Since Teresa is busy this weekend, I’m taking this opportunity to talk about two of my favorite things: food and books. Not books about food, though I love those, too. Food memoirs like Ruth Reich’s Tender at the Bone or Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, or even books about where our food comes from like Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma are always fascinating to me. But this time I’m talking about food in books, the food characters eat. To me, some of the most satisfying and memorable scenes in books are the ones at table. If you listen to Brillat-Savarin (“Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are”), then the things our favorite characters eat may tell us a lot about them.
When I was a kid, I loved British children’s books. Elizabeth Goudge, E. Nesbit, Enid Blyton – I gobbled them up, and part of the fascination was the unfamiliar food. These children ate things I’d never even heard of. Rusks and milk for supper? Bangers? Treacle tart? What on earth? I formed my own secret impressions of what all this might be. I was fascinated with Blyton’s boarding-school books, like the Malory Towers series. These girls had tuck-boxes (what?) that contained things like ginger cake, currant cake, tins of toffee, and chocolate buns. Every book had a midnight feast, usually involving pickles. This bore no recognizable relation to my life. Later, when the Harry Potter books came out, I loved them partly because they were boarding-school books. I loved the Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans and the magical feasts, but I missed the tuck-boxes.
Of course, there were other, less savory stories as well. In Jane Eyre, I read with wide-eyed horror about Lowood School and the evils of burned porridge. (I had never eaten burned porridge in my life.) I listened to the long, oppressive ritual of tea at Manderley in Rebecca:
I think of half-past four at Manderley, and the table drawn before the library fire. The door flung open, punctual to the minute, and the performance, never-varying, of the laying of the tea, the silver tray, the kettle, the snowy cloth. While Jasper, his spaniel ears a-droop, feigns indifference to the arrival of the cakes. That feast was laid before us always, and yet we ate so little.
Those dripping crumpets, I can see them now. Tiny crisp wedges of toast, and piping-hot, flaky scones. Sandwiches of unknown nature, mysteriously flavored and quite delectable, and that very special gingerbread. Angel cake, that melted in the mouth, and his rather stodgier companion, bursting with peel and raisins.
Knowing what we know, it’s positively sinister.
Lest you think only the British eat in books, I spent most of last February reading Husain Haddawy’s translation of the Arabian Nights and groaning with hunger. Either the people in that book are being eaten, by djinni or lions or what have you, or they’re eating. One tale that particularly stands out (“The Tale of the Porter and the Three Ladies”) finds a young lady shopping for the feast she plans to have with her sisters:
…she bought yellow and red apples, Hebron peaches and Turkish quinces, and seacoast lemons and royal oranges, as well as baby cucumbers….Then she stopped at the butcher’s and said, “Cut me off ten pounds of fresh mutton.”… She came to the grocer’s, where she bought whatever she needed of condiments, such as olives of all kinds, pitted, salted, and pickled, tarragon, cream cheese, Syrian cheese, and sweet as well as sour pickles.
I’d go on, but this is starting to sound like the midnight feast at Malory Towers.
And I can’t leave this post – and oh, I hope you’re still reading – without mentioning the food in Patrick O’Brian’s surpassingly wonderful Aubrey-Maturin series. It absolutely warms the cockles of my heart to think about the many, the very many instances of feast (and famine) in those books. There are the huge dinners on board ship, the hungry midshipmen stuffing themselves with seafaring dishes such as lobscouse and Spotted Dog and Drowned Baby; there are the long, meditative evenings with just the two men in the cabin, playing their music with a dish of toasted cheese at their elbow (and the servant Killick cursing as it grows cold). There are the hungry days, too, when the entire ship is down to biscuit rations and whatever rats they can catch. During one of those times, Midshipman Babbington steals and eats a nice fat rat Stephen Maturin was keeping and experimenting on in his cabin:
Babbington looked wretchedly from one to the other, licked his lips and said, “I ate your rat, Sir. I am very sorry, and I ask your pardon.”
“Did you so?” said Stephen mildly. “Well, I hope you enjoyed it.”
“He only ate it when it was dead,” said Jack.
“It would have been a strangely hasty, agitated meal, had he ate it before.” said Stephen.
What are your favorite meals in books? What satisfies you and what leaves you hungry? Do you snack while you’re reading? Have you ever made a recipe from something you read in a book?
That is something I have never thought about, meals in books. Something else to pay more attention to.. I think the most attention I pay to meals in books is when they make me cringe.
Somehow the title of this post had me singing Like Treasure by Editors for an hour before I figured out that it is the title that made me think of the song.
