The Foods
Meats, Including Poultry
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. There are many different varieties of mammals and poultry that are consumed on Gor, some more common than others, just as on Earth; some are edible, some not. And some are edible that one would not think to be edible.
Meats are often cured and dried into a jerky for traveling staples; especially of the nomadic tribes such as the Wagon Peoples. Here's another cooking tip.
"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.
"He put a cube of meat, boiled in wine, honeyed, in my mouth, thrusting it between my teeth and cheek with his finger." — Slave Girl of Gor, page 270.
"… even the girl was there who wore but bells and collar, struggling under her burden, long dried strips of bosk meat, as wide as beams, she too hurrying to see what might be the meaning of the drum and horn, of the shouting Tuchuks." — Nomads of Gor, page 34.
Drying Your Own Meat
The meat can be used in making your own Pemmican. Refer to the Other Foods page on how to make Pemmican.
Food drying was essential to preserve food for the long winter. Food was usually dried by laying it out on a framework of sticks and cloth in the sun. On a warm, but dry day, it would dry fast enough to avoid spoiling. Some types of foods might need some additional preparation before drying.
It is relatively easy to dry meat. You can use a food dryer available at many stores that sell small appliances. You can also dry it in your home oven by setting the oven for the lowest possible setting and leaving the door open a bit. It works best if you can spread some nylon window screening over the oven racks. It can be much easier if you make a simple wooden frame for the screening and set the whole frame on the oven rack.
To make dried ground beef, use extra lean meat. Cook the meat thoroughly and drain off all the fat. Rinse the cooked ground beef in warm water and put it on some paper towels to absorb additional fat. Then spread the meat on the screening. The drying temperature should be between 100 and 120 degrees. The meat will dry faster if the outside humidity is not too high. It will take longer if it is humid. It will usually take several hours or overnight for the meat to dry thoroughly. The meat will become somewhat darker, hard and even brittle as it dries. When it is well dried, put it in a plastic bag and place it in a freezer until ready to use. It will last a relatively long time in a freezer, but only about a week or two once it is removed (if kept out of the light and in a relatively cool place).
When you add dried ground beef to other food in a pot of hot or boiling water, it will quickly rehydrate. It doesn't take much water to rehydrate ground beef, so if you are mixing it with other food, you only need to add a small amount of extra water if any. When cooked in water, ground beef becomes soft and regains most of its original texture and appearance. Done well, it may be difficult for someone to tell that it was ever dried.
Bosk
Large, shaggy, long horned bovine similar to the Earth ox; cooked and served as Earth beef is cooked and served. 
The meat may be served roasted or sliced as in steaks, deep pit roasted with herbs and spices, with slices of Ka-la-na fruit and sprinkles of tospit fruit to garnish. It is also stewed, broiled or dried. When roasted on a spit, the outside is very dark; the inside very pink and juicy. Roast bosk is traditionally served rare.
"The meat was a steak, cut from the loin of a bosk, a huge, shaggy, long-horned, ill-tempered bovine which shambles in large, slow-moving herds across the prairies of Gor. Vika seared this meat, as thick as the forearm of a warrior, on a small iron grill over a kindling of charcoal cylinders, so that the thin margin of the outside was black, crisp and flaky and sealed within by the touch of the fire was the blood-rich flesh, hot and fat with juice." — Priest-Kings of Gor, page 45.
"… even the girl was there who wore but bells and collar, struggling under her burden, long dried strips of bosk meat, as wide as beams, she too hurrying to see what might be the meaning of the drum and horn, of the shouting Tuchuks." — Nomads of Gor, page 34.
"In the morning, before dawn, we awakened and fed on dried bosk meat, sucking the dew from the prairie grass." — Nomads of Gor, page 261.
"The Tarn Keeper, who was called by those in the tavern Mip, bought the food, bosk steak and yellow bread, peas and Torian olives, and two golden-brown, starchy Suls, broken open and filled with melted bosk cheese." — Assassin of Gor, page 167.
"It was meat. It was thick, grainy, something like beef, but it was not beef." — Captive of Gor, page 39.
"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.
"Soup!" I called, raising my hand. I purchased from him, for a copper tarsk, a bowl of soup, thick with shreds of hot bosk and porous chunks of boiled sul. — Beasts of Gor, page 51.
Gant
An aquatic fowl that is the staple of the rencers of the Vosk Delta; served roasted; probably much like a duck or goose.
"I heard a bird, some forty or fifty yards to my right; it sounded like a marsh gant, a small, horned, web-footed aquatic fowl, broad-billed and broad-winged. Marsh girls, the daughters of Rence growers, sometimes hunt them with throwing sticks." — Raiders of Gor, page 4.
