Food, Glorious Food

Well, I’m back from my (completely intentional and not at all accidental) summer hiatus and quite frankly, I am more than ready for autumn. Don’t get me wrong, I love summer – pub gardens, leaving the house without a jacket, long sunny evenings – but at heart, I like jumpers and chunky scarves and boots, and these items of clothing are just not compatible with warm weather. I have a very romantic idea of what autumn is like – crisp sunny mornings, brightly-coloured leaves, sitting by a roaring fire in the pub... Never mind that the reality is usually grey drizzly days that cause leaves on the ground to turn to a mushy, slippery pulp, or that it’s nigh impossible to get near the fire in any pub, if they have one – I love autumn. And one of my favourite things about autumn is FOOD, because regardless of how little my autumnal expectations match up to reality, food is never an issue. Be gone, light summer dishes and salads! Hello, roast dinners, bangers and mash, lasagnes, casseroles, baked potatoes…  

No, this hasn’t morphed into a food blog over the summer - I am going somewhere with this, trust me. A little while ago, I wrote about some of my favourite passages about food, and since then, I’ve come across a few more. In the spirit of what I like to think of as the Training-For-Christmas period, I’m going to share them with you:

Danny’s Pie – Danny, the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl

Dahl is surprisingly good at describing food – it's easy to miss between all the other crazy, hair-brained stuff he came up with but some great food is in there too - the sweets of the Chocolate Factory, and Mr Fox’s fantastic feast, are two such examples that spring to mind. However, one that particularly gets me salivating is a short passage in my favourite Roald Dahl book, Danny, the Champion of the World. It’s just after Danny’s dad has broken his foot, and the doctor’s wife is worried about Danny eating, so sends a package with her husband when he pops by for a check-up:

'Very carefully, I now began to unwrap the grease-proof paper from around the doctor's present, and when I had finished, I saw before me the most enormous and beautiful pie in the world. It was covered all over, top, sides and bottom, with a rich golden pastry. I took a knife from beside the sink and cut out a wedge... It was a cold meat pie. The meat was pink and tender with no fat or gristle in it, and there were hard-boiled eggs buried like treasures in several different places.'

Minnie Frying Chicken – The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Minnie is a maid in 1960’s Jacksonville, a gourmand, and a brilliant cook. She’d be in high demand, if it weren’t for the fact that her cooking is 'nearly as sassy as her tongue’ (that’s a quote from the blurb, not me – makes you cringe, right?). Naturally, if you’re a writer, you’re not going to give a character a particular skill or trait unless you can back it up in the story, and there are several passages in The Help that lend credence to this claim on Minnie’s culinary wizardry. One that always sticks in my mind though – probably because it’s something I love to eat, when it’s done properly – is when Minnie is teaching her inept new employer how to make fried chicken:
'I turn on the flame and we watch [the Crisco] melt down in the pan.... "Chicken's been soaking in buttermilk," I say. "Now mix up the dry." I pour flour, salt, more salt, pepper, paprika, and a pinch of cayenne into a doubled paper sack. 
"Now. Put the chicken parts in the bag and shake it." Miss Celia puts a raw chicken thigh in, bumps the bag around...  Real careful, I lay the dark meat in the pan. It bubbles up like a song and we watch the thighs and legs turn brown.'

Elsa’s Big Breakfast - The Bed and Breakfast Star by Jacqueline Wilson

Weekend/occasion breakfasts are one of my favourite things. Whether out in town or at home, there are few things that feel as weekend-y to me as a proper breakfast. No cereal, toast or porridge here (unless as accompaniments) – I’m talking bacon sandwiches, a Full English, smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, Heuvos Rancheros – proper breakfasts, that are meals in their own right rather than just something to get your day started. Elsa’s breakfast at the Star Hotel, towards the end of the book, is probably an early influence for this appreciation:

'I had milky tea and cranberry juice and cornflakes sprinkled with rainbow sugar and then muesli with extra sultanas and apple rings and then scrambled egg on toast with tomato sauce and then sausages stuck in a long roll to make a hot dog and then a big jammy Danish pastry and I ate it all up, every little bit.'

