Wednesday Writing — Food in Classic Literature

Posted on by Teagan Riordain Geneviene

Wednesday, June 14, 2023

Karsten Bergmann at Pixabay

Hello, everyone.  Longtime followers know that occasionally I do posts about Writing for the Senses.  For me, smell and taste are the most powerful senses to evoke the imagination of the reader.  Maybe that’s why food and drink has taken a part in many classic stories and films.  There’s even a genre for culinary fiction particularly when it comes to cozy mysteries.  However, I’m not including those in this post, because they are so obviously related to food. Let’s consider how food was used in some classic novels.

Create a Character’s Circumstances

Scuppernong vines, Mocksville, NC. Wikipedia

I’ll begin with Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird.  Her use of food firmly anchored the story in her setting.  Although Atticus Finch was a lawyer, he was also a single father — and the setting was the time of the Great Depression in the southern USA.  I love the way Lee brought home those facts with the simple meal she included. 

“The kitchen table was loaded with enough food to bury the family: hunks of salt pork, tomatoes, beans, even scuppernongs.”

You can see that it was very basic fare, and true to the location and era.  Salt pork would preserve well during a time when refrigerators were scarce.  Lots of people in that area grew tomatoes.  Beans were basic and not expensive, and scuppernongs grew wild.

Revenge

Wikimedia Commons

Literature has used food or entire meals as a means for characters to take revenge. Take for instance Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo (1844).

“It was an Oriental feast that he offered to them, but of such a kind as the Arabian fairies might be supposed to prepare. Every delicious fruit that the four quarters of the globe could provide was heaped in vases from China and jars from Japan. Rare birds, retaining their most brilliant plumage, enormous fish, spread upon massive silver dishes, together with every wine produced in the Archipelago, Asia Minor, or the Cape, sparkling in bottles, whose grotesque shape seemed to give an additional flavor to the draught…”

You can get this book free via Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1184

Emotions

Claypot beef stew with potatoes and mushrooms Andrea Nguyen Wikipedia
Claypot beef stew with potatoes & mushrooms, Andrea Nguyen, Wikipedia

In To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf describes the beautiful melding of flavors and the soothing nature of a painstakingly prepared meal of comfort food (in this case, beef stew).  However, she uses it to show the sharp contrast between the discordant undercurrents of emotion and conflict that fill the diners at her table.  Woolf uses multiple details about the food in a significant way.  However, through this she keeps the reader grounded.

“And she peered into the dish, with its shiny walls and its confusion of savoury brown and yellow meats and its bay leaves and its wine, and thought, This will celebrate the occasion – a curious sense rising in her, at once freakish and tender, of celebrating a festival.”

Establish Multiple Cultures or Nations

Twice Cooked Pork photo Guilhem Vellut at Wikipedia
Twice Cooked Pork photo by Guilhem Vellut at Wikipedia

When I wrote my high-fantasy series, Dead of Winter, back in 2010, the world I built had numerous countries.  To help the reader differentiate the nations, sometimes I used food.  This passage from Journey 10, Pergesca uses a meal to show both the contrasts in food and how characters from various countries might react to those differences.

“With spirits buoyed, Zasha walked through the clean but simply appointed establishment.  She already smelled one of the Golden Book’s best dishes — spiced pork.  Upon returning to her companions, she grinned and asked Emlyn if she felt adventurous.  At a nod from the girl, Zasha ordered the pork for both of them.  Her aunt ordered the less exciting mutton stew.

Though Zasha knew her aunt was open to new culinary experiences, she remembered that stew was something of a comfort food for Osabide.  Zasha watched the faces of her companions with pleasure when the food arrived.  She knew it would taste as good as it looked, but she hoped Emlyn wasn’t put off by the spices and peppers.  These were not bland Flowing Lands foods at all.

Osabide’s stew was served in a bowl made from bread.  The whimsical touch brought a delighted smile to her aunt’s face.  The spiced pork was served on a bed of greens, with buckwheat polenta that was formed into squares and fried.

Emlyn looked suspiciously at the dark bluish gray squares and asked what they were.  However, she readily followed Zasha’s example and bit into one.  She seemed a bit uncertain, but ate the polenta willingly.  Zasha knew the buckwheat could be an acquired taste.

Satisfied that her companions would enjoy their food, Zasha tucked into her meal with appetite.”

I hope this post didn’t make anyone too hungry.  Ha!  I confess that I’m ravenous by now.  Time to raid the ‘fridge.  (I rarely feel that hungry. It’s just one reason why my “cooking” is actually just assembling. If you’re wondering, I had a roast chicken breast with gravy, steamed Asian mix vegetables, and coconut rice.  In other words, I went ahead with dinner for lunch, then cottage cheese for dinner.  Backwards, yes… but it worked.)   

