There are many foods on Gor that are similar or the same to those found on Earth. Many of the foods originated from Earth. However, there are great differences as well, even amongst those products of Earth origin.

Although Sa-Tarna was the usual bread of the free, there are other breads mentioned, such as biscuits, and the black bread of the slaves.

"Merchants brought sides of bosk, and thighs of tarsk, and wines and fruits to camp, and cheeses and breads and nuts, and flowers and candies and silks and honeys." Captive of Gor, page 321.

"… a gourd of water and a tin of bread and dried bosk meat." — Raiders of Gor, page 2.

"On the dais, with him, were several men, low tables of food, fruit, stews, tidbits of roast verr, assorted breads. " — Tribesmen of Gor, page 212.

Biscuits
Can be eaten stale as a ration.

"The pack also contained, and more importantly from my point of view, the balance of my supplies, intended for the home flight to Ko-ro-ba. The first thing I did was unseal one of the two water flasks and open the dried rations. And there on that windy ledge, in that abode of the tarn, I ate the meal that satisfied me as no other had ever done, though it consisted only of some mouthfuls of water, some stale biscuits, and a wrapper of dried meat." — Tarnsman of Gor, page 144.

Black Bread
This greatly debated bread is… a bread of slaves only. ~smiles~ The few times it is mentioned in the books, it is always a bread fed to slaves, most notably, the galley slaves that oar the great ships of Thassa. Not once in any of the books, has a free been given black bread to eat; frees always ate the yellow Sa-Tarna bread.

"I did not forget the slave, of course. Crusts of bread did I throw to the boards before her. It was slave bread, rough and coarse-grained. The beauty ate it eagerly." — Tribesmen of Gor, page 48.

"… a galley slave… The great merchant galleys of Port Kar, and Cos, and Tyros, and other maritime powers, utilized thousands of such miserable wretches, fed on brews of peas and black bread, chained in the rowing holds, under the whips of slave masters, their lives measured by feedings and beatings, and the labor of the oar." — Hunters of Gor, page 13.

"Their food is that of a galley slave, peas, black bread and onions. If they serve well, however, their customers often bring them a bit of meat or fruit." — Hunters of Gor, page 304.

"Seeing the men, sweaty, chained, under the whip, I was affrighted. It was a grim fate which awaited them, the confinement and pain of the benches, the weight of the long oars, the shackles, the whip, the drum of the hortator, the stench, the black bread and onions of the ponderous galleys." — Slave Girl of Gor, page 342.

Gruel, Bond-Maid
A porridge made from Sa-Tarna meal. See "Sa-Tarna Porridge."

Rence: Cakes and Porridge
A water plant, the grain is eaten. The pith (or center) may be boiled or ground into a paste and sweetened; this paste can also be fried into a type of pancake. It is also distilled into beer. See also: "Rence."

"A woman left the group to bring some rence paste, and two men removed the marsh vine from my neck and ankles. My wrists were still bound behind my back. In a moment the woman had returned with a double handful of wet rence paste. When fried, on flat stones it makes a kind of cake, sprinkled with rence seeds." — Raiders of Gor, page 25.

"She laughed and reached into the wallet at her side and drew forth two handsful of rence paste and thrust them in my mouth. She herself nibbled on a rence cake, watching me, and then on some dried fish which she drew also from the wallet." — Raiders of Gor, page 34.

"Around the tenth Gorean hour, the Gorean noon, the rencers ate small rence cakes, dotted with seeds, drank water, and nibbled on scraps of fish. The great feast would be in the evening." — Raiders of Gor, page 41.

"I had carried about bowls of cut, fried fish, and wooden trays of roasted tarsk meat, and roasted gants, threaded on sticks, and rence cakes and porridges, and gourd flagons, many times replenished, of rence beer." — Raiders of Gor, page 44.

Sa-Tarna Bread
Flat, round, six-sectioned yellow bread made from Sa-Tarna grains.

"I thought of the yellow Gorean bread, baked in the shape of round, flat loaves, fresh and hot.." — Outlaw of Gor, page 76.

"Beyond the Sullage and the bosk steak there was the inevitable flat, rounded loaf of the yellow Sa-Tarna bread." — Priest-Kings of Gor, page 45.

"There were great quantities of the yellow Sa-Tarna bread, in its rounded, six-part loaves." — Raiders of Gor, page 114.

