Last updated 20/3/2023
Food sources
Since I was a little kid, my clan has had a settlement by a freshwater cove in a valley by a mountain range. Our primary sources of food are the fish in the lake, which we catch with our hands, teeth, and spears, and the flora and fauna that lives in the valley.
Food preparation
Though we have an increible constitution and are able to eat most things raw, we prefer cooking it for added taste. We use a lot of herbs that humans would consider bitter and foul-smelling, but which, to us, are delicious.
In addition to cooking, we preserve our meat by smoking and sun drying in the summer and by ammonia fermentation in spring and autumn. We have a high resistance to mycotoxins and microbial toxins, and pungent foods, including rotting meat, are actually considered a delicacy by most gnolls. Our main reason for preserving food is that the rot would otherwise make our food disappear.
Nothing edible goes to waste. Bones, husks, clay, shells, stalks, hooves, feathers, and certain kinds of dirt are ground up and mixed with water until it forms a dough or paste. This paste is typically flavored with herbs, giving it a very earthy taste, but it may be flavored with spices too. We first started making this bread centuries ago to avoid wasting resources, which is considered unholy and is not allowed by our deities. It is now well-known that gnolls who eat this 'bone bread' in small quantities every day are healthier than gnolls who don't. According to our religion, it's because turning 'waste into something useful is a 'holy' act. It nourishes the body and the spirit. From a scientific point of view, it’s because the 'bread' includes minerals, fiber, and vitamins that our diet otherwise lacks. Eat too much of it, though, and you’re gonna have a hell of a stomach ache. It’s also a pretty effective treatment against diarrhea.
Snacks
Gnolls generally don't like most sweets. We will eat berries in a pinch, or use them to make a broth more filling, but we prefer to snack on things that taste bitter, spicy, earthy, and pungent. A typical snack for our kids is licorice root, but even this is too sweet for most adults to enjoy. It's like how human children love cotton candy bubble ice cream, but most human adults prefer the milder sweetness of chocolate or vanilla ice cream. Adult gnolls prefer to snack on "high meat" - meat that has been allowed to rot for a certain amount of time and has developed a bitter, earthy taste, and a pungent smell. In lieu of excess meat (most meat is eaten immediately or preserved, only the excess is turned into "high meat" snacks), we may snack on spicy bone bread, insects, or raw herbs and spices.
Rules surrounding food
Gnollish food etiquette may at first seem complicated to outsiders, especially modern day humans who live independently of their fellow humans. In my clan, a snack is defined as something that could be eaten in one bite, and it is the only kind of food we're allowed to eat without sharing. Anything larger than a snack should go in the communal food stores or, if you're far away from the clan, should be shared equally with your companions.