When Books Make You Hungry
Food is awesome.
I like to cook it. I like to eat it. I like to experiment with it. I like to try different types of it.
And I also like to start blog posts with the feel of a third grade essay. Food is the coolest.
Anyway, books are cool, too. Maybe you like them? That’s why, when I saw this article by Summer Tomato, I knew I had to share.
She theorizes that reading can make you cook better. You’re thrown into different cultures and places in time with different takes on food and its deliciousness.
Fiction can often give me a better glimpse into a culture than even visiting, since the amount of time and exploration required to really get a sense for the mindset and lifestyle of the people who live there is substantial.
I don’t know that I agree with that line, as I don’t think anything can give you a “better glimpse” into a culture than visiting. Just because you gain a perspective without as much effort, that doesn’t mean it’s better.
That’s my only small beef (get it?) with the article, though. She points out two books I’m reading from the Time list as examples of food-inspired fiction.
It’s impossible for me to read Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, which I’ve done several times, without craving Spanish tapas and red wine for the better part of a month (this is also why Spanish food is one of my absolute favorite cuisines).
Midnight’s Children, the meta-award winning book by Salman Rushdie, forever changed the way I think and feel about Indian food. Spices and heat permeate the characters and events in Midnight’s Children, which is one of the literary tools Rushdie uses to portray his native culture. My obsession with Indian food lasted for months as I read this and other works by Rushdie, since I couldn’t stop reading him after finishing the first.
That’s excellent insight that I’ve never really thought about. But it’s true.
As I’m currently reading The Grapes of Wrath, I’ve had quite a hankering (southern word) for “side meat” and fried potatoes. What is side meat anyway? Don’t answer that. I probably don’t want to know. But it sure sounds delicious as described in this novel. I guess that’s another post.
Some other novels that make me think of food:
- The Corrections: Gary’s famous “mixed grill.”
- The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter: Why did that little cheap café always make me hungry?
- Animal Farm: Well, bacon, of course.
- The Great Gatsby: Mint juleps!
- Wide Sargasso Sea: Banana plantations.
- The Moviegoer: Buttered popcorn, absolutely.
- Mrs. Dalloway: Crappy party food.
I’m sure there are many more, but that’s a start. Food teaches us a lot about culture, as does fiction, so I think the three fit together nicely.
Any novels remind you of a certain food?
I’m currently reading A Clash of Kings, the second book in George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, and it’s got me craving suckling pig, freshly killed and cooked over a fire. I don’t even like meat.
I haven’t read it, but that sounds delicious.
How about fried chicken (White Noise), yams (Things Fall Apart) , soup and toasted sandwiches (Housekeeping), birthday cake (The Sound and the Fury) washed down with sarsparilla and after the kids are in bed, tequila shots ((The Crying of Lot 49).
Optionally, some Transcendental Cuisine (Naked Lunch, p. 125 – the menu does not pass the breakfast,so I won’t detail it).
Yams! Totally forgot about yams in Things Fall Apart, and I just read that.
yesssssss animal farm bacon!!! two legs bad, four legs good, back bacon better..
also, yes to great gatsby mint juleps.
Bacon and mint juleps. The perfect breakfast.
Now you’ve done it. Have to go eat breakfast ;D Love the grade three feeling!
I can understand your hankering for food while reading Grapes of Wrath. My book group looks for food in every book and tries to recreate meals for our meetings. We even sampled unrehydrated ramen noodles right out of the package for Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones.
That’s an awesome idea and a great way to experience the culture, I would think.
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I, too, think food is awesome.
I, too, love to eat it.
I abhor cooking. I do it, but I despise it.
Hate cooking? You might be doing it wrong. All my recipes start with “First: Crack a beer/Open a bottle of wine, Next: add a person or two to your kitchen.”
Ha. I also abide by rule one first, but rule two includes me. You like to grill?
Yes sir! A smoker grill (the one in my twitter feed) makes life worth living.
Hahaha! The only thing that would make that tolerable, is if all the other people I added to the kitchen were doing all the cooking while I watched. Ha!
Happens to me all the time. And not just food but with things too. I just finished American Gods and would love to see some of the attractions.
But yes, I remember reading Revolutionary Road and wanting cocktails. And The Help made me fiend for soul food.
Wasn’t Frank Wheeler’s drink of choice the martini?
Him or his wife. One of them. All I know is I wanted all sorts of old school alcoholic beverages.
A well made martini is like sipping a cloud. Wheeler knew this.
Nice simile!
This is so true! But I find it ironic and funny that The Grapes of Wrath is doing this to you…
I know. I would never want to be in their situation, but I’ve had some great campfire dinners. I guess that’s what it reminds me of.
More yams! Not a novel but a short story: Adam Troy Castro’s “Thursday Night Yams at Minnie and Earl’s” (I think I have all that right). Spooky and haunting (is that redundant?) but the yams were great.
And of course, since we’re on the topic of yams, we can’t forget or forgo Popeye’s “I yam what I yam and that’s all that I yam.”
Or the spinach.
I’ll leaf that one alone.
Rural or sparse settings often make me desire black coffee while reading. McCarthy and for some reason Faulkner make me feel this way.
I tend to read alot of British literary fiction, which pretty much demands a full pot of tea at every sitting. When I read Wodehouse, though, I wish that tea were champagne, and I switch to strong coffee when reading most North American fiction. If the North American stories take place in hardscrabble small towns, then I want a slice of pie with that coffee, every time.
Hi, glad to see you’re still day by day getting closer to your goal. I found this topic so interesting, it arrested my attention until i thought of at least one book. My gosh I’ve read so so many. The only book that entered my mind is obvious bcause of it’s title, “Ham On Rye”. The author, Charles Bukowski, very cleverly always provided clear accounts of the way of madness. Since he led the life of an insane man, I figure he qualified as an impetus to hold on tight to the rope that I needed to escort me back to sanity as I read more of his poetry, essays, and novels. Finally he settled down I think at the age of 70. He quit drinking is equivalent. Oh if you ask if any novels made a person thirsty? I’m a recovering alcoholic, but if I submerge myself into his written universe for too long, a drink makes more sense then not. He is a love of the past.
I remember the time when I was a kid reading Enid Blyton (a UK children’s book author), I would crave jammy buns (I hate jam), and scones (I’ve never tasted one till date). Boy, her books could make me hungry