#look at me being an edgelord and deciding drug abuse exists in this children's cartoon lol

[mostly-mundane-atla]

Notable Fire Nation Crops

When people from the Sun Wariors' homeland settled in what would become the Fire Nation, they brough seeds of local crops with them and managed to raise some of them; including cacao, coca, and tobacco.

Tobacco is processed and smoked recreationally, with a handful of artisans specializing in making intricate and ornate smoking pipes for the upper classes. Mai owns one carved to look like two dragons each with their tale wrapped around the other's; one dragon's head with a roaring mouth serving as the bowl, and the other, more serene dragon's head serving as the mouthpiece. This design is common enough that smoking (of any substance) is sometimes euphemistically refered to as "kissing dragons." Tobacco is the only one of these crops also widely grown and available in the Earth Kingdom.

The cacao beans are processed into chocolate liquor which can be further processed into cocoa powder, though these are rarely used to make solid chocolate. They are instead usually mixed with ginger, crushed hot peppers, or both, then sweetened to varying degrees depending on purpose and personal taste.

Powder forms of this mixture are often sprinkled on pastries, tarts, and cake batter before baking, and some are mixed with rice flour for rolling soft candies in so they don't stick to the other pieces or wrapping paper. Syrup forms are drizzled on desserts or mixed into drinks both alcoholic and not.

There might be two or three cacao trees in the Colonies and occupied territories, but their health and quality of their beans is unknown. The Earth Kindom used to trade with the Fire Nation for chocalate liquor and made the kind of solid chocolate the reader is more familiar with, but it was very rare and expensive and done away with as the war progressed. The chocolate industry in the Earth Kingdom has been slow to start up again.

Coca leaves were the Fire Nation's best kept secret and remained so until healers of all grades, practices, and national origins made a point to network and pool their knowledge. The leaves were rationed out to soliders to chew when they were needed to cover a lot of ground or complete any number of grueling tasks, and they had properties that blocked feelings of hunger, thirst, and fatigue. Having anesthetic properties as well, they were also given to those sustaining great injuries, sometimes brewed as a tea instead so they don't have to chew anything.

Coca leaves were the most guarded and monitored supplies in the Fire Nation military, and it was decided that it was better for the men to have too little of it than too much. Even when defectors wanted to share this information, they couldn't bring any themselves for these reasons. Corruption does exist in all places, however, and a few men of rank, especially those of noble families, used the leaves recreationally and brought this bad habit home with them, sharing it with friends and family. This led to many experiments on how to strengthen the effect, with a few military officers and civilian leaders trying out these newer forms of the substance.

By the time Avatar Korra was born, coca leaves were declared for medicinal use only and selling them or any product of them for recreational use has been heavily criminalized. Cultivating a tree and sharing the leaves without making a profit is still a legal grey area and a problem in pro bending and other competitive sports.

#avatar the last airbender #atla #atla headcanons #fire nation #drug mention #look at me being an edgelord and deciding drug abuse exists in this children's cartoon lol