Food and the hungry author

                                                 Food and the hungry author

   A lot of books mentioned food. This is because, regardless of what a character is doing they eventually have to eat. That is unless you are a very bad author who wishes to kill their character through neglect… Some authors intertwine food within a plot until food is essentially one of the supporting characters. Others ignore food, or act like it’s a distasteful topic. This seems a shame because cooking is an art form, and any book which ignores food seems to deliberately deprive itself of an area of analysis. Even if an authors writing an adventure novel and the characters are constantly running around, defying death, saving the world etc…food is still important. A notable example of this is the Percy Jackson series and his obsession with eating blue food. It was just a fun fact to know about the characters. Having said that, some of my books on the list may be judged as unfair, and people are more than welcome to submit their own opinions of suggestions. This is a blog after all, not an online diary. If you were lame and into puns when you read this you may write down a reply that determined to make me eat my words. Good luck with that.

   Also, in an effort to double my readership from one, this blog is collaborating with my friend Chloe, an awesome cook and historian J The plan is that she’ll create recipes based on my reviews. And then we’ll eat them. Hopefully only the ones from the best mentions. The recipes created from the worst mentions shall be served to our enemies.

So here is the best and the worst food references in literature.

Best:

A list of books which mentioned food would be incomplete without a mention of Joanne Harris. When her characters aren’t talking about food, they’re eating it or spying on their enemies through scrying chocolate…I have read others of her books, but without food, they didn’t stick together that well. Five quarters of the Orange was excellent, and Chocolat and its sequel the Girl with the Lollipop Shoes remain two of my favourite books. Thankfully, Joanne Harris has realised that people prefer reading about food in the French countryside rather than paedophilia in the Victorian era. However, I do think she’s gone off into the deep end in Blackberry Wine, which is narrated by a Wine Bottle. 

(Chloe) Joanne Harris is the queen of seductive food descriptions. What's wonderful about her books is that the food isn't just a sideshow but an integral part of the book: in the case of Blackberry Wine it's a character in itself!
Blackberry Wine is an interesting novel about how things can be simpler than they seem, which is not usually the way in novels! Given that the narration is carried out by a bottle of blackberry wine I have paid homage to it with a recipe for blackberry and orange cordial, as I'm not really at the stage of wanting to ferment my own wines (which I wouldn't drink anyway). (I have made cheese though).
Paying my due respects to Chocolat requires, of course, something in chocolate. Being seductive about chocolate is easy, of course, but in Chocolat Harris shows that pleasure can involve pain and sacrifice, symbolised effectively by one character's love for chocolate and sweets despite the diabetes which is causing her to go blind. I made rich, seductive Beacon Hill cookies – not very French, admittedly – to use up some egg whites I had in the freezer.
Five Quarters of the Orange is my favourite Harris book – I am after all a historian (supposedly) and the book is set partly in occupied France. Although I should perhaps make something with oranges – a Moorish orange salad, or a sweet-tart sorbet or even, I chose instead to celebrate the cherry. An odd choice? Not really. In several books Harris' characters make references to a homemade cherry liqueur which involves preserving cherries in sugar and kirsch.

The last Chinese Chef: Nicole Mones: So many evocative descriptions of food that I almost don’t know where to start…so I’ll start with the plot line. This is a book that relied heavily on imagery and good writing to mask a lack of plot or character development. Therefore, even though this book was actually a really relaxing read, I probably wouldn’t read it again, because the two main plot lines peter out towards the end and it seems like there’s no real resolution. Having said that I did enjoy it, just mostly from a food basis.  And this is just a minor point, but one of the main characters is a food critic, yet she’s really excited by candy corn. Couldn’t figure out whether that fact annoyed me or not since candy corn is the most disappointing item in the world of sweets.

(Chloe) I haven't read The Last Chinese Chef but I have read Fuschia Dunlop's foodie memoir Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper, which made me crave all sorts of Chinese food which I have never actually eaten. Fuschia's memoir is all about authentic Chinese food and eating experiences – including the eating of endangered animals, which I thought was a pretty brave thing to admit to. Based on the reviews, The Last Chinese Chef is about a woman's journey where she discovers a lot about true Chinese cuisine and its complexities and variations. Inspired, I made Fuschia's fish-flavour aubergines, which is apparently one of her favourite recipes. Fish-flavour does not actually mean there's fish in the dish; it refers to the aromatics, which are traditionally used in fish cookery.

As The Last Chinese Chef is about an American food writer in China, I made that Chinese-American classic General Tso's chicken.