Bad meals in books are almost as good as good meals!
I love to read about food in books and, like you, I chart it back to my reading of Enid Blyton as a child; as well as the boarding school feasts there were also those delectable-sounding picnics in the Famous Five books and I adored all the food descriptions in The Secret Island.
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel always comes to mind when I think of literature and food. Recently I have loved the secondary food-theme running through Heliopolis by James Scudamore and the French or French-orientated texts Gourmet Rhapsody by Muriel Barbery and French Milk by Lucy Knisley. Reading about food gives me the opportunity to combine two of my favourite activities and loves.
I haven’t read Like Water for Chocolate. Clearly, I must — an unconscionable gap in my book/food education.
I read whenever I get a spare moment, and eating counts as a spare moment! When I was little, I used to eat just cheese and crackers, but my lactose intolerance and busy schedule has definitely changed that.
I remember reading some interview with J. K. Rowling where she talked about how she put in those food scenes because of the history of food in British children’s literature. I thought that was wonderful! The only book series whose food has made an impression on is Redwall; there’s a lot of emphasis on cheese in that series.
Of course, there would be an emphasis on cheese! How funny.
I just started a meme about food books! But mine includes both food memoirs and food fiction. Definitely Like Water for Chocolate; Chocolat, plus a lot of other books by Joanne Harris; also The Belly of Paris by Zola. I hadn’t thought of children’s books, but it’s true, so many, especially British books, have great descriptions of meals, like teas. I remember in particular some great food description in A Little Princess. She was so hungry and then she goes up to the attic to find this amazing feast! And in the Narnia books, especially The Horse and His Boy. Yummy.
Oh, I remember that feast in A Little Princess! You’re so right — especially after starving under Miss Minchin, that was wonderful.
You know, as much as British food gets a bad rap, those books are always the ones that have me drooling! I love the feast scenes in the Harry Potter novels, and I’d love to go for a butterbeer!
What is it about those books? The rationing? Anyway, it’s a fantastic tradition.
I wanted goat milk and goat cheese because Heidi thought they were so good, and every time I read Little Women, I have an urge to find out just how blancmange is made. I am curious at just how good blackbird pie is…Laura Ingalls Wilder made Ma’s sound mouthwatering in Little Town on the Prairie.
I cannot believe I forgot the Little House books. Laura can make sliced tomatoes or new potatoes or roast pork sound like the most delicious thing that has ever been eaten. And I think blancmange is just vanilla pudding!
Phenomenal post. It made me hungry.
And of course the first thing my mind went to (apart from the famous seduction in Tom Jones, which I sadly haven’t read) was the early scene in Madame Bovary, in which her entire nature is summed up in a single gesture: having swallowed the last gulp of wine, she tips back the glass, cranes her tongue into it, and licks the bottom to get the very last drop….
Oh, what a great example! It says so much about the character, and is also such foreshadowing!
JK Rowling is right about the great tradition of eating in British children’s literature. I once read a whole piece just about the significance food in Narnia. Ooh, must eat turkish delight.
You are right about it all being mixed up with those boarding school books – all those midnight feasts and picnics and bread and dripping before bed (though I have no idea what bread and dripping actually is.) Did you like the Chalet School books too?
I was so disappointed when I didn’t care for Turkish delight (though of course Edmund’s is enchanted — but maybe it’s supposed to say something about him, that he likes this extremely sweet, cloying dessert.) Isn’t dripping just lard? Mmm, yum, bread and lard :) And of course I love the Chalet School books!
Now I have to find a copy of Haddawy’s Arabian Nights to add to my collection! The post reminds me of the books I’ve read by M.F.K. Fisher. Her writing is wonderful.
MFK Fisher is one of my favorite food writers in the world. She is wonderful in every way.
What a fun topic. Yes, I love to read about what people are eating in a story, and like you, have been fascinated by the extremes in the Aubrey-Maturin books. I love that time period, but so glad that I didn’t have to live then, much less have ever been a sailor! :)
Oh, me, too. Not least because I would have been thinned from the herd a long time ago, thanks to thick glasses and appendicitis at 12. :)
Alison Bechdel writes so convincingly of cucumber sandwiches in her graphic memoir Fun Home that I had to look them up on allrecipes.com and make some.
I just read that! I love cucumber sandwiches, too.
