Cuisine of Hellmouth

COMMUNITY REPORTS
The remainder of this article contains lore created collaboratively by the Blaseball community.

Hellmouth has a strong culinary identity and thriving food culture, strongly shaped by the practical realities of life on the Hellmouth's edges. Hellmouth cuisine is centered around locally-sourced ingredients, a healthy respect and fear for the latent hostility of the Hellmouth and the unspeakable effects it has wrought upon the local ecosystem, and the fact a good number of residents just don't have to eat anymore thanks to their various Adaptations.

The Hellmouth Anti-Tourism Board has declared themselves sworn archnemeses of the Hellmouth foodie scene, as such food often attracts reckless food critics as well the stray FDA agent from time to time.

Agriculture in Hellmouth

Horticulture in Hellmouth was forced to make rapid adjustments when the Hellmouth opened, due to seemingly-arbitrary and mostly-spite-fuelled changes to the soil, water, and pests. Land would require extra preparation to prevent various infernal influences from permeating the soil from Below, which made large-scale farming and water-intensive industries impractical.

The majority of fruit, vegetables, and cereal grains in Hellmouth are now grown in small community lots, scattered between residences so many eyes can keep an eye out as they pass by each day for any unwelcome weirdness. Sun-loving, drought-tolerant cultivars are constantly being selectively bred and engineered by volunteers at the Hellmouth Beautification Society. While the Society's breeding programmes create desert-hardy plants, the effective protection of crops from Hellmouth's misanthropic advances is the result of many seasons' trial-and-error by a collaboration of hedge witches, "ornithologists", and researchers at Hellmouth Community College.

Poultry farming also occurs in Hellmouth, but is exclusively the domain of one very irritable "Susan", who is said to "hate the damn things" due to all the Adaptations they have collectively accrued.

Fishing in Hellmouth

Fish makes up an increasing portion of protein in the diets of omnivorous and carnivorous Hellmouthians, as the small-but-dedicated fishing industry in the mists around Hellmouth Falls has become increasingly sophisticated.

Recreational angling remains a popular hobby in the upper Colorado River and La Sal Mountains, where the aquatic ecosystems have remained unaffected by the Hellmouth's opening. Strict quotas and catch limits on the mundane fish (Catfish in the upper Colorado River, and trout from the La Sal Mountains) are in place, to preserve these ecosystems and prevent encroachment by creatures of a Hellmouth origin. Conversely, in the lower Colorado River, no specific rules other than encouraging anglers to value self-preservation exist to prevent fishing. It should be noted, however, that whatever is caught in the waters from the Reemergence cannot, under any jurisdictions, be legally called fish.

The Hellmouth as Food Source

The Hellmouth itself has developed a unique ecosystem of infernal lifeforms, which provide a consistent source of protein to the community thanks to the efforts of enterprising Hellmouthians. Following the ill-fated journey of supermarket truck driver Mallison Croft in the summer of 20XX, an extensive variety of fish have also become popular on Hellmouth plates.

The most iconic Hellmouth megafauna is the Hellmouth Giant Scorpion, from which scorpion milk and demonic ectoparasites are harvested by "scorpion ranchers". The latter are usually prepared in a manner similar to shellfish, with "imp chowder" being a notable regional delicacy. For more information, see the "Interaction with humans" section on the Giant Scorpion page.

Fishing in Hellmouth Falls

While scorpion husbandry remains a particularly dangerous line of work best left to trained professionals, the accidental introduction of almost every known commercial fish species by one Mallison Croft came as a boon to recreational fisherfolk, and more generally to Hellmouth residents seeking a little more non-steak variety in their protein sources.

The mist pouring off of Hellmouth Falls - as the Colorado River descends into unknowable horrors - became home to the contents of Mallison Croft's refrigerated truck. As a result, every kind of fresh fish one might spot in a grocery store can also be found swimming in the mist cloud, provided one is happy to take whatever ends up on the hook (or in the net) and not need anything specific.

The seafood "living" in the Hellmouth Falls mists cheerfully disregards any regular biological limitations like need for salt water, deep-sea pressure, or a functional underlying food chain. The ability to catch whole fresh fillets, still swimming as though they remained attached to the flanks of a living fish, suggest "typical Hellmouth chicanery" according to a local ecologist.