Sa-Tarna Grain / Flour
Yellow grain, most probably wheat or wheatlike; most Sa-Tarna is grown in the north, including the Tahari, but it should also be noted that even Sa-Tarna fields were found even on the Turian Plains. In the Tahari, the grain is a golden brown color, the shell hardened to survive the desert winds. It is the staple of Gor, used to make flour (for bread, etc.) as well as brewing Paga. Most Sa-Tarna grain is commercially ground into flour at large mills using large querns, made of large stones, turned generally by water power, but also, at times, by male slaves, or tharlarion. Females cannot turn these large querns. In the smaller villages, a smaller version of the quern, somewhat akin to the mortar and pestle, is used, however, this type of quern is operated by men or boys, depending on the size of the quern. A smaller, hand-held quern in which a female can operate, uses a similar principal, but turned with a wooden handle.The grains are weighed on grain scales, and at market places, kept in huge grain baskets. Exported, the grains are placed in large grain sacks, bearing. Massive stores of grain in the larger cities, such as Ar, have grain cylinders. Migrating urts can often be problematic to fields.

Etymology:Middle English, from Old English cweorn; akin to Old High German quirn, quirna hand mill, millstone, Old Norse kvern hand mill, Gothic -qairnus millstone, Quern and RollerOld Irish brau millstone, Old Slavic zruny mill, and probably to Gothic kaurjos (nominative plural) heavy;
       "1) A primitive mill for grinding grain consisting of two circular stones with the upper one being turned by hand;
       2) a small hand mill (as for grinding spices or nuts)." —Merriam-Webster Dictionary ©2004-2006

"An ancient device for grinding grain. The saddle quern, consisting simply of a flat stone bed and a rounded stone to be operated manually against it, dates from Neolithic times (before 5600 BC). The true quern, a heavy device worked by slave or animal power, appeared by Roman times. Cato the Elder describes a 2nd-century-BC rotary quern consisting of a concave lower stone and a convex upper, turned by a pair of asses. Many such large querns were found in the ruins of Pompeii. The upper stone was set on a spindle that fitted into the lower. The ground grain passed down through holes in the lower stone." —Encyclopaedia Britannica ©2004-2006

"This was a reference to an old form of grinding, for some reason still attributed to Priest-Kings, in which a pestle, striking down, is used with a mortar. Most Sa-Tarna is now ground in mills, between stones, the top stone usually turned by water power, but sometimes by tharlarion, or slaves. In some villages, however, something approximating the old mortar and pestle is sometimes used, the two blocks, a pounding block strung to a springy, bent pole, and the mortar block, or anvil block. The pole has one or more ropes attached to it, near its end. When these are drawn downward the pounding block descends into the mortar block, and the springiness of the pole, of course, straightening, then raises it for another blow. More commonly, however, querns are used, usually, if they are large, operated by two men, if smaller, by two boys. Hand querns, which may be turned by are a woman, are also not unknown.
       The principle of the common quern is as follows: it consists primarily of a mount, two stones, an overhead beam and a pole. The two stones are circular grinding stones. The bottom stone has a small hub on its upper surface which fits into an inverted concave depression in the upper stone. This helps to keep the stones together. It also has shallow, radiating surface grooves through which the grindings may escape between the stones, to be caught in the sturdy boxlike mount supporting the stones, often then funneled to a waiting receptacle or sack. The upper stone has two holes in it, in the center a funnel-shaped hole through which grain is poured, and, near the edge, another hole into which one end of the turning pole is placed. This pole is normally managed by two operators. Its upper portion is fitted into an aperture in the overhead beam, which supplies leverage and, of course, by affording a steadying rest, makes the pole easier to handle. The principle of the hand quern is similar, but is usually turned with a small wooden handle. The meal or flour emerging from these devices is usually sifted, as it must often be reground, sometimes several times. The sifter usually is made of hide stretched over a wooden hoop. The holes are punched in the hide with a hot wire." — Renegades of Gor, pages 17-18.

"The heavy, round-ended pestle some five feet in height, more than five inches wide at the base, dropped. It weighed some thirty pounds. When it dropped, the heavy wooden bowl, more than a foot deep and eighteen inches in diameter tipped. Sa-Tarna grain spilled to the ground." — Tribesmen of Gor, pages 136-137.

