Five Food Facts Meme
Food or books, which do I love more? I'm going to try and combine them in this meme that I found over on the most excellent You Can Never Have Too Many Books.
1. My favorite part of Nicholson Baker's Vox was the recipe for Stouffer's creamed chipped beef over spiral pasta. After reading that book, I went on to serve it often. I wish I had some now.
2. When I was a child, I desperately wanted to taste gruel. Although poor people in stories ate it because they had nothing else, I wanted it. Although the name itself didn't sound very appetizing, I knew it had to be good. In the same vein, although Heidi's school chums complained bitterly and at great length about the smell of the goat cheese her grandfather sent her, I wished that she could share some with me.
3. Every now and then, I get an urge for a tomato sandwich, thanks to Harriet The Spy.
4. I've never been able to read Farmer Boy without putting it down to go get a snack. Laura Ingalls Wilder writes like every meal was a food orgy on Almanzo's family farm in upstate New York.
5. I've always enjoyed massive amounts of salsa/picante sauce/hot sauce on my eggs, but since reading How To Cook A Wolf last year, I lovingly refer to this concoction as "Eggs In Hell", after a similar but better-executed recipe in M.F.K. Fisher's book.
9 comments:
That's so awesome Bybee! I love this.
I've been pouring leftover coffee over my vanilla ice cream ever since I read "Reading Lolita in Tehran". :D
Ha! I love it! I keep saying I'll cook, again, when I move to a decent kitchen (and then those bookish food moments will become a part of my life, rather than something to ignore). But, we all know I'm lying.
What a great way to answer this meme!
When I think about Farmer Boy, I remember the popcorn making.
My 8 yr daughter is reading Heidi(abridged), and I lent my original book to my mother, as she visited Switzerland last year and hadn't read it. My point being, we are going to have a mini book club, and melt cheese, and eat bread and discuss Heidi.
You always find a way to make me laugh! thanks for the compliment to my site, Suzie! You make me blush, too!
You're right - Laura Ingalls Wilder was all about food. Remember the first Christmas she writes about, I think it's in A Long Way from Home? Every thing they ate was described, and the precious candy Pa brought from the store, and the dolly made from the corn husks.
I've read MFK Fisher's How to Eat a wolf too...(Charlotte just came on my blog and said she felt like we were soul sisters, which I am going to say to you too, because when I read your blog, I feel like you are sitting across the table from me and we are having a cup of tea and a good talk and have so much in common!)...my favourite part was when she was talking about how we eat, before and after the war, and how suddenly balancing meals became the in thing, and she forsaw what was going to happen long before anyone else did. I like her solving of the problem - balanced eating through the day, not just at every meal. It sounds neat and sometimes I can do it, but it is a hard habit to break, especially when we have these food guides that say such and such should be eaten per day. Sometimes (with 5 people to feed) I give up and hope some fruit and vegetables get in them somehow!
and if I could send you some of that creamed beef thingy with pasta you mention, I would :-) I know what it's like to be homesick for kinds of food that is just not made the same way in the country you're in.
Kookiejar,
I think you've given me a new book/food quirk. Yum. And it makes me want to read "Reading Lolita In Tehran."
Bookfool,
Oh, you don't want to start cooking now! You might drop your camera in the saucepot and we'd miss your great photos!
Raidergirl3,
Very cool idea re the mini book club. What kind of cheese? Will the bread be those delicious little hard rolls...I think they're called brotchen?
Susan,
Thank you so much for having this meme on your website...it was so much fun!
I really liked MFK Fisher's ideas about balanced eating throughout the day, too. Pure genius.
Regarding a cup of tea: I've got 4 different kinds of tea at Dorm Sweet Dorm right now: green tea, red ginseng, ginger, and honey citron. Drop in anytime!
Good thinking, Bybee. ;)
For me it was the Famous Five books by Enid Blyton - she was writing through the World War Two period of rationing, that went on in the UK right into the 1950s, and her farmhouse tables groan with good things "and lashings of ginger beer".
The most vivid memory of food I have from Farmer Boy is when they made toffee, and stuck the pig's jaws together!
When my husband was young, he read and loved "The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe" and like Edmund, he fell into rapture over Turkish Delight. Mark didn't know what Turkish Delight was, but since it was the most delicious treat ever, to him it had to be chicken enchiladas.
Bookfool,
Yeah, gotta admit, I was thinking sharp. Fans of your blog can thank me here, lol.
Eigon,
I haven't read EB. Ginger beer, yum.
Vicki,
I'm 100% with Mark on the chicken enchiladas! I didn't know what gruel was, but had it worked out that it was exactly like butterscotch pudding.
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