"I had also been used to carry heavy kettles of rence beer from the various islands to the place of feasting, as well as strings of water gourds, poles of fish, plucked gants, slaughtered tarsks, and baskets of the pith of rence." — Raiders of Gor, pages 40-41.
"Before the feast I had helped the women, cleaning the fish and dressing marsh gants, and then, later, turning spits for the roasted tarsks, roasted over rence-root fires kept on metal pans, elevated about the rence of the island by metal racks, themselves resting on larger pans. During most of the feast I have been used in the serving, particularly the serving of the girls who had competed for me, one of whom had won me, which one I did not know. 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.
Kaiila
It is not unheard of that raiders of the desert will eat kaiila.
"Kaiila and verr are found at the oases, but not in great numbers. The herds of these animals are found in the desert. They are kept by nomads, who move them from one area of verr grass to another or from one water hole to another, as the holes, for the season, go dry… They, in spite of raising herds, eat very little meat. The animals are too precious for their trade value, and their hair and milk, to be often slaughtered for food. A nomad boy of fifteen will often have eaten meat no more than a dozen times in his life. Raiders, however, feast well on meat. The animals mean little to them and come to them cheaply." — Tribesmen of Gor, pages 37-38.
Sleen
When a sleen's master dies, the sleen is generally slaughtered and eaten. This is two-fold: first, the sleen responds to one master only, and second, it is a way of sending the soul of the sleen to join that of its master's in the cities of dust. The Innuit of the north not uncommonly eat wild sleen, as well as their own sled sleen should hard times come and the sleen not fed for some time; hungry sleen, regardless of being tamed, will attack anything, including its master.
"Sled sleen, too, of course, may be killed for food. It is important, of course, to be the first to kill in such a situation. A sufficiently hungry snow sleen will turn and attack its driver." — Beasts of Gor, page 322.
Some hours later, when we heard the startled pain squeal of the mortally wounded beast, Imnak turned about in his tracks. "Hurry!" he said. "It is meat!" — Beasts of Gor, pages 335-336.
Tabuk
The one-horned yellow antelope of Gor; the northern tabuk clearly a much larger and more dangerous variety. The tabuk is not domestically raised.
"Gripped in the talons of the tarn was the dead body of an antelope, one of the one-horned, yellow antelopes called tabuks that frequent the bright Ka-la-na thickets of Gor" — Tarnsman of Gor, page 145.
"… my mouth watered for a tabuk steak or, perhaps, if I were lucky, a slice of roast tarsk, the formidable six-tusked wild boar of Gor's temperate forests. I smiled to myself, felt the sack of coins in my tunic, bent down and pushed the door open." — Outlaw of Gor, page 76.
"They were northern tabuk, tawny and swift; many of them ten hands at the shoulder, a quite different animal from the small, yellow-pelted antelope-like quadruped of the south. On the other hand, they too distinguished by the single horn of the tabuk. On these animals, however, that object, in swirling ivory, was often, at its base, some two and one half inches in diameter, and better than a yard in length. A charging tabuk, because of the swiftness of its reflexes, is quite a dangerous animal." — Beasts of Gor, page 152.
Tarsk
Porcine animal, raised domestically for its meat, although wild tarsk is often hunted and eaten. One way to cook this meat is roasted and stuffed with Suls and peppers, because of its salty nature. 
Another is to place chunks of the meat on spits, or roast over metal racks.
"Roasted tarsks on long spits were borne to the tables on the shoulders of nude slave girls. Girls still in training, unclothed as well, served wine this night of feasting." — Assassin of Gor, page 311.
"Before the feast I had helped the women, cleaning the fish and dressing marsh gants, and then, later, turning spits for the roasted tarsks, roasted over rence-root fires kept on metal pans, elevated about the rence of the island by metal racks, themselves resting on larger pans. During most of the feast I have been used in the serving, particularly the serving of the girls who had competed for me, one of whom had won me, which one I did not know. 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.
"Telima had prepared a roast tarsk, stuffed with suls and peppers from Tor." — Raiders of Gor, page 114.
"The slave boy, Fish, had emerged from the kitchen, holding over his head on a large silver platter a whole roasted tarsk, steaming and crisped, basted, shining under the torchlight, a larma in its mouth, garnished with suls and Tur-pah." — Raiders of Gor, page 219.
The men ordered him away again, that he might fetch yet another roasted tarsk from the spit which he had been turning slowly over the coal fires during the afternoon. nbsp;— Raiders of Gor, page 220.
"Tarsk meat tends to be salty." — Raiders of Gor, page 265.
"The proprietor arrived with hot bread, honey, salt and, to my delight, a huge, hot roasted chunk of tarsk." — Outlaw of Gor, page 79.
"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.
"… my mouth watered for a tabuk steak or, perhaps, if I were lucky, a slice of roast tarsk, the formidable six-tusked wild boar of Gor's temperate forests. I smiled to myself, felt the sack of coins in my tunic, bent down and pushed the door open." — Outlaw of Gor, page 76.
