Poison

[mark_asphodel]

So, while contemplating my rhubarb crop (all one plant of it) this afternoon, something occurred to me-- where are the herbal-based poison plots in FE fandom?  Hell, I remember a damned good Gundam Wing 'fic that hinged on tainted rhubarb jam.  Harry Potter was littered with such, though of course the plants in question were a little more fanciful.  But I can't even remember coming across a bad batch of mushrooms in a Fire Emblem story.  Can't recall anyone accidentally ingesting rhubarb leaves, or confusing wild carrots with hemlock, or decorating a wedding cake with lily-of-the-valley and white oleander.

There is a void here that needs to be filled.  Discuss?

Comments

[hooves.livejournal.com]

Well, it makes sense. I'd say in general people tend to gravitate toward city living, and for a lot of people, that means no real garden. If you're in a suburb you can keep a small one, or if you're lucky, a nice-sized one. But apartment living folk don't get that opportunity. A potted plant is their best bet. (I don't keep potted plants in the house because my cats eat my FAKE flowers so I know they'd destroy the real deals.)

Also, we can buy whatever we want at the grocery these days. Whereas even 50 years ago it was pretty common for lots of people to keep at least a tiny garden to have tomatoes when they were in season. Now people just forego that trouble and spend a little extra at the store. You don't have to even can/freeze food, since most food is available year-round at even Wal-Mart!

But as far as cooking goes, it works something like this:

Women used to stay home and clean house/cook dinner. Wars occurred, women went to work. Men came back. Women were like BITCH WE WANNA MAKE MONIES, so women went to work, also. So who's there to cook food?

Honestly, when I got home from a hard day of work, cooking a full-on meal was at the VERY BOTTOM of the list of things I cared to do. So then "TV Dinners" became insanely popular and in a lot of families, they mostly consume things like boxed mashed potatoes and boxed scalloped potatoes, pre-made rice dinners, pre-frozen hamburger patties and meatballs, things like that. The rare times the parents DO cook, the kids probably aren't around to watch, or don't learn much.

Whereas when I was little, garden work was mandatory. (We needed that food to live off of, seriously.) I spent hours and hours out in the sun tying up tomatoes, weeding green beans/etc. And then we did canning/freezing every year, not just for the garden food, but all our fruit, too. (WE STAYED BUSY.)

When I was about ~5 years old I think the Easy Bake Oven came out. I wanted one SO BAD. My mom's response? "You have a real oven you can use if you want to bake. Go use it." So I did. (To this day I'm more of a baker than anything.)

I'm sad that so many people can't cook, and don't know the first thing about plants. I'm reminded of my 36-year-old friend/coworker who told me, straight-up serious-faced and meaning every word, that he was going to plant pickles in his garden. (First time he'd ever tried to garden and he was super excited about it, but he honestly didn't know that pickles were not garden food. They don't make pickle seeds. LOL.)

Despite being a bit sad over it (because it's really a shame, just like a lot of the younger generation can't even sew a button on their clothes), I also realize it's not really anyone's fault. If you're not around to teach your kid to cook, how are they going to learn? If you live in an apartment, how are they going to learn about gardening/plants? And so on.

Just like half the world thinks chicken eggs have a baby chick in EVERY EGG. /facepalm

But seriously-- if nobody tells them, how are they supposed to know? :(

[sailorvfan10.livejournal.com]

I probably go :/ at it because my mom was a stay-at-home mom and was around all the time to cook and things like that. My dad cooked on the weekends and he was the one who taught me how to garden and sew and all that stuff. So there was someone there to teach me.

But even potted plants need to be taken care of. We were always bad with potted plants, but great when we took them out of the pot and planted them.

It does make sense though, but in the age of the internet, you can easily look this stuff up too. A lot of people are just too lazy to :(