Ficitional Food and Feasting

[BlackShanglan]

Miss Scarlett has me thinking of food. It's not a difficult task. But I found myself thinking about food and fiction. Of course Virginia Woolf has some of the best words on that - whenever I read "A Room of One's Own," her comments about the soles in cream that is dappled brown and white like the flanks of fawns inevitably make me longingly hungry as well as drawing my entire agreement on the food/literature connection. With that in mind, I thought it might be fun to list some fictional feasts that have stirred us.

A few that come to my mind:

1) The sausages the dwarfs cook in Narnia when Jill and Eustace return with Prince Rillian. It's snowing, and the Narnians are all doing the snowball dance, and then when the children show up the dwarves whisk out frying pans nearly as large as themselves and fry up hot, piping sausages, full and meaty and "just the slightest bit burnt."

2) The picnic Ratty and Mole have in "Wind in the Willows." Every time I pack a picnic, on some level I am attempting to pack that one.

3) The feast of St. Agnes from Keats's poem of the same name. The heaps of fruit and dainties always sound so sumptuous. (Just say that word - sssummmmmptuous. Mmmmm.)

4) Wilde's descriptions, in "De Profundis," of his meals with Bosie - "the amber-colored, almost amber-scented wine," the little ortolans wrapped in vine leaves ...

What are your favorites?

 

[OhMissScarlett]

Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market always makes my mouth water.
Granted, it might have more to do with the erotic nature than actual hunger.


She cried "Laura," up the garden,
"Did you miss me?
Come and kiss me.
Never mind my bruises,
Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices
Squeezed from goblin fruits for you,
Goblin pulp and goblin dew.
Eat me, drink me, love me;
Laura, make much of me:
For your sake I have braved the glen
And had to do with goblin merchant men

 

[BlackShanglan]

Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market always makes my mouth water.
Granted, it might have more to do with the erotic nature than actual hunger.

Oh, purrrrrr. That is fabulous. Such rich, gorgeous imagery all throughout. Beautiful play with sounds and imagery.

 

[OhMissScarlett]

This is one of the previous verses just as delicious. Horny little goblins.


Hugged her and kissed her,
Squeezed and caressed her:
Stretched up their dishes,
Panniers, and plates:
"Look at our apples
Russet and dun,
Bob at our cherries,
Bite at our peaches,
Citrons and dates,
Grapes for the asking,
Pears red with basking
Out in the sun,
Plums on their twigs;
Pluck them and suck them,
Pomegranates, figs."—

 

[BlackShanglan]

I never could figure her out. The scene with the redemption seems to transparently lesbian, and yet she was evidently rather old-fashioned in her religious tenets. I do know that she did social work with "fallen women," which certainly seems to account for the nasty, horny little goblins

"C'mere darlin' ... taste our yummy fruit."

 

[OhMissScarlett]

I never could figure her out. The scene with the redemption seems to transparently lesbian, and yet she was evidently rather old-fashioned in her religious tenets. I do know that she did social work with "fallen women," which certainly seems to account for the nasty, horny little goblins

"C'mere darlin' ... taste our yummy fruit."

Lol. Will you please write me a "celebrities" story where Christina Rossetti has a lesbian affair with Lizzie Siddal? Pretty please?

 

[carsonshepherd]

Awwww. are you two having a li'l thread all by yourselves?

How about "Like Water for Chocolate." Makes me hungry, as well as sob.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Awwww. are you two having a li'l thread all by yourselves?

How about "Like Water for Chocolate." Makes me hungry, as well as sob.

Ah yes ... the rose petals ... I loved that scene.

 

[logophile]

1) The sausages the dwarfs cook in Narnia when Jill and Eustace return with Prince Rillian. It's snowing, and the Narnians are all doing the snowball dance, and then when the children show up the dwarves whisk out frying pans nearly as large as themselves and fry up hot, piping sausages, full and meaty and "just the slightest bit burnt."

I also love dinner with the Beavers in Narnia from The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe. Reading about how hungry they were and how good the food smelled always made my stomach rumble!

My other favorite food scene is from Little House in the Big Woods. Laura is a very little girl and they go to her grandparent's house for a maple sugar party. That whole scene is so fabulous. The food sounds so good and when I was growing I really wanted to go to a barn dance just like that one!

Fun thread! Thanks!

 

[Guest]

Keats on eating a peach (ref. unknown to me):
It went down soft pulpy slushy oozy--all its delicious embonpoint melted down my throat like a large beatified strawberry.

Keats, from a letter to his sister:
I should like now to promenade round your Gardens--apple-tasting--pear-tasting--plum-judging -- apricot-nibbling -- peach-scrunching -- nectarine-sucking and Melon-carving. I have also a great feeling for antiquated cherries full of sugar cracks--and a white currant tree kept for company. I admire lolling on a lawn by a water lillied pond to eat white currants and see gold fish: and go to the Fair in the Evening if I'm good. There is not hope for that--one is sure to get into some mess before evening.

Dickens, A Christmas Carol:

‘Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house, and a pastry-cook’s next door each other, with a laundress’s next door to that! That was the pudding. In half a minute Mrs Cratchit entered: flushed, but smiling proudly: with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

'A loaf of bread,’ the Walrus said,
'Is what we chiefly need:
'Pepper and vinegar besides
Are very good indeed -
Now, if you’re ready, Oysters dear,
We can begin to feed.'


James Joyce, Two Gallants from Dubliners

He was hungry for, except some biscuits which he had asked two grudging curates to bring him, he had eaten nothing since breakfast-time. He sat down at an uncovered wooden table opposite two work-girls and a mechanic. A slatternly girl waited on him.

-How much is a plate of peas? he asked
-Three halfpence, sir, said the girl.
-Bring me a plate of peas, he said, and a bottle of ginger beer.