"Economically, the base of the Gorean life was the free peasant, which was perhaps the lowest but undoubtedly the most fundamental caste, and the staple crop was a yellow grain called Sa-Tarna, or Life Daughter." — Tarnsman of Gor, page 43.

"A great amount of farming, or perhaps one should speak of gardening, is done at the oasis, but little of this is exported. At the oasis will be grown a hybrid, brownish Sa-Tarna, adapted to the heat of the desert; most Sa-Tarna is yellow…" — Tribesmen of Gor, page 37.

"… the yellow grains of Gor's staple crop, Sa-Tarna, or Life-Daughter. The expression is related to Sa-Tassna, the expression for meat, or for food in general, which means Life-Mother." — Outlaw of Gor, pages 74-75.

"He sat, cross-legged, behind the low table. On it were hot bread, yellow and fresh, hot black wine, steaming, with its sugars, slices of roast bosk, the scrambled eggs of vulos, pastries with creams and custards." — Beasts of Gor, page 20.

"I saw too, fields, fenced with rocks, in the sloping area. In them were growing, small at this season, shafts of Sa-Tarna; too, there would be peas, and beans, cabbages and onions, and patches of the golden sul, capable of surviving at this latitude." — Marauders of Gor, page 81.

"The northern Sa-Tarna, in its rows, yellow and sprouting, was about ten inches high. The growing season at this latitude, mitigated by the Torvaldstream, was about one hundred and twenty days. This crop had actually been sown the preceding fall, a month following the harvest festival. It is sown early enough, however, that, before the deep frosts temporarily stop growth, a good root system can develop. Then, in the warmth of the spring, in the softening soil, the plants, hardy and rugged, again assert themselves. The yield of the fall-sown Sa-Tarna is, statistically, larger than that of the spring-sown varieties… Sa-Tarna is the major crop of the Forkbeard's lands, but, too, there are many gardens, and, as I have noted, bosk and verr, too, are raised." — Marauders of Gor, page 102.

Five days ago I had been returning to the camp of Boots Tarsk-Bit, coming back from a nearby village where I had gone to fetch Sa-Tarna grain, from which the girls, back at the camp, using stones and flat rocks, sifters and pans, would produce flour. This was somewhat cheaper than buying the flour directly, for then one must pay the cost of the peasant women's work or that of its millage. I carried the sack across my shoulders. It was not heavy. It weighed only a little more than an average female." — Players of Gor, page 258.

Within the city the Initiates, who had seized control shortly after the flight of Marlenus, would have already tapped the siege reservoirs and begun to ration the stores of the huge grain cylinders. A city such as Ar, properly commanded, might withstand a siege for a generation." — Tarnsman of Gor, page 181.

"I passed a fellow inlaying wood, and the shop of a silversmith, and stalls filled with baskets, some of which, grain baskets, were large enough to hold a man." — Tribesmen of Gor, page 50.

She had even been thrown on a grain scale and weighed." — Explorers of Gor, page 66.

Sa-Tarna Porridge
Also: Gruel
A cold, unsweetened, unsalted mixture of water and Sa-Tarna meal, on which slaves are fed. The Torvaldslanders call it "bond-maid gruel." Often, bits of fish or meat is added to this gruel for extra protein sustenance. The peoples of the arctic north often mix in chunks of tabuk in the slave porridges. Slaves do not eat at their own leisure; slaves eat when allowed and told to do so.

"I found quantities of slave meal, which is mixed with water… " — Hunters of Gor, page 210.

"Like the bond-maids, she had been fed only on cold Sa-Tarna porridge and scraps of dried parsit fish." — Marauders of Gor, page 56.

"The men who had fished with the net had now cleaned the catch of parsit fish, and chopped the cleaned, boned, silverish bodies into pieces, a quarter inch in width. Another of the bond-maids was then freed to mix the bond-maid gruel, mixing fresh water with Sa-Tarna meal, and then stirring in the raw fish. … — Marauders of Gor, pages 63-64.
       "The slender blond girl, who had been giving the men water from the skin bag, was now given the work of filling small bowls from the large wooden bowl, for the bond-maids. She used a bronze ladle, the handle of which was curved like the neck and head of a lovely bird. About the handle was a closed bronze ring, loose. It formed a collar for the bird's neck. The bond-maids did not much care for their gruel, unsweetened, mudlike Sa-Tarna meal, with raw fish. They fed, however. One girl who did not care to feed was struck twice across her back by a knotted rope in the hand of Gorm. Quickly then, and well, she fed. The girls, including the slender blondish girl, emptied their bowls, even to licking them, and rubbing them with their saliva-dampened fingers, that no grain be left, lest Gorm, their keeper in the ship, should not be pleased. They looked to one another in fear, and put down their bowls, as they finished, fed bond-wenches. … — Marauders of Gor, pages 64-65.
       "Choking, the proud Aelgifu swallowed the thick gruel, that of dampened Sa-Tarna meal and raw fish, the gruel of bond-maids." — Marauders of Gor, pages 67-68.

