My grandfather was a baker and as a boy I grew up surrounded by more good food than you could shake a stick at (though why you’d be shaking sticks at good food I really don’t know). It was hardly surprising that I grew up obsessed by food. I’d spend hours at a time reading through recipe books or cutting out pictures of delicious-looking puddings from magazines and sticking them to the walls of my bedroom. In short, I was a peculiar boy. I liked to be fed by books. Quite frankly, a book without a decent nosh up or two held little interest for me. Nowadays, as an ancient adult and author, I have to work out what my characters like (or don’t like) to eat before I can write a single word. If I can understand the food I can understand the world. My list of ten fictional feasts in children’s literature comes in no particular order – a pick-and-mix, if you like, without the peanut brittle.
- The Box of Delights by John Masefield
‘Ah,’ the Inspector said, ‘we in the Law, Master Kay, we’ve got a maxim, “It’s the easy explanation that never occurs.” You think all battle, murder and sudden death, and all the time it’s only a tyre getting a puncture, or something equally simple. And we in the Law, Master Kay, have another proverb: “Never cross the water until you come to it.” Time enough to think of making a bridge when you are at the water’s brink, but until then, don’t worry, Master Kay. And you get that good guardian of yours to see you take a strong posset every night. But you young folks in this generation, you don’t know what a posset is. Well, a posset,’ said the Inspector, ‘is a jorum of hot milk; and in that hot milk, Master Kay, you put a hegg, and you put a spoonful of treacle, and you put a grating of nutmeg, and you stir ’em well up, and you get into bed and then you take ’em down hot. And a posset like that, taken overnight, it will make a new man of you, Master Kay, while now you’re all worn down with learning.’
A posset might not be considered a feast by most food-lovers, but when I was a boy the idea of this strange eggy drink certainly worked its magic on me. It’s absolutely the sort of night time concoction a child needs before a day of adventuring. I read the kindly Inspector’s recipe over and over and over again. It occupied my mind by day and tortured me by night, so delicious did it sound. I finally convinced my mother to let me gather up the necessary ingredients and put the recipe to the test. Unfortunately, things that sound delicious in books can be sadly disappointing in real life; I ended up with a murky-looking liquid with upsetting lumps of scrambled egg. A posset is a drink only to be enjoyed in the imagination.
2. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by JK Rowling
Harry’s mouth fell open. The dishes in front of him were now piled with food. He had never seen so many things he liked to eat on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, chips, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup and, for some strange reason, mint humbugs.
The Dursleys had never exactly starved Harry, but he’d never been allowed to eat as much as he liked. Dudley had always taken anything that Harry really wanted, even if it made him sick. Harry piled his plate with a bit of everything except the humbugs and began to eat. It was all delicious.
And hold on to your sorting hats, there’s dessert to follow…
When everyone had eaten as much as they could, the remains of the food faded from the plates, leaving them sparkling clean as before. A moment later the puddings appeared. Blocks of ice-cream in every flavour you could think of, apple pies, treacle tarts, chocolate éclairs and jam doughnuts, trifle, strawberries, jelly, rice pudding… As Harry helped himself to a treacle tart, the talk turned to their families.
Although I was entirely grown up (or as close as possible) by the time J K Rowling published the first Harry Potter book, her descriptions of food make me as ravenous as any book in my childhood. The humbugs are odd but also reassuring - conjured from thin air with love and a quirky attention to detail. As soon as the food magically appears on the table before him Harry has at last found home.
3. Five Get Into Trouble by Enid Blyton
They stopped at eleven for ice-creams and drinks. Richard seemed to have a lot of money. He insisted on buying ice-creams for all of them, even Timmy.
Once again they bought food for their lunch – new bread, farm-house butter, cream cheese, crisp lettuce, fat red radishes and a bunch of spring onions. Richard bought a magnificent chocolate cake he saw in a first-class cake-shop.
“Gracious! That must have cost you a fortune!” said Anne. “How are we going to carry it? It’s too big for anyone’s basket.”
“Woof,” said Timmy longingly.
“No, I certainly shan’t let you carry it,” said Anne. “Oh dear – we’ll have to cut it in half, I think, and two people can share the carrying. It’s such an enormous cake.”
Enid Blyton is, to me, the Nigella Lawson of children’s authors. She writes about food so vividly that the farmhouse teas and picnic suppers seem to spring off the page and I’m full without needing to eat. In Five Get Into Trouble Richard tries to buy his way into the cousins’ affections with the most expensive chocolate cake money will buy. But we know for sure that its quality not quantity that counts as far as the Five are concerned and a fat red radish will always taste better than the largest of chocolate cakes. Richard’s plan is doomed to failure – it’s The Famous Five, not The Spectacular Six.
So get over it, Richard.
4. The Tale of Two Bad Mice by Beatrix Potter
Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca went upstairs and peeped into the dining-room. Then they squeaked with joy! Such a lovely dinner was laid out upon the table! There were tin spoons, and lead knives and forks, and two dolly-chairs -all so convenient! Tom Thumb set to work at once to carve the ham. It was a beautiful shiny yellow, streaked with red. The knife crumpled up and hurt him; he put his finger in his mouth.
“It is not boiled enough; it is hard. You have a try, Hunca Munca.”
Hunca Munca stood up in her chair, and chopped at the ham with another lead knife.
“It’s as hard as the hams at the cheesemonger’s,” said Hunca Munca.
The ham broke off the plate with a jerk, and rolled under the table.
