So, for some reason, people always kinda seem to write the Jötnar as having the same diet as those of Asgard, despite the fact that Asgard is a vibrant, lush land with farms, and Jötunheimr is… You know. Frozen.
So, let’s talk about what the Jötnar are gonna eat.
So, building on my already established idea that the Jötnar don’t put on too much fat, and instead have extra muscle, they’re gonna need some damned protein to sustain it. Because we’re dealing with such a cold climate, we’re probably going to be looking at animals who’ll withstand the cold, but what you won’t see much of is any bigger, greener flowering plants or the like.
So,
Jötunheimr, in my view, has huge, wide, choppy seas. Big, massive waves, very salty, choppy water, and pretty much all the Jötnar are natural swimmers because, uh, they gotta be.
Being as the Jötnar are physically fit and muscular, as well as likely seafaring to at least some extent, we can expect them to eat:
various fish, as well as squid, crustaceans and molluscs
fish eggs
sea birds and their eggs
sea-faring mammals like whales, seals and walruses
sea weeds + plants
And because we’ve already seen some massive beasts that wander around
Jötunheimr, I’d also expect them to hunt that sort of thing. The Inuits eat polar bears as well as animals like caribou, and I definitely don’t think the Jötnar would shy away from hunting and butchering a predator as much as a prey animal.
All of this meat is gonna be super heavy in protein, oils and nutrients that the
Jötnar are gonna fucking need.
I feel like their diet is meat-heavy and meat-centred, but then they’re also gonna have what plant matter is possible to get hold of – I mentioned sea weed and other sea-centred plants, but I would also imagine they eat various edible mosses and fungi that survive the sub zero temperature in the relative warmth of the caves beneath Jötunheimr, and then there’s also stuff like tubers and hardy grasses that they probably eat a fair amount of too.
You know what they’re probably not used to?
Milk. They almost definitely do not eat milk, or cheese, or anything of the kind, except extremely rarely, and I imagine that while the
Jötnar aren’t entirely lactose intolerant, they probably can’t stand to have more than a little bit of milk at a time once they’re no longer babes in arms, and definitely not processed into butter, cheese or any other dairy product.
Then, sweets. Notice how, uh, everything I’ve mentioned so far does not taste sweet. In fact, a lot of it is going to be heavily salty (much of the fatty meat and fish) or bitter (the weeds and tubers). I don’t think the Jötnar eat sweets, and in fact, I imagine they either have no capacity to taste it, or have a very small capacity for sweetness, and are swiftly overwhelmed by pretty much any sweet taste in their mouth. Even a little bit of honey or sugar would just make them gag.
Also, as a result of the stuff they eat – really heavy on meat which probably doesn’t come around that often, and subsequently is probably saved over time, as well as on very tough plants and tubers, I’m actually super attached to the idea of the Jötnar having mildly acidic saliva?
Firstly, it’d break down the plants and tubers easier, making them much, much easier to chew, but it also means they’d be able to withstand meat that had slightly rotted without any issues at all, as it’d just burn right through the acrid nastiness of it, and subsequently rotted stuff which is already a bit acidic would probably be considered a huge delicacy.
Also, I think the Jötnar do have alcohol, but now that you’ve listened to my acid delicacy theory… Yep, you guessed it! I feel like it’d be kind of similar to poitín, which we make here in Ireland out of potatoes (yeah, I know), but instead out of frozen roots and tubers. So it’d be like, very bitter and very acidic, and probably straight-up poisonous to most Asgardians.
I respect This analysis and In Fact enjoy it But what we actually eat is Ass
PastelGrandpa 