Food Tasting

"I am not some frail Tormian InsultingNameForNoblesHere, give me my meal before I accidentally eat you instead."

— EastLeader PersonBro

"The only guild person who has a food taster is one who needs to be poisoned."

— Goltherines saying

People who are of notoriety and fame will inevitably draw rivals, and some rivals will be bold enough to remove perceived threats. In The Kingdom of Tormyra, the hiring of poison testers became popular as mages began to poison each other as killing each other was not acceptable in polite society
The practice grew into use by high ranked guild members of Goltheris though historically, those guild members were usually ones who were not well liked within their guild and found their way towards being removed.
Theydim has mixed responses to food tasting and the tasters as poisoning a rival is often seen to be a dishonest and cowardly way, though they will encourage its use to remove tyrants from power.
In the Five Cities, poison is not used for any reason, as no one would have any motive for using it. Accusations have been made of members of the Families ruling the Cities poisoning each other, but no evidence has come through supporting those claims.

Methodology

Generally food is tested first by the use of magic to detect poison. Should nothing appear to be poisoned according to magic, the tester will then test three randomly selected samples of each dish before their employer is allowed to eat.
If the employer dies, the tester is usually the first person checked as testers have been bribed in the past to take a WordForCounterToxinHere and falsify a clean meal.
Soup is a popular meal to poison a person with, but they're generally a dangerous method, killing more people than only the intended target.

"High King Magnus the Red-Eyed might not have been murdered if he had someone testing his food and possessions for poisons, you know."
"That's a load of horse shite. He wasn't poisoned, he was cursed."