Food in novels, food quotes, food and literature

“As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

“Breakfast is the only meal of the day that I tend to view with the same kind of traditionalized reverence that most people associate with Lunch and Dinner. I like to eat breakfast alone, and almost never before noon; anybody with a terminally jangled lifestyle needs at least one psychic anchor every twenty-four hours, and mine is breakfast. In Hong Kong, Dallas or at home — and regardless of whether or not I have been to bed — breakfast is a personal ritual that can only be properly observed alone, and in a spirit of genuine excess. The food factor should always be massive: four Bloody Marys, two grapefruits, a pot of coffee, Rangoon crepes, a half-pound of either sausage, bacon, or corned beef hash with diced chiles, a Spanish omelette or eggs Benedict, a quart of milk, a chopped lemon for random seasoning, and something like a slice of Key lime pie, two margaritas, and six lines of the best cocaine for dessert… Right, and there should also be two or three newspapers, all mail and messages, a telephone, a notebook for planning the next twenty-four hours and at least one source of good music… All of which should be dealt with outside, in the warmth of a hot sun, and preferably stone naked.”
― Hunter S. Thompson

So much wonderful food-related writing in Laurie Colwin's books.

Narrowing down the options is the tricky part.

Love that sentence, so true, at least sometimes.

That's an edit, I was into the last part.

MR LEOPOLD BLOOM ATE WITH RELISH THE INNER ORGANS OF BEASTS and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liver slices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencod's roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.
Kidneys were in his mind as he moved about the kitchen softly, righting her breakfast things on the humpy tray. Gelid light and air were in the kitchen but out of doors gentle summer morning everywhere. Made him feel a bit peckish.


The coals were reddening.

Another slice of bread and butter: three, four: right. She didn't like her plate full. Right. He turned from the tray, lifted the kettle off the hob and set it sideways on the fire. It sat there, dull and squat, its spout stuck out. Cup of tea soon. Good. Mouth dry. The cat walked stiffly round a leg of the table with tail on high.

-- Mkgnao!

-- O, there you are, Mr Bloom said, turning from the fire.

The cat mewed in answer and stalked again stiffly round a leg of the table, mewing. Just how she stalks over my writing-table. Prr. Scratch my head. Prr.

Mr Bloom watched curiously, kindly, the lithe black form. Clean to see: the gloss of her sleek hide, the white button under the butt of her tail, the green flashing eyes. He bent down to her, his hands on his knees.

-- Milk for the pussens, he said.

-- Mrkgnao! the cat cried.



They call them stupid. They understand what we say better than we understand them. She understands all she wants to. Vindictive too. Wonder what I look like to her. Height of a tower? No, she can jump me.

-- Afraid of the chickens she is, he said mockingly. Afraid of the chookchooks. I never saw such a stupid pussens as the pussens.

Cruel. Her nature. Curious mice never squeal. Seem to like it.

-- Mrkrgnao! the cat said loudly.

She blinked up out of her avid shameclosing eyes, mewing plaintively and long, showing him her milkwhite teeth. He watched the dark eyeslits narrowing with greed till her eyes were green stones. Then he went to the dresser, took the jug Hanlon's milkman had just filled for him, poured warmbubbled milk on a saucer and set it slowly on the floor.

-- Gurrhr! she cried, running to lap.

He watched the bristles shining wirily in the weak light as she tipped three times and licked lightly. Wonder is it true if you clip them they can't mouse after. Why? They shine in the dark, perhaps, the tips. Or kind of feelers in the dark, perhaps.

He listened to her licking lap. Ham and eggs, no. No good eggs with this drouth. Want pure fresh water. Thursday: not a good day either for a mutton kidney at Buckley's. Fried with butter, a shake of pepper. Better a pork kidney at Dlugacz's. While the kettle is boiling. She lapped slower, then licking the saucer clean. Why are their tongues so rough? To lap better, all porous holes. Nothing she can eat? He glanced round him. No.

We have liking Colwin in common..
I regret that I gave away/sold for little my small collection of her writing.

I had trouble posting this.. it didn't show up on my New Posts page. Same thing happened yesterday with another thread (I'm trying to add new stuff). This may not be an a2k problem but instead an antique mac problem here.

