Food in Literature

[Batgrrrl]

In A.S.Byatt's Possession the male poet writes a letter to the female poet in which he uses the "cool green circles" of the cucumber sandwiches served at the tea where they met as a metaphor for her subdued demeanor. Ever since then, I have found cucumber sandwiches incredibly sexy.

And speaking of children's books, anybody else know "The Quangle Wangle's Hat"? In it, a whole bunch of funny creatures march off to live in said hat, and have tea.

Again with the tea. I just love tea--the ritual even more than the beverage.

[Arey]

The Compleat Angler by Izaak Walton. A very pleasant book to read and even if it doesn't make you want to go freshwater fishing, it will make you hungry for fish.

He tends to favor simple cooking methods, cleaning it , filling the cavity with herbs and spit roasting it.

Alice in Wonderland

Beau-ootiful Soo---oop!

Beau-ootiful Soo---oop!

Soo---oop of the e---e---evening

Beautiful, beautiful Soup!

[fimbul]

Tea and cucumber sandwiches put me in mind of P. G. Wodehouse's novels, particularly any in which the great Anatole's menus are described. I remember, too, that many of Plum's novels make much of the civilizing influences of port, bitter, and liquor.

[adoxograph]

This topic is dangerous, I thought of a couple more:

Jitterburg Perfume, Tom Robbins. I have to admit that on my first trip to New Orleans all I could think of was this book and "the Beast" that you had to feed when you entered the city. Oh, I fed that Beast in the 24 hours I was there. That and any book that spends that much time delving into the mysteries of beets is going to make me happy.

Another Dr. Seuss - Scrambled Eggs Super. There's your 365 egg recipes.

More recently - the spiced peaches and sweet onions in the book Holes sounded much tastier than they appeared in the movie.

I'm going to go home an pull some old books off the shelf tonight before deciding what to make for dinner. I think it was Almanzo in Farmer Boy who got potato in his eye.

[tanabutler]

I just read How Green Was My Valley for the fourth time last month. Richard Llewellyn's descriptions of food are so gorgeous--I loaned the book out just last night, or I'd have some quotes here. Early on, he describes a full table and says that no one ever talked while eating, because he never met the man whose conversation could stand up to his mother's food.

There are some wonderful food descriptions in Gone with the Wind.

And two books, anthologies, come to mind. (I own the first and have just ordered the second one, for which I am paying one cent. One penny.)

The Ravenous Muse

Food Tales: A Literary Menu of Mouthwatering Masterpieces (out of print but widely available)...

Includes these and others:

Yesterday's Sweetmeats -- by Robert Benchley

A Vitcomte's Breakfast -- by Alexandre Dumas

The Luncheon -- by W. Somerset Maugham

The Man who Loved to Eat -- by William Maxwell

The Spoiled Cake -- by Jules Renard (trans. Ralph Manheim)

Tortillas and Beans -- by John Steinbeck

The Power of Cookery -- by Sylvia Townsend Warner

His Father's Earth -- by Thomas Wolfe

How about Anthony Bourdain's top ten food books?

Jim Crace's books are often food centric. From The Devil's Larder:

Someone has taken off -and lost- the label on the can. There are two glassy lines of glue with just a trace of stripped paper where the label was. The can’s batch number -RG2JD 19547- is embossed on one of the ends. Top or bottom end? No one can tell what’s up or down. The metal isn’t very old.

They do not like to throw it out. It might be salmon - not cheap. Or tuna steaks. Or rings of syruped pineapple. Too good to waste. Guava halves. Lychees. Leak soup. Skinned, Italian plum tomatoes. Of course, they ought to open up the can and have a look, and eat the contents there and then. Or plan a meal around it. It must be something that they like, or used to like. It’s in their larder. It had a label once. They chose it in the shop.

They shake the can against their ears. They sniff at it. They compare it with the other cans inside the larder to find a match in size and shape. But still they cannot tell if it is beans or fruit or fish. They are like children with unopened birthday gifts. Will they be disappointed when they open up the can? Will it be what they want? Sometimes their humour is macabre: the contents are beyond description -baby flesh, sliced fingers, dog waste, worms, the venom of a hundred mambas- and that is why there is no label.

One night when there are guests and all the wine has gone, they put the can into the candle light amongst the debris of their meal and play the guessing game. An aphrodisiac, perhaps; “Let’s try.” A plague. Should they open up and spoon it out? A tune, canned music, something never heard before that would rise from the open can, evaporate, and not be heard again. The elixir of youth. The human soup of DNA. A devil or a god?

It’s tempting just to stab it with a knife. Wound it. See how it bleeds. What is the colour of the blood? What is its taste?

We all should have a can like this. Let it rust. Let the rims turn rough and brown. Lift it up and shake it if you want. Shake its sweetness or its bitterness. Agitate the juicy heaviness within. The gravy heaviness. The brine, the soup, the oil, the sauce. The heaviness. The choice is wounding it with knives, or never touching it again.

And I agree about all the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, especially Farmer Boy (Alonzo Wilder had a more prosperous upbringing than his wife, and she really went to town describing their meals).

EDITED TO CORRECT BAD LINK FOR FOOD TALES.

Edited January 22, 2004 by tanabutler (log)

[tanabutler]

I think it was Almanzo in Farmer Boy who got potato in his eye.

Yep.

[DRColby]

I think this one is now considered politically incorrect, but when I was a kid, I had a favorite Golden Book... Little Black Sambo.

Fifi, you don't know how right you are.... A couple of weeks ago we were in Santa Barbara and stopped at the original Little Black Sambo's for breakfast. It has a different name now and it passes me by as what it is.

Anyway, They also sell a version of book "Little Black Sambo". My wife collects children's books, and like you remembered this from childhood, so she decided to buy the last copy the resturant had. There were two black guys in line back of her at the register who started verbally attacking her for buying a "racist book"... Pretty amazing in such a laid-back town.

We were on our way to LAX. The rest o fthe trip was spent with my wife reading the book and trying to find what was so offensive.

Dave

[alikat]

There's a fun cookbook called Roald Dahl's Revolting Recipes, in case you ever want to actually eat Snozzcumbers, Frobscottle, Lickable Wallpaper, or Mr. Twit's Beard Food. My son and I made Bunce's Doughnut's (from Fantastic Mr. Fox) and they were very good.

Another great children's food book is Bread and Jam for Francis by Russell and Lillian Hoban. A recent book in a similar vein is Yoko, by Rosemary Wells. Both books contain great ideas for bag lunches if your kids are stuck in the PBJ sandwich rut, and I know of more than one kid who's tried sushi because of Yoko.

[hathor]

Great topic! Lots of good leads for books to read and lots of books to re-read!

I just finished "Sins of the 7th Sister" by Huston Curtiss. Billed as a 'true story' of the gothic South.... its a memoir of growing up in the the late 1920's, early '30's. Has fantastic descriptions of life on the farm and how everything was used, nothing wasted. What apples ripened when, what they did with the hickory ashes after they boiled down the massive amounts of apple butter, hog and cow slaughtering time, etc. etc. Excellent read.

[sassybat]

i remember reading the laura ingalls wilder book on the banks of plum creek and wanting to try the vanity cakes they described.