Famine food

A famine food or poverty food is any inexpensive or readily-available foodstuff used to nourish people in times of extreme poverty or starvation, as during a war or famine. Quite often, the food is thereafter strongly associated with the hardship under which it was eaten, and is therefore socially downplayed or rejected as a food source in times of relative plenty.

Foods associated with famine need not be nutritionally deficient. A number of famine foods are extremely nutritious--thus their use to nourish and ward off hunger--but the conditions under which they were eaten are often the primary cause of people's subsequent aversion to these foods.

Examples of famine foods
A number of foodstuffs have been strongly associated with famine, war, or times of hardship throughout history:


 * The breadnut or Maya nut was cultivated by the ancient Mayans, but is largely rejected as a poverty food in modern Central America.
 * Rutabagas were widely used as a food of last resort in Europe during World War I, and remain particularly unpopular in Germany.
 * In Polynesia, the Xanthosoma plant (known locally as 'ape) was considered a famine food and was used only in the event that the taro crop failed.
 * The fruit of the Noni, sometimes also called "starvation fruit," has a strong smell and bitter taste which often relegates it to the level of a famine food.
 * The nara melon of southern Africa is sometimes eaten as a food of last resort.
 * Several species of edible kelp, including dulse and Irish moss, were eaten by coastal peasants during the Irish Potato Famine of 1846-1848.
 * Sego lily bulbs were eaten by the Mormon pioneers when their food crops failed.
 * Tulip bulbs and Sugar beets were eaten in the German occupied parts of the Netherlands during the "hunger winter" of 1944-45.

Positive uses of famine food
The term "famine food" has also been used to describe underutilized crops--edible plants which are not widely cultivated as food, but which could be cultivated as an alternative food source in the event of widespread crop failure.