Miss Pettigrew’s Meals – Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson

To be honest, everything about this book is delicious, but there are multiple, all-too-brief descriptions of food in it that just get me every time – and, as I can read this book in one sitting, by the time I’ve finished it I’m nearly always craving some cold chicken, some ham and coffee (I don’t even like coffee), or a huge sundae:

Breakfast: 'Soon the blissful aroma of fried ham and eggs and coffee filled the air. She discovered an electric toaster. Toast took it's correct place. She went back into the room. "Everything is ready, Miss LaFosse."'

Lunch: 'They lunched at home, and Miss Pettigrew prepared it. She discovered the remains of a cold chicken in the pantry. Cold chicken, to her, was the height of luxury. Miss LaFosse opened a bottle of Liebfraumlich and made her drink some.'

The Ice: '... The ice was a marvellous concoction... There was cream and fruit and nuts and ice cream and a wonderful syrup, all skilfully blended. She slowly turned each ambrosial spoonful round her tongue.'

Molly Weasley Makes Dinner – Harry Potter by J. K Rowling

I think some of the death scenes in the earlier Harry Potterbooks leave something to be desired, but one thing JK does well, in my opinion, is food. In my last post on the subject I mentioned Harry’s first feast at Hogwarts, but let’s not forget Ultimate Mum, Mrs Weasley, and her literal culinary wizardry. Molly’s meals never fail to make my mouth water, and here are just  two examples:
The Chamber of Secrets: 'Mrs Weasley was clattering around, cooking breakfast a little haphazardly, throwing dirty looks at her sons as she threw sausages into the frying pan... "I don't blame you, dear", she assured Harry, tipping eight or nine sausages onto his plate, "Arthur and I have been worried about you, too. Just last night we were saying we'd come and get you ourselves if you hadn't written back to Ron by Friday. But really," (she was now adding three fried eggs to his plate), "flying an illegal car halfway across the country - anyone could have seen you"... 
"They were starving him, mum!" said George. 
"And you!" said Mrs Weasley, but it was with a slightly softened expression that she started cutting Harry bread and buttering it for him.'
The Half-Blood Prince: 'She tapped the pot again; it rose into the air, flew towards Harry and tipped over; Mrs Weasley slid a bowl neatly beneath it just in time to catch the stream of thick, steaming onion soup. 
"Bread, dear?" 
"Thanks, Mrs Weasley." 
She waved her wand over her shoulder; a loaf of bread and a knife soared gracefully on to the table. As the loaf sliced itself and the soup pot dropped back on to the stove, Mrs Weasley sat down opposite him.'

The Bakery – The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton

There are many beautiful descriptions in this book, but some of my favourites are from scenes within the bakery owned by Emilienne, the titular Ava's grandmother. I love baked goods – crunchy bread, cream cakes, iced buns – and the description of such delights in this book do nothing for any of my half-hearted attempts to stay away from such treats. This particular passage about a woman finally giving in to temptation is one of the most delicious in the book:
'Before her neighbour had a chance to object, Emilienne marched out to the front of the store and stuck the frosting-covered spoon in Marigold's mouth. 
Few people know this feeling: what it is to give in to a long-denied desire, to finally have a taste of the forbidden. After swallowing that mouthful of frosting, Marigold stumbled backward out of the store... In a daze, Marigold walked straight to her kitchen, tracking muddy footprints across her spotless linoleum floor. She pulled out her dusty cookbooks and began marking pages of the sweets she never allowed herself to eat. Then she tied an apron around her waist and set to making a coconut cake. 
Later, still wearing the apron - now covered in gratings of coconut and splashes of vanilla extract - Marigold ate the cake: the whole cake, including every lick of frosting left in the mixing bowl and on her fingertips.'