"We were served gruel, mixed with thick chunks of boiled tabuk…" — Beasts of Gor, page 162.

"Eta now came forward. She held two copper bowls of gruel. Next to me, she knelt before my captor; she put one bowl down before me; then, holding the other bowl, she handed it to my captor; one of the men pulled my head up by the hair, so I could see clearly what was being done; my captor took the bowl of gruel from Eta, and then, saying nothing, handed it back to her. Now he, and his men, and Eta, looked at me. I then understood what I must do. I picked up the bowl of gruel, with both hands, and, kneeling, handed it to my captor. He took the bowl. Then he handed it back to me. I might now eat. I knelt, shaken, the bowl of gruel in my hands. The symbolism of the act was not lost upon me. It was from him, he, symbolically, that I received my food. It was he who fed me. It was he upon whom I depended, that I would eat. Did he not choose to feed me, I understood, I would not eat. My head down, following Eta's example, I ate the gruel. We were given no spoons. With our fingers and, like cats, with our tongues, we finished the gruel. It was plain. It was not sugared or salted. It was slave gruel. Some days it was all that would be given to me." — Slave Girl of Gor, pages 65-66.

Sa-Tassna
Meat, or food in general; literal translation is "Life-Mother."

"… the yellow grains of Gor's staple crop, Sa-Tarna, or Life-Daughter. The expression is related to Sa-Tassna, the expression for meat, or for food in general, which means Life-Mother." — Outlaw of Gor, pages 74-75.

Slave Gruel
See: Sa-Tarna Porridge.

Slave Meal
See "Sa-Tarna Porridge."

Stews
Apparently, there are several types of stews. This supports the many varieties of stews slave girls in virtual chat have made.

"On the dais, with him, were several men, low tables of food, fruit, stews, tidbits of roast verr, assorted breads." — Tribesmen of Gor, page 212.

Sullage
A soup made principally from Suls, Tur-Pah, and Kes, along with whatever else may be handy.

"First she boiled and simmered a kettle of Sullage, a common Gorean soup consisting of three standard ingredients and, as it is said, whatever else may be found, saving only the rocks of the field. The principal ingredients of Sullage are the golden Sul, the starchy, golden-brown vine-borne fruit of the golden-leaved Sul plant; the curled, red, ovate leaves of the Tur-Pah, a tree parasite, cultivated in host orchards of Tur trees; and the salty, blue secondary roots of the Kes Shrub, a small, deeply rooted plant which grows best in sandy soil." — Priest-Kings of Gor, pages 44-45.

 

 

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Special Note

Because of the differences in publishing the books, depending upon whether published in the U.S. or Europe, depending upon whether a first publishing or a Masquerade Books release, page numbers will often vary. All of my quotes are from original, first-printing U.S. publications (see The Books page for a listing of publishers and dates) with the exception of the following books:

  • Tarnsman of Gor (2nd Printing, Balantine)
  • Outlaw of Gor (11th Printing, Balantine)
  • Priest-Kings of Gor (2nd Printing, Balantine)
  • Assassin of Gor (10th Printing, Balantine)
  • Raiders of Gor (15th Printing, Balantine)
  • Captive of Gor (3rd Printing, Balantine)

Disclaimer

These pages are not written for any specific home, but rather as informational pages for those not able to get ahold of the books and read them yourself. Opinions and commentaries are strictly my own personal views, therefore, if you don't like what you are reading — then don't. The information in these pages is realistic to what is found within the books. Many sites have added information, assuming the existences of certain products and practices, such as willowbark and agrimony for healing, and travel to earth and back for the collection of goods. I've explored the books, the flora, the fauna, and the beasts, and have compiled from those mentioned, the probabilities of certain practices, and what vegetation mentioned in the books is suitable for healing purposes, as well as given practicalities to other sorts of roleplaying assumptions.