He spoke roughly in order to belie his air of gentility for his entry had been followed by a pause of talk. His face was heated. To appear natural he pushed his cap back on his head and planted his elbows on the table. The mechanic and the two work-girls examined him point by point before resuming their conversation in a subdued voice. The girl brought him a plate of hot grocer's peas, seasoned with pepper and vinegar, a fork and his ginger beer. He ate his food greedily and found it so good that he made a note of the shop mentally. When he had eaten all the peas he sipped his ginger beer and sat for some time thinking of Corley's adventure. In his imagination he beheld the pair of lovers walking along some dark road; he heard Corley's voice in deep energetic gallantries and saw again the leer of the young woman's mouth. This vision made him feel keenly his own poverty of purse and spirit. He was tired of knocking about, of pulling the devil by the tail, of shifts and intrigues. He would be thirty-one in November. Would he never get a good job? Would he never have a home of his own? He thought how pleasant it would be to have a warm fire to sit by and a good dinner to sit down to. He had walked the streets long enough with friends and with girls. He knew what those friends were worth; he knew the girls too. Experience had embittered his heart against the world. But all hope had not left him. He felt better after having eaten than he had felt before, less weary of his life, less vanquished in spirit. He might yet be able to settle down in some snug corner and live happily if he could only come across some good simple minded girl with a little of the ready.

 

[Guest]

can't forget Shakespeare

These aren't eating scenes, but Shakespeare used food as metaphor brilliantly, and sometimes merely as wit. - Perdita

Twelfth Night, I, 3:
SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK: Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian or an ordinary man has; but I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit.

Henry IV, part 1, III, 1:
HOTSPUR: O, he is as tedious As a tired horse, a railing wife; Worse than a smoky house: I had rather live With cheese and garlic in a windmill, far, Than feed on cates and have him talk to me In any summer-house in Christendom.

Henry V, III, 7:
ORLEANS: Foolish curs, that run winking into the mouth of a Russian bear and have their heads crushed like rotten apples! You may as well say, that's a valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion.

Henry V, IV, 7:
FLUELLEN: Your majesty says very true: if your majesties is remembered of it, the Welshmen did good service in a garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps; which, your majesty know, to this hour is an honourable badge of the service; and I do believe your majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek upon Saint Tavy's day.
The Merry Wives of Windsor, V, 5:
FALSTAFF: Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he transform me to a piece of cheese!

As You Like It, III, 2:
TOUCHSTONE: Truly, thou art damned like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side.
...
TOUCHSTONE: Sweetest nut hath sourest rind, Such a nut is Rosalind. He that sweetest rose will find Must find love's prick and Rosalind.

King Lear, I, 4:
FOOL: ... Give me an egg, nuncle, and I'll give thee two crowns.

...Why, after I have cut the egg i' the middle, and eat up the meat, the two crowns of the egg. When thou clovest thy crown i' the middle, and gavest away both parts, thou borest thy ass on thy back o'er the dirt: thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown, when thou gavest thy golden one away.

Macbeth, IV, 2:
FIRST MURDERER: What, you egg! [Stabbing Macduff's young son] Young fry of treachery!

All's Well That Ends Well, IV, 5:
LAFEU: 'Twas a good lady, 'twas a good lady: we may pick a thousand salads ere we light on such another herb.
CLOWN: Indeed, sir, she was the sweet marjoram of the salad, or rather, the herb of grace.

The Merchant of Venice, I, 3:
SHYLOCK: Yes, to smell pork; to eat of the habitation which your prophet the Nazarite conjured the devil into. I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following, but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you....

A Midsummer Night's Dream, IV, 2:
BOTTOM: ... And, most dear actors, eat no onions nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I do not doubt but to hear them say, it is a sweet comedy.

and finally, a special soup recipe:

Macbeth, IV, 1
1ST WITCH: Round about the cauldron go.
In the poisoned entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thiry-one
Sweltered venom sleeping got
Boil thou first i' the charmèd pot.
ALL: Double, double toil and trouble,
Fire burn and caldron bubble.

2ND WITCH: Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake.
Eye of net and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blindworm's sting,
Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
ALL: Double, double toil and trouble,
Fire burn and caldron bubble.

3RD WITCH: Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches' mummy, maw and gulf
of the ravined salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digged i' the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat and slips of yew
Slivered in the moon's eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tatar's lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-delivered by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab.
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For the ingredients of our caldron.

ALL: Double, double toil and trouble,
Fire burn and caldron bubble.

2ND WITCH: Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

 

[CharleyH]

I was attracted to this thread last night, but had nothing to add, so I thought about it, and I still have nothing to add. As a person with a fascination with food, I cannot believe that I have not come across anything in my reading that stands out.

I am a huge Carroll fan, Perdita, even did a god damn U paper on Alice in Wonderland, and yet I can't for the life of me recall the walrus

What I do recall is Thomas Hardy describing the gathering of pheasants in Tess and a short story by Dylan Thomas, Memories of Christmas? descibing the Christmas dinner with family.

 

[Guest]

Charlus, good to see you! Thomas wrote "A Child's Christmas in Wales". P.

 

[CharleyH]

Charlus, good to see you! Thomas wrote "A Child's Christmas in Wales". P.

Always good to see you P - and I MISS your article posts

I dug out the book of short stories, fuck was it dusty The short story is called "Memories of Christmas" and the only footnote is "Quite Early One Morning."

Brilliant satirist. As an aside 'Under Milkwood' comes to mind

Happy Thanksgiving, I think.

 

[Guest]

Always good to see you P - and I MISS your article posts

I post 'em, Ch., but they go to page two or three or four quickly.

Yeah, it's Thanksgiving next Thursday, will be with my brother and co., nice 4-day weekend.

anon, Perdita