Once there was a community of Giants who ate horribly.
I don’t mean that their eating habits inspired horror; I suppose that’s quite relative, and depends on who and what you desire to see consumed. I mean, the quality of their foodstuffs was poor.
It wasn’t because they lacked abundant sources of yummy protein. Humans spawn like, like, well, like mammals with reasonably energetic bodies, no specific mating season, and a vast desire to go around having sex with each other and/or other things. There ought to have been plenty to go around.
But the Giants were victims of their own stories.
Or peer pressure, if you’d like.
There’s a good chance you’ve heard it – that little couplet which starts “FEE, FI, FO, FUM” for no particular reason, and then mentions that the Giant is going to grind some human’s bones into bread.
This is a terrible idea.
Humans are edible. Wolves can eat them. Snakes can eat them, though it requires a big snake. Sharks can eat them. Other people can eat them. Giants can certainly eat them.
But human bone?
It’s not that bone is utterly without nutrients, but it’s not exactly without chalky bone-stuff, either, and the various chemical components of one’s chemical structure are not exactly chock-full of the vitamins and minerals a mammal needs in its daily diet in order to flourish.
Honestly, even bread, the staff of life, isn’t exactly a power-packed Breakfast of Champions. Even if you DON’T have a gluten allergy or a Keto diet.
Now imagine living on bread and water – not because you’re a prisoner, but because you feel it’s expected.
Ridiculous? Sure. But once Giants heard that most famous tale (if, somehow, you are in a place or era where it’s not famous, look it up; I’m not kidding) – they all began muttering the same thing, “I’ll grind his bones to make me bread”.
(The pronouns varied, but the culinary aspirations did not.)
And from there? That was the start of a lively deboning industry, plus a tanning industry. And tanning is quite useful; but cottage industries need to grow in order to create an industrial revolution. And to be perfectly honest, what incentive did they have to succeed and do better? Do really, really well, and you might get MORE terrible-tasting, unhealthy, ground-human-bone bread.
Ugh.
Yuck.
This is why you don’t see Giants today. They’ve all died of malnutrition, or pure disgust. Or they’ve moved somewhere there are no humans and are, even now, sitting around on a beach somewhere, saying, “Pity we can’t have those ground human bones we really love, but I suppose this bushel of lobsters, crayfish, and scallops will go well with tonight’s wild boar feast.”
Which is fine, as far as I’m concerned. That leaves more yummy humans for me.
