Food in Literature
Helen Garlick loves both food and reading. In this series for Talking of Food, she chooses food-related extracts from some of her favourite authors and books. Helen says:
There are hundreds of good books that will take you through memorable accounts of food in literature. Dickens alone has filled several. Everyone knows his account of Christmas dinner at the Cratchitt's. Everyone also knows Ratty’s description of his picnic basket, Mrs Ramsey’s boeuf en daube and Marcel Proust’s madeleines. The last two would make my list of favourites but I have only selected extracts from books I have read and loved. They are random, not in any order but I hope you enjoy them.
In Part 17 of Food in Literature, Helen brings us extracts from two murder mysteries, The Golden Child by Penelope Fitzgerald and Felicia’s Journey by William Trevor, in which food is used to establish character.
In this Christmastime selection of readings, Helen gives us an extract from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens in which Mr Pickwick is setting off for Christmas at Dingley Dell; extracts from December with the Ladies of Llangollen; an extract from Christmas with the Savages; and two extracts from Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm.
In the second set of extracts for winter and Christmas, Helen has chosen: the Christmas Eve at Mole’s house in The Wind In The Willows by Kenneth Graham; Harriet Pringle’s first banquet in The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning; and A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas.
Where else to start but with the incomparable Dame Barbara Cartland’s cookery book, The Romance of Food published in 1984. The authoress (she would have insisted on the feminine noun) of over 350 romantic novels, with titles such as Gypsy Magic, Bride to a Brigand and The Island of Love, was also a proponent of health food, especially honey.