Thanks for visiting.   Although I need to remind everyone… This blog is my sanctuary, a place where everyone is safe from divisive remarks — that includes politics and religion, and food choices.  If you don’t approve of anyone’s way of life or their food, then please keep it to yourself.  I don’t appreciate anyone shaming my guests about what they eat.   

Does a novel where food or drink was used to help create the story come to mind? If so, mention it in a comment.  Friendly comments are loved and encouraged.  Hugs!

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This is a work of fiction.  Characters, names, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2023 by Teagan Ríordáin Geneviene

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48 thoughts on “Wednesday Writing — Food in Classic Literature”

  4. Yes, food is part of the soul. I mean; it feeds the body and the soul as well.
    A story without soul is hard for me to read.
    The worse thing about food is that there isn’t any.
    Fab post, Teagan. Thank you!

    Liked by 2 people

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  8. Hi Teagan, what an wonderful culinary adventure this is. I always remember the food in Enid Blyton’s books. She devoted a lot of words to describing delicious meals, especially in the Famous Five series of books. She was young during the war so she new hunger and rationing. My aunts and uncles said they were always hungry during the war days.

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    1. Hi, Robbie. I’m not familiar with Blyton’s books. I can see how bringing out the food aspect of that setting would emphasize the dire situation. For a class in college (in the mid 1980s) one book we had to read was a (1800s) journal written by a person living in a coastal city that was blockaded because of a war, and the family — the entire city was starving. The descriptions were heartbreaking. I really hope the human race can turn itself around, since history keeps repeating itself. Thanks for joining this conversation. Hugs.

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  9. Yes, you did make me hungry. Lunch isn’t too far off so I’ll be okay. The pork sounded delicious as did the beef stew pictured. I gave up beef thirty years ago but still can feast with my eyes. I enjoyed the concept of firmingup a feeling of place with food. Well done, Teagan.

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    1. Thanks for reading and commenting, John. Sorry about the beef. 😉 I know it’s not the same kind of reason, but I suddenly became allergic to eggs about 20 years ago. They were the one food I never thought I would miss — I was wrong. LOL.
      I’m happy you liked the concept. In the “high fantasy” genre it seems almost mandatory for traveling characters to eat stew, so that doesn’t really apply (and every horse must have a name too, LOL). Anyhow, in a few books that I loved and went back to analyze (books that were *not* about food), I noticed that scenes including food had been used to achieve various results, and cued mental images and ideas that made me see things about the story without a drawn-out, belabored descriptive/explanatory passage.
      Have a relaxing rest of the week. Hugs.

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  10. A great post! I have food in every mystery I’ve written – it provides a soothing counterpoint to tension and discussions over good food allow the story to progress without a lot of ‘telling.’.

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  11. Manchild in the Promised Land by Claude Brown has the most memorable food scene I ever read (except for the final scene in The Grapes of Wrath, but I’m not going to go there.) Two young boys (around six and eight years old) are left alone in their apartment which has no food whatsoever. They get so hungry they steal raw shrimp from the grocery store, but there’s no grease of any kind in the apartment so they take their mother’s hair pomade and fry the shrimp in that.

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    1. Oh! That’s definitely memorable. I’m not familiar with the story. Did you feel it added to the characters or the setting? Thanks for actually mentioning a particular book and creating a conversation here, Liz. That’s what I wanted people to do. Big hugs.

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          1. The post immediately resonated with me because food plays the same role in my fiction. (I have one character who salts his food without tasting it when he’s annoyed with his wife. He’ll taste it first if he’s not annoyed with her.)

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  12. I grew up with food taking center stage at every event (big or small), so I tend to make it important in many of my works. It adds an authenticity to my characters, I think.

    Nice to know another cottage cheese fan. Most people I know don’t care for it, but I’ve always loved it. (And I associate it with my grandmother, so it brings to mind happy memories.)

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    1. It’s good to see you, Staci. LOL, maybe there are a few of us after all. I sort of forgot about cottage cheese along the way. However, summers in southern NM are so very hot that I’ve rediscovered a few cooling foods. Milk is a hydrating liquid, so maybe that’s part of why cottage cheese feels refreshing to me.
      Yes, you use it beautifully in your books. Hugs.

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  13. Great post, Teagan. Have you ever read, “Like Water for Chocolate”? There is also a pretty amazing movie version. And cooking takes centre stage there. You are right. Food is intertwined with our memories and our feelings, and it is a great way to enhance our writing.

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  15. I always enjoy reading about food and meals when reading. It makes the story feel more real to me. People who travel all day without eating, makes me wonder. I love the way you use eating/meals in your stories. Sometimes, your depiction of a meal help reinforce the pace of the story. I’ve tried to use food in my books to convey a variety of settings and to add realism to scenes. I am hungry now – thinking about breakfast 😊

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    1. Thank you kindly, Dan. LOL, isn’t there something they say about “paybacks”? All those gorgeous fish & chips and burgers at your blog. I’m just kidding about the revenge — I enjoy those photos. Yes, you use it beautifully in your books. Hugs.

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