"And put bread over the fire," I said, "and honey, and the eggs of vulos, and fried tarsk meat and a Torian larma fruit." — Assassin of Gor, page 106.
"The two bond-maids, stripped, too, like the others, for the feast, Pretty Ankles and Pouting Lips, struggled down the length of the smoky, dark hall, a spitted, roasted tarsk on their shoulders.. Their shoulders were protected from the heat of the metal spit by rolls of leather. The roasted tarsk was flung before us on the table. With his belt knife, thrusting Pudding and Gunnhild back, Ivar Forkbeard addressed himself to the cutting of the meat. He threw pieces down the length of the table." — Marauders of Gor, page 91.
Tumits
A large carnivorous bird of the plains, is hunted and eaten by the Nomadic people of Gor. Traditionally hunted with bolas, the sport lies in whether you or the bird gets to eat that night. These birds are served roasted or in a stew.
"I gathered that the best time to hunt tumits, the large flightless, carnivorous birds of the southern plains, was at hand." — Nomads of Gor, page 331.
Urt
In times of starvation, even this common rodent of Gor was eaten.
"Worse, from the reports of deserters, it became clear that the city was starving and that water was running short.. The tiny urt, a common rodent of Gorean cities, was bringing a silver tarn disc in the markets." — Tarnsman of Gor, pages 186-187.
Verr
The mountain goat of Thentis, however smaller, less vicious varieties are bred and kept in pens. The meat can be eaten. Its milk can be used for drinking or the making of cheese and butter. In some lands, however, verr is considered too valuable to eat, such as in the Tahari. 
There, verr is raised for its milk and hair. Verr is generally roasted, though it may also be stewed.
"I had had verr meat, cut in chunks and threaded on a metal rod, with slices of peppers and larma, and roasted; vulo stew with raisins, nuts, onions and honey; a Kort with melted cheese and nutmeg; hot Bazi tea, sugared, and, later, Turian wine." — Tribesmen of Gor, pages 47-48.
"… remarked Harold, reaching over the shoulder of one of the high council of Turia and taking a candied verr chop." — Nomads of Gor, page 253.
"Kaiila and verr are found at the oases, but not in great numbers. The herds of these animals are found in the desert. They are kept by nomads, who move them from one area of verr grass to another or from one water hole to another, as the holes, for the season, go dry. Smaller water sources are used in the spring, for these are the first to go dry, larger ones later in the year. No grass grows about these water holes because many animals are brought to them and graze it to the earth. They are usually muddy ponds, with some stunted trees about, centered in the midst of an extensive radius of grassless, cracked, dry earth. Meat, hides, and animal-hair cloth are furnished to the oases by the nomads. In turn, from the oases the nomads receive, most importantly, Sa-Tarna grain and the Bazi tea. They receive, as well, of course, other trade goods. Sa-Tarna is the main staple of the nomads. They, in spite of raising herds, eat very little meat. The animals are too precious for their trade value, and their hair and milk, to be often slaughtered for food. A nomad boy of fifteen will often have eaten meat no more than a dozen times in his life. Raiders, however, feast well on meat. The animals mean little to them and come to them cheaply." — Tribesmen of Gor, pages 37-38.
"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.
Vulo
A tawny colored poultry bird, which also exists in the wild; used for meat and eggs. 
The brains, served hot and spicy, are a delicacy in Turia.
"She had been carrying a wicker basket containing vulos, a domesticated pigeon raised for eggs and meat." — Nomads of Gor, page 1.
"It is the spiced brain of the Turian vulo," Saphrar was explaining. — Nomads of Gor, page 83.
"I shot the spiced vulo brain into my mouth on the tip of a golden eating prong, a utensil, as far as I knew, unique to Turia." — Nomads of Gor, page 83.
"I held the leg of fried vulo toward one of the girls." — Hunters of Gor, page 34.
"… vulo stew with raisins, nuts, onions and honey…" — Tribesmen of Gor, page 47.
"Yesterday we had finished the food. Yet did we have water. Hassan saw five birds overhead in flight. "Fall to your hands and knees," he said. "Put your bead down." He did so, and I followed his example. To my surprise the five birds began to circle. I looked up. They were wild vulos, tawny and broad-winged. In a short time they alighted, several yards from us. They watched us, their heads turned to one side. Hassan began to kiss rhythmically at the back of his band, his head down, but moving so as to see the birds. The sound he made was not unlike that of an animal lapping water. There was a squawk as he seized one of the birds which, curious, ventured too near. The other vulos took flight. Hassan broke the bird's neck between his fingers and began to pull out the feathers. We fed on meat." — Tribesmen of Gor, pages 269-270.
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.