Harry Potter series; J K Rowling created a world with a lot of holes in it. A notable example is the fact that ostensibly 50% of wizards are married to muggles and yet wizards know nothing about them. Also, am I the only one who thought that Arthur Weasley sounded like he was really bad at his job? He knew nothing about muggles yet had spent twenty years working in a department which oversaw interactions with them… anyway this has nothing to do the food in the series which sounded excellent. Butterbeer, Berty Botts every flavour beans, and chocolate frogs all sounded cool, and HoneyDukes is one of the main reasons why I was left disappointed on my 11^th birthday. That, and I can’t do magic and stuff…

Marsha Mehran. Pomegranate Soup-Three Iranian sisters, recovering from the Revolution have decided to open a restaurant in rural Ireland. Unfortunately  the local lunatic has decided that their shop would be the perfect place for a disco. The obvious answer that given that the piece of space they’re debating is in the middle of nowhere why would either of these endeavors be a good idea? Alternatively, given the price of land in Ireland, he could have just bought some land outside of town to make into a strange retro disco arena. However, in terms of food, this book is awesome. It even has recipes at the back, which books which are based around food should always do.

Meet me at the cupcake café: Any book which is about cupcakes will appeal to me. Every recipe in the book sounded delicious and made me wish this café had opened in real life. 

Books I haven’t read but sound like they would have good food in them:

Like Water, for Chocolate.  A Mexican epic, which I shall buy soon.

(Chloe)I have actually read Laura Esquivel's 'Like Water for Chocolate', which is a book both passionate and frustrating. The descriptions of food and emotions (of course the two do more or less blend into one in this magical realist work) are powerful and convincing, but unfortunately the choice Tita makes towards the end of the novel really frustrated me. She sacrificed the happy life she could have had for a secretive double life. I know the point was that passion conquers all, but I must not be a very passionate person because it truly didn't convince me. My heart really ached for Dr John and I cast the book aside in anger when it was finished.
I made that classic Mexican dish, the mole, which features in the book along with the obligatory square of dark, bitter chocolate. Chocolate doesn't feature in the novel as much as you might think from the title; it alludes to the idea of being 'like water for chocolate' when melting chocolate in a bain marie – i.e., boiling, full of anger and passion. This is appropriate given how everyone in the novel is continuously either full of hatred or full of desire.
Unsurprisingly I chose not to make the Chabela wedding cake – given that it required 180 eggs and gave all the guests food poisoning! However I have honoured it with a recipe of Mexican wedding cakes, which are very similar to Russian teacakes

Diana Abu-Jaber. Crescent-Middle Eastern food is awesome. I look forward to reading this.

Worst: Stieg Larsson; His characters really didn’t eat that well. By the end of the trilogy you were wondering whether Billy Pan was a friend of his. They definitely got a fair bit of publicity out of this series, thus forever answering the age old question of what should you eat whilst on the run for a triple homicide…In terms of quality of writing, the girl with the dragon tattoo series was great though. It kills me that there were meant to be 10 and that the fourth is written but will probably never be published because of disputes over the will. 

(Chloe) For a quick snack, Mikael and Lisbeth could have noshed on goat's cheese and radish smorbrod, the Scandi version of the French tartine, an open-faced sandwich. Lighter and fresher-tasting than cured fish, it would not only have sustained them but is quick to make and eat...you can even eat it one-handed, tapping away at the computer to track down evildoers. After a long evening of restoring justice, a dish of Swedish meatballs would do the trick – if there's no time to cook anything (or the safe house or hiding out at doesn't have a stove!) they can be picked up at IKEA (the largest IKEA store in the world is in Sweden!). For dessert, I thought of a coffee granita to satisfy Mikael's coffee cravings as well as an homage to the Swedish summer (one of those strawberry-filled Swedish midsummer cakes would have worked too), but for a busy man on the go – or on the run – throwing some chokladbollar in a pocket is probably a better idea. Recipes: goat's cheese and radish smorbrod; Swedish meatballs and potato salad; chokladbollar.

M.L.N. Hanover: This series is slightly intriguing. A college drop-out learns that her uncle has died, leaving her with both a substantial inheritance and a dangerous task. Kind of been here before, so it’s not a particularly adventurous beginning. However, it’s disappointing to have read three books in this series, without any background becoming apparent. Her family are Christian and don’t like her that much, we get it. Anyway, the reason this book is one the list is because the protagonist lists everything she eats, and I meant everything. An extra 10,000 words is added to this book, due to the main characters annoying habit of listing everything she ate. Unless, this is the authors’ subtle way of letting us know she has an eating disorder, or suffers from OCD, it’s irritating so knock it off. 

(Chloe) For the demon book I'm going to make devilled chicken thighs! with devilled potatoes and devil's food cake...maybe