Don't tell me to Contact Us - I just failed doing that ten times. I admit to being able to be wrong, but not ten times in a row. I can usually contact fine.

I left and looked at news, came back, and see this thread is in the new posts.
OK.












wen

This brings up that at my age I just plumbed and extracted fruit from my first pommelo (pomelo, and other variations). Beats grapefruit all to hell.

I dunno about Hemingway except that he tended to say what we thought to begin to talk about later.

I like some Hemingway, am indifferent to some Hemingway.

Sounds like our friend Harvey..

I would have to reread, read him long ago. I, as you, liked some.
But never mind, food is the subject.

Not sure who you mean by Harvey.

Sorry, I can be obscure.

Harvey was a teacher, lit type, to my then mate, later husband. He was ok to me at first and later I got to give a damn.
I could go on for hours about him, his knowledge.

But - this is about food. A large part of my getting food is Harvey.

Harvey is why we followed Kit Snetinger (this spelling is likely wrong) in the Herald, a woman who chased interesting places to good small places.

This was in the seventies.

But this is off point.




Tell me about food in books..

At one point in his comic masterpiece Tom Jones, Henry Fielding refers to Odysseus as having “the best stomach of all the heroes in that eating poem of the Odyssey.” The Odyssey is not normally described as an “eating poem,” but take a look at it and you’ll see why Fielding refers to it that way. From the suitors devouring Odysseus’s livestock to the cyclops eating the mariners trapped in his cave to Odysseus’s men feasting upon the cattle of the sun, there are non-stop references to food consumption in Homer’s work. Revealing his own concerns, Homer regularly points out that bards in the work must be respected and fed.

One can see why all this eating would capture the attention of a comic writer like Fielding. Epics, like tragedies, are supposed to be elevated and high whereas anything to do with the body, above all food and sex, traditionally are associated with the low and the comic. One doesn’t see people eating in, say, Shakespeare’s high tragedies. At one point Odysseus even comments on how hunger reduces the most high-minded man to an animal state. Addressing the king of the Phaecians after he has been shipwrecked on his island, he asks for time to finish his dinner before he tells his story:

And I could tell a tale of still more hardship,
all I’ve suffered, thanks to the gods’ will.
But despite my misery, let me finish dinner.
The belly’s a shameless dog, there’s nothing worse.
Always insisting, pressing, it never lets us forget–
destroyed as I am, my heart racked with sadness,
sick with anguish, still it keeps demanding,
“Eat, drink!” It blots out all the memory
of my pain, commanding, “Fill me up!”

Homer gains Fielding’s admiration by his ability to move seamlessly between epic grandeur and “the shameless dog of the belly.” Perhaps it is Homer’s dexterity that gives Fielding the idea for his own contribution to “Great Eating Scenes in Literature.”

Tom has saved Mrs. Waters from a villain and has settled down to an evening meal with her. She has fallen in love with him and tries to let him know—only, for a while anyway, the higher realms of love are frustrated by the lower realms of eating. To further emphasize the contrast between high and low, Fielding employs a mock epic style. The effect is delicious and very funny.

Incidentally, Tony Richardson came up with one of cinema’s own great eating episodes when he transferred the scene to film in the 1963 Tom Jones. Then Woody Allen did a hilarious spoof of the Richardson scene in Bananas.

Fielding’s passage begins by invoking another epic (Paradise Lost, whose few eating scenes are meant to signal the fall from high to low) when he claims that he is attempting a description “hitherto unassayed either in prose or verse.” (Milton writes that his muse soars high as it “pursues things unattempted yet in prose or rime.”) Fielding knows full well, of course, that his subject is not of the same order as “assert[ing] Eternal Providence and justify[ing] the ways of God to men.”

In any event, keep in mind that sex and food actually intersect very well when next you dine with a loved one. And enjoy the following mélange:


Now Mrs. Waters and our hero had no sooner sat down together than the former began to play this artillery upon the latter. But here, as we are about to attempt a description hitherto unassayed either in prose or verse, we think proper to invoke the assistance of certain aerial beings, who will, we doubt not, come kindly to our aid on this occasion.

“Say then, ye Graces! you that inhabit the heavenly mansions of Seraphina’s countenance; for you are truly divine, are always in her presence, and well know all the arts of charming; say, what were the weapons now used to captivate the heart of Mr. Jones.”

