As I write more prose, certain questions pop up in my head about the decision making process of other writers across multiple medias.
One of the tropes that always has me scratching my head is that of most apocalyptic tropes — the limited food stores that people are going through, some of it 20-30 (or more years old). It’s as if no one survived who knew hunting/foraging techniques, or were willing to try to do either. They seem quite content on starving day to day or cracking open a dinged up, rusty can of dog food to chase away the hunger pangs. Yet, something as simple and prolific as dandelion greens seems to escape their notice. After a few months’ time, they wouldn’t even need to worry about herbicide residual on the greens (and yet, quite possibly worry about chemical residues in the dog food, curiously enough).
And I know, most people don’t consider common plants found on lawns and in the wild when they are hungry, but it always seems like a strange omission to not consider forage as a food source. If the world is irradiated, it is one thing to eliminate forage, but a zombie plague? Why aren’t they eating the edible shrooms growing in the forest behind the zombie-infested general store instead of risking their lives for 20-yo dogfood out of a can?
What do you think? Am I making too big of a deal about it and there are plenty of examples of sensible food consumption in the fictional apocalypse? If you were to be a survivor, what kinds of things you try to learn how to cultivate or forage to avoid cat food tins or dodgy baked beans in a can?
Extra think to ponder: Did you know there are no commonplace true rhymes for “orange” or “month”? Prove me wrong in the comments, if you disagree.