The way I dealt with fantasy economics in a world I built (and abandoned...) was by making giant food indigestible by humans. Cattle can digest cellulose and thus have access to a much larger supply of food than humans (grass!). But they can only digest cellulose through a complex sequence of multiple stomachs, regurgitation, rumination, and with the help of specialized bacteria. Instead of giant food flooding the human economy, humans just can't digest giant food. Similarly, giant textiles are too rough for human purposes (imagine a sweater made of rope), and so on for different goods. Thus, humans have a mostly separate economy that hasn't been ruined by cheap giant goods.

Obviously this doesn't work in Dumpling, which is set in a dang kitchen! But I wanted to share how I got around the "how do you keep enormous giants fed" and "how does the economy even function" problems.

My get around is that giant’s physical labor is more expensive (they can get more done) and charge accordingly. But I love the idea that their textiles would be too rough for humans and made of rope. Brilliant idea.

One idea I came up with was that giants would eat some strange things that human generally would not. Like some varieties of trees. And in the same way that we tap maple trees for sap to make syrup, they would use a similar process to make sugar. Also, roasted sunflower heads is a thing so I’m using that as well.

Also, cheese and butter are not something they themselves can produce so they’re always imported from humans. But the butter has to be shelf stable, so instead of fresh butter they have something closer to ghee.