all use local ingredients to come up with unique food products that reflect the town/city’s character.
In this article, we’ll take a look at the various types of the food shop, beginning with the most popular one and the one you’re most likely to see: the bakery. This building is known for its sweet fragrant aromas of delicious treats like bread and pies. It also supplies local eateries with things like the bread that they use in the entrees and appetizers they sell.
Besides the bakery, the butcher is an excellent addition to a world. This fantasy food shop prepares the meat not just for the residents of the town but for restaurants as well. Only a select few people can stomach the task of cutting the meat and presenting it in a visually appealing form.
Another popular kind of food shop is the one that provides vegetables and fruits. Commonly found in the marketplace or the farmer’s market, this one sells locally-grown food like corn or berries, of which nearly all are used in recipes and personal consumption. And the best part of it is it constantly changes its offerings throughout the year so there’s always something different to get.
Some people eschew purchasing a building to station their business in, instead they use a food cart. This mobile restaurant can set up camp anywhere though it provides a limited quantity of food, which leads to it usually selling out quickly. The beauty of the food cart is that you can use it to sell any kind of food, especially those not found in the eateries.
This is article number eight in the fantasy buildings series. If you’d like to take a look at what else we offer, you can find plenty more on our blog page!
Whenever people think of a fantasy food shop, the bakery is the one that comes to mind. Why is this the case? It’s because of its aromas which waft through the window, filling passersby with warmth and comfort as if enticing them to come in.
The bakery is among the many shops that populate the marketplace. The hustle-and-bustle of the marketplace ensures there’s a constant stream of people from dawn to dusk, making it more likely some will stop in to buy something.
Though bakers make a lot of bread, they also make other delicacies. Top-selling products like pies or other pastries using local ingredients are among the delicacies they make. In fact, many of them make their own variation of a popular pastry or something that reflects the town’s character.
All bakers have their own set of recipes they use to make their products. The one thing they have in common is that they use dough. There are many different types of dough, some thin and some thick, and they can be molded any way you see fit. The dough is the base on which to build beautiful creations that attract interest and make people want to buy them.
To make them, they use wood-burning ovens or kilns. The type of oven they use depends on the technological level of your world so it’s imperative from a realistic standpoint that you use the right one. If you’re having trouble, take a look at the ones similar to yours or you can create your own.
The bakery is a fantasy food shop that appears in pretty much every town and city. No matter where you are in the kingdom, you’re likely to come across one of them which gives you an opportunity to see their selection, some of which you can’t find anywhere else!
While the pleasant smell from the bakery can be intoxicating, the same can’t be true for the butcher. This fantasy food shop is well-known for its strong stench which isn’t surprising, considering it’s where deceased animals are carved up. Despite the stench, the butcher is an excellent place to get different cuts of meat.
The butcher is found in the marketplace though not in a high-visible area like the bakery. Instead it’s more in a secluded area so that its employees can do the onerous work of cutting the meat without drawing too much attention. They keep the cut meat in ice or a cold place to ensure it remains fresh longer so that they can sell it.
When browsing, customers have a decent selection of cuts to choose from. There’s the classic like sirloin or rack of lamb, some of which are based off on their real-world counterparts. In fantasy, you have the opportunity to to come up with new names and you can even create a signature cut for the butcher!
Many fantasy worlds feature real-world animals like deer and elk but they also include fictional creatures like sphinxes. While the butcher prepares the meat from the real-world animals, they do the same for fantasy creatures. Your readers will be curious to learn all about them so you can go into detail into how the cut of meat looks and tastes.
Packaging is important to the butcher. It’s imperative that the meat be packaged in a way that makes it last longer and is easy for customers to pick up and buy. Even though they live in a fictional world, people still want to buy things that will last for a reasonable amount of time.
Just like in the real world, people in fictional realms need food to survive. However, their diet doesn’t simply consist of meat and pastries. They have access to a greater variety of food besides those two, food like vegetables and fruits. Fortuitously for them, there are shops that specialize in selling either one or the other or both.
There’s no official term for such a fantasy food shop though the closest that comes to it would be the farmer’s market which is essentially the medieval version of the grocery store. That market is renowned across town for selling the local crops, whether it be corn or bananas, or those from other places. In some cases, it carries exotic ones like pineapple.
Another fantasy food shop that sells vegetables and fruits would be a gardening store. For those interested in growing their own food, they can find many different sorts of seeds so they can get started. Otherwise, they can simply purchase the fully-grown versions without the hassle of growing their own crops.
Some farmers also sell their own crops directly. Sometimes they set up shop in the farmer’s market or they have their own store where they stock their crops on the shelves. Unfortunately the vegetables and fruits are good for a certain period of time, otherwise they toss them out or feed them to their animals.
With many fantasy worlds set in medieval times, the majority of people can only eat locally-grown fruits and vegetables. This is because the world’s technological level hasn’t advanced to the point where they can refrigerate or keep them cold while they’re transported from one place to another. If magic plays a prominent role in your world, you can use it to help keep them fresh so that they can be shipped all over the world for everyone to enjoy.
The last fantasy food shop is the renowned food cart. It is unlike any other in that it’s not stationery. Rather, the cart moves around and its mobile movement is its singular advantage over all the others.
Food carts are commonly seen in the marketplace or at major events like the gladiators competing against each other. Other events such as a royal jousting tournament or holiday celebration are prime spots for food carts to appear.
So what do they carry? Food carts can carry virtually any kind of food, from local popular ones like chicken or fish to vegetables and fruits. They can also have their own signature dish or spin on what the locals eat to enable them to stand out amidst the competition. There’s no end to the possibilities!
Some local eateries dispatch a food cart to these events to showcase a sampler of what they have to offer. The goal is to entice them to come to them in-person so that they can spend more money on their food. The workers on the cart attempt to use the power of persuasion to encourage customers to go to the eateries.
Due to their diminutive size, food carts have a limited quantity of items they have readily available. If they have far more customers than expected, they’ll run out of food and they’ll have to close temporarily or send someone to get more. It can be tough trying to pinpoint how much to stock since you don’t want to have too much or too little and have higher or fewer customers than you anticipated.
A fantasy food shop comes in many variations. The more you include in the world you’re building, the more dynamic it feels since the real world features just about every kind of food shop you can think of. This adds a touch of reality, making it easier for your readers to fully immerse themselves into the world you created.
No fantasy world is complete without a bakery. This shop is iconic for a number of reasons, the delicious aromas wafting from inside notwithstanding. The bakery produces many, if not all, of the breads that local restaurants use in their menus. Furthermore, it also sells a tantalizing array of sweet treats that’s sure to please everyone!
Meat is a staple of people’s diet and not everyone is equipped to go hunt. Instead, they go go the butcher to get the meat they want. This fantasy food shop has a decent selection of meats, usually from local animals, which means everyone is bound to find something they like.
Many people consume vegetables and fruits. They have a number of stores to choose from such as the farmer’s market. The gardening shop is the perfect place to get seeds if you want to grow your own though you’ll have to put in a lot of work in order to make it successful.
The food cart is the perfect thing for those who have a small quantity of food they want to sell without going through the hassle of making a deal with another business. It’s direct-to-the-customer though it can also be used to encourage people to go check out the eatery it came from. Food carts appear all over town and at major events like a royal celebration.
When it comes to the fantasy food shop, you have a bevy of options to choose from. Including as many as you can helps make your world feel more realistic so what are you waiting for?
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