Now I had to look that up. It was a good read - and a pretty ridiculous “quote” of Packer’s sentencing. 
Well, I wasn’t saying to make a habit of it, just for special occasions.
And the quote about him eating democrats was proved to be a false quote… so… not political and least from a historical view, maybe from a comedic view
The professional historians have sadly downplayed the comedic aspect of History, which is readily apparent even from casual reading of it.
It is, I think, one of the Main Things that sets History apart from Fantasy: history gets away with things no fantasy writer would dare for fear of being hooted out of print. . . .
Which brings us back to the game: a history-based game like FF has the major advantage (sadly, rarely taken) that it can throw in absolutely outrageous or hysterically funny aspects and be sure of finding a historical basis for them.
For instance, per @Ramsdan’s post above, there were societies that “turned them into compost” or recycled their dead - just none (that I know of) in Medieval Europe.
So, throw the doors of the game open just a bit, and give the option of adopting some Non-European cultural aspects, like “composting” or recycling your dead, Ritual Cannibalism, having a religious leader increase your hunting prowess - just the fact that the game currently virtually ignores religion, one of the major elements of Medieval European village life, leaves out a whole range of funny, appalling, intriguing, disturbing - and contrversial, unfortunately - things that could be added.
catfish, crayfish, crab and lobster have all entered the chat, with a bone to pick
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Water seems to “clean the taste” quite a bit compared to land or air-borne scavengers.
I can’t speak from personal experience about shellfish or lobsters, since I have really bad allergic reactions to all of them.
Catfish reflect the type of water they came out of - from the Potato River in Missouri, which carried massive amounts of mud out of the hills every spring, the locals wouldn’t touch catfish caught in that river in the spring. I’ve had the experience of eating Crow, Possum and Seagull (survival training and not voluntary at the time) and can safely say that only life-threatening starvation would make me do that again.
Which is enough reason, from my point of view, to keep 'em out of the Food Production part of the game!
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That, and they’re better people than us.
Thought Crate has repeatedly and explicitly said it is not history based, but rather that it is fantasy.
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If it walks like a Duck and quacks like a Duck . . . it’s a Hedgehog?
Call it Historical Fantasy then, because it is set firmly in a European Medieval biome and technological background, but without religion, mounted warriors, watermills, industrialized manufacture of textiles, leather goods, stone and lumber with those mills, and Medieval politics (which could be pretty bloody - see ‘mounted warriors’).
Saying that it is purely Fantasy is just passing the buck: if they didn’t want to be mistaken for a historical, or at least partially-historically-based game, they should have included a dragon or two and wiped out any doubts.
Without the religion, knights, and politics, I suppose you could call it Medieval Egalitarian Fantasy to have an accurate description of the game’s background . . .
I’ll still think of it as Bad Medieval History, because I consider that much, much better than Bad Fantasy, having read far too much of the latter . . .
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Anyway… back on topic… there are countries/people that eat rats now, so why not let the Rat Catcher sell rats as food?
Of course, there will be a risk of plague and other diseases…
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How about… you know… pigs? Boars in the wild.
Your hypothesis is waaay off.
On a stick? (logs or firewood for the stick?)
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The diet of pigs in the wild is predominantly fruits, mast (nuts), eggs, crops when they are nearby, and they are fast, smart, good hunters of small game (and they are excellent hunters of snakes). When, as in proximity to dumps, they eat carrion, it affects the taste of their meat in a negative way - the same thing that happens to domestic pigs fed on carrion instead of vegetable scraps and unrotted waste, according to my farming cousins.
What you eat affects how you taste - even if technically you were just exposed to it instead of eating it, and after processing, as there was just a story up here in Washington State the other day about the adverse effects on wine made from grapes exposed to wildfire smoke: even after processing and fermenting, apparently the “smoky” taste lingers in the wine, and it’s got a major industry up here very worried.
I stand by my hypothesis, but back to the game:
Rats, like other ‘exotic’ meat (Wolves and Bears in the game) could be considered a Last Resort food, which keeps your population from starving but also reduces their Happiness in some way.
IF they were going to introduce such additional effects from food, though, the other cultural and economic effects should also be introduced - the hunter who goes after Bear is due far more respect than somebody going after Deer, and wolf and bear pelts, especially bear, are more valuable than deer generally. In fact, decorative bear fur hats (busbys, Grenadier caps) were so popular with later European armies they contributed significantly to the decline of the remaining European bears through over-hunting.
- Just random thoughts: I suspect in game terms Nice To Have rather than Required . . .
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