“First, from two lovely blue eyes, whose bright orbs flashed lightning at their discharge, flew forth two pointed ogles; but, happily for our hero, hit only a vast piece of beef which he was then conveying into his plate, and harmless spent their force. The fair warrior perceived their miscarriage, and immediately from her fair bosom drew forth a deadly sigh. A sigh which none could have heard unmoved, and which was sufficient at once to have swept off a dozen beaus; so soft, so sweet, so tender, that the insinuating air must have found its subtle way to the heart of our hero, had it not luckily been driven from his ears by the coarse bubbling of some bottled ale, which at that time he was pouring forth. Many other weapons did she assay; but the god of eating (if there be any such deity, for I do not confidently assert it) preserved his votary; or perhaps it may not be dignus vindice nodus [a knot worthy of a god to untie], and the present security of Jones may be accounted for by natural means; for as love frequently preserves from the attacks of hunger, so may hunger possibly, in some cases, defend us against love.

“The fair one, enraged at her frequent disappointments, determined on a short cessation of arms. Which interval she employed in making ready every engine of amorous warfare for the renewing of the attack when dinner should be over.

“No sooner then was the cloth removed than she again began her operations. First, having planted her right eye sidewise against Mr. Jones, she shot from its corner a most penetrating glance; which, though great part of its force was spent before it reached our hero, did not vent itself absolutely without effect. This the fair one perceiving, hastily withdrew her eyes, and leveled them downwards, as if she was concerned for what she had done; though by this means she designed only to draw him from his guard, and indeed to open his eyes, through which she intended to surprise his heart. And now, gently lifting up those two bright orbs which had already begun to make an impression on poor Jones, she discharged a volley of small charms at once from her whole countenance in a smile. Not a smile of mirth, nor of joy; but a smile of affection, which most ladies have always ready at their command, and which serves them to show at once their good-humor, their pretty dimples, and their white teeth.

“This smile our hero received full in his eyes, and was immediately staggered with its force. He then began to see the designs of the enemy, and indeed to feel their success. A parley now was set on foot between the parties; during which the artful fair so slily and imperceptibly carried on her attack, that she had almost subdued the heart of our heroe before she again repaired to acts of hostility. To confess the truth, I am afraid Mr Jones maintained a kind of Dutch defence, and treacherously delivered up the garrison, without duly weighing his allegiance to the fair Sophia. In short, no sooner had the amorous parley ended and the lady had unmasked the royal battery, by carelessly letting her handkerchief drop from her neck, than the heart of Mr Jones was entirely taken, and the fair conqueror enjoyed the usual fruits of her victory.”

Here the Graces think proper to end their description, and here we think proper to end the chapter.

http://www.betterlivingthroughbeowulf.com/one-of-literatures-sexiest-eating-scenes/

I saw the movie.

I read the book.

All long ago.

Might need to check them out again.

“There was something sort of bleak about her tone, rather as if she had swallowed an east wind. This I took to be due to the fact that she probably hadn't breakfasted. It's only after a bit of breakfast that I'm able to regard the world with that sunny cheeriness which makes a fellow the universal favourite. I'm never much of a lad till I've engulfed an egg or two and a beaker of coffee.

"I suppose you haven't breakfasted?"

"I have not yet breakfasted."

"Won't you have an egg or something? Or a sausage or something? Or something?"

"No, thank you."

She spoke as if she belonged to an anti-sausage league or a league for the suppression of eggs. There was a bit of silence.”
― P.G. Wodehouse

Grassins has sent me some pâté defoie gras with truffles!
- Balzac, Eugenie Grandet

Food plays a big part in the novels of Patrick O'Brian, particularly in the Aubrey-Maturin novels, his very popular series of 20 novels. So much so, that a cookbook has been published:

Lobscouse and Spotted Dog

Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. In easy state upon this couch, there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to see; who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty’s horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge, as he came peeping round the door.

A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens.

"Marooned three years agone," he continued, "and lived on goats since then, and berries, and oysters. Wherever a man is, says I, a man can do for himself. But, mate, my heart is sore for Christian diet. You mightn't happen to have a piece of cheese about you, now? No? Well, many's the long night I've dreamed of cheese—toasted, mostly—and woke up again, and here I were."
Treasure Island R.L. Stevenson