Even though if there’s one thing I love as much as reading, it’s cooking (and eating!), unless I’m reading a cook book or a book about food (such as Ruth Reichl’s memoirs), I don’t really notice good food in books. However, I do tend to remember scenes where hunger and/or awful food play a role–such as the burnt porridge in JANE EYRE, the gruel in OLIVER TWIST, and the hungry days at Tara after the Yankees have passed through in GONE WITH THE WIND. I also remember how Laura Ingalls loved bear meat in the LITTLE HOUSE books.
The late Laurie Colwin wrote two books (HOME COOKING and MORE HOME COOKING) that interspersed recipes with essays about home and food. I made a wonderful gingerbread cake from her recipe–which included brandy in which lemon wedges had been placed for at least four days prior to making the cake. It was so good, it was worth the advanced planning.
I absolutely adore Laurie Colwin with all my heart. I’ve read Home Cooking, but More Home Cooking still awaits me — the very last of her books I have yet to read. Thanks for the lovely reminder!
The Peter Mayle Provence books are about nothing if not the joys of Provencal food! And strangely, my husband and I always refer to it as a “Hemingway dinner” when we sit down to shrimp cocktail, french bread, and white wine. We make (at least once a year) the “beaver’s dinner” from the Narnia books, mostly because a decade or so ago a friend gave us a copy of The Narnia Cookbook. We also have a Mary Poppins cookbook, with recipes for children’s teas, and The Alice B. Toklas cookbook, from which we get our recipe for mushroom tea sandwiches.
I would love to make the beaver’s dinner! Fish that has come out of the water half an hour ago and out of the frying pan half a minute ago. And buttery potatoes. And marmalade roll. Right? I didn’t even have to look that up. :)
you got it! Our fish isn’t always quite that fresh, though, and not always trout, which is what the beaver caught.
I love it when books describe the food their characters are eating. It’s a good way to create a particular mood of luxury or deprivation (as evident by your excerpts – love the O’Brian one!). But I almost never read a book and think, I must have that exact kind of food now!, though that could be because very few books feature characters having, like, jambalaya or crawfish etouffee. (I made my mouth water just then.)
I don’t usually, either, though sometimes a mention of beef and potato stew or something will stick with me and eventually I’ll have to make it. But I do love reading about characters’ meals. And just so you know, Jenny, I came up with this topic when reading The Merlin Conspiracy!
Oh what fun! I’m reading through the comments and agree that the food in Harry Potter is fun. I second the comments on Like Water for Chocolate, food is a very important part of that book.
Obviously I’ve got to read that one!
Yes, I have often made a recipe from something I read in a book. For example, John Lanchester’s _The Debt to Pleasure_ (an off-the-wall delight alone in its genre) has recipes galore, with acerbic asides to boot.
“The distinguishing characteristics of the blini, as a member of the happy family of pancakes is that it is thick (as opposed to thin), non-folding (as opposed to folding) and raised with yeast (as opposed to bicarbonate of soda; it is Russian; and, like the sarrasin pancake, it is made of buckwheat (as opposed to plain flour).
[...]
Sour cream is completely straightforward, and if you need any advice or guidance about it then, for you, I feel only pity.
[...]
It is only sensible to construct an entire meal out of blinis if one is planning to spend the rest of the day out on the taiga, boasting about women and shooting
bears.
I have also cooked a number of the dishes from _Lobscouse and Spotted Dog_, the “gastronomic companion to the Aubrey/Maturin novels” by Grossman and Thomas. Its hundreds of recipes include a horrifyingly plausible one for haggis and other such offerings as “The Last of the True French Short Bastards”, Solomongundy, soused hog’s face, squirrels in Madeira and “voluptuous little pies.”
Voluptuous little pies… oh, my. I remember those. And The Debt to Pleasure is absolutely marvelous.
Another great feasts book (and a rollicking good read to boot, in the model of George MacDonald Fraser’s _Flashman_ books) is _All the Tea in China_ by Kyril Bonfiglioli – black humour by someone who really knew his stuff about period antiques trading. It was to be the start of a series, but he unfortunately died after the first.
Our hero falls in with the legendary John Jorrocks, MFH, and much eating ensues.
Well worth getting second-hand through Amazon or wherever.
Thank you for the recommendation — I haven’t read this or even heard of it. Sounds like it should go right on the TBR list.
I had to come back and mention how lovingly Edna Ferber described Clio Dulaine devouring a plate of jambalaya with a piece of crusty French bread on the side…right there in the streets of New Orleans in the novel Saratoga Trunk (1943?)
Fun post :) I’m a big fan of food in books, too. When I was younger I read most of the Redwall books aloud to my younger brother, and we loved to drool over the feast scenes.