“Let it along,” said Tom Thumb.: “give me some fish, Hunca Munca!”
Hunca Munca tried every tin spoon in turn; the fish was glued to the dish.
Then Tom Thumb lost his temper. He put the ham in the middle of the floor, and hit it with the tongs and with the shovel—bang, bang, smash, smash!
The ham flew all into pieces, for underneath the shiny paint it was made of nothing but plaster! Then there was no end to the rage and disappointment of Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca. They broke up the pudding, the lobsters, the pears and the oranges. As the fish would not come off the plate, they put it into the red-hot crinkly paper fire in the kitchen; but it would not burn either.
As I boy I was strangely obsessed with pretend food and would spend hours on end making cakes and desserts out of plaster of Paris and papier-mâché. I blame Beatrix Potter. Even though Hunca Munca and Tom Thumb stumble upon doll’s house food, it sounds every bit as delicious as the real thing. No wonder they’re driven out of their tiny mice minds and become so wantonly destructive. I would have happily joined them as they smashed up the plates of food with tongs and shovel. Don’t mess with the mice.
5. Just William by Richmal Crompton
In the matter of sweets, William frankly upheld the superiority of quantity over quality. Moreover, he knew every sweet shop within a two mile radius of his home whose proprietor added an extra sweet after the scale had descended, and he patronised these shops exclusively. With solemn face and eager eye, he always watched the process of weighing, and ‘stingy’ shops were known and banned by him.
He wandered now to his favourite confectioner and stood outside the window for five minutes, torn between the rival attractions of Gooseberry Eyes and Marble Balls. Both were sold at four ounces for 2d. William never purchased more expensive luxuries. At last his frowning brow relaxed and he entered the shop.
‘Sixpennoth of Gooseberry Eyes,’ he said, with a slightly self-conscious air. The extent of his purchases rarely exceeded a penny.
‘Hello!’ said the shopkeeper, in amused surprise.
‘Gotter bit of money this mornin’,’ explained William carelessly, with the air of a Rothschild.
He watched the weighing of the emerald green dainties with silent intensity, saw with satisfaction the extra one added after the scale had fallen, received the precious paper bag, and, putting two sweets into his mouth, walked from the shop.
When I was a boy a wonderful uncle bought me a stack of Richmal Crompton’s William books and I was hooked. William and his chums spend a lot of time getting up to mischief and this is all well and good – but even better, they often find themselves in sweetshops. A Gooseberry Eye sounds both delectable and alarming (who knew gooseberries had eyes?) – and the fact they have to be paid for in “old money” makes them seem even more exotic. Two pennies for four ounces – that wouldn’t even last me a morning.
6. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
Graceful trees and bushes were growing along the riverbanks – weeping willows and alders and tall clumps of rhododendrons with their pink and red and mauve blossoms. In the meadows there were thousands of buttercups.
‘There!’ cried Mr Wonka, dancing up and down and pointing his gold-topped cane at the great brown river. It’s all chocolate! Every drop of that river is hot melted chocolate of the finest quality. The very finest quality. There’s enough chocolate in there to fill every bathtub in the entire country! And all the swimming pools as well! Isn’t it terrific? And just look at my pipes! They suck up the chocolate and carry it away to all the other rooms in the factory where it is needed! Thousands of gallons an hour, my dear children! Thousands and thousands of gallons!’
The children and their parents were too flabbergasted to speak. They were staggered. They were dumbfounded. They were bewildered and dazzled. They were completely bowled over by the hugeness of the whole thing. They simply stood and stared.
‘The waterfall is most important !’ Mr Wonka went on. ‘It mixes the chocolate! It churns it up! It pounds it and beats it! It makes it light and frothy! No other factory in the world mixes its chocolate by waterfall! But it’s the only way to do it properly! The only way! And do you like my trees?’ he cried, pointing with his stick. ‘And my lovely bushes? Don’t you think they look pretty? I told you I hated ugliness! And of course they are all eatable! All made of something different and delicious! And do you like my meadows? Do you like my grass and my buttercups? The grass you are standing on, my dear little ones, is made of a new kind of soft, minty sugar that I’ve just invented! I call it swudge! Try a blade! Please do! It’s delectable!’
Automatically, everybody bent down and picked one blade of grass – everybody, that is, except Augustus Gloop, who took a big handful.
When I first read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory it didn’t surprise me that Augustus Gloop was so greedy that he fell into the river of chocolate – it only surprised me that Willy Wonka’s remaining guests were so dim-witted that they didn’t attempt to follow him. Had I won a golden ticket I would have brushed all oompa loompas aside and dived headlong into the waterfall-frothed chocolate. You only live once. Forget about the minty grass, it’s all about the chocolate.
7. The Children of Green Knowe by Lucy M Boston
Breakfast was on the table, but [Mrs Oldknow] was standing by an open door throwing crumbs on to the doorstep for the birds. There were so many of them that they seemed to drop from the branches of the trees like ripe chestnuts when the tree is shaken and as many were going up again with a piece of bread in their beaks as were coming down to get it. A few yards beyond the doorstep the garden was under water.
‘The birds are very hungry. You see, they can’t get worms, or seed, or ants’ eggs until the floods go. Would you like to be introduced to them?’
‘Yes please,’ said Tolly.
‘Come here, then,’ said Mrs Oldknow; and although her back was rather bent and her face was wrinkled, when she looked at him so mischievously he could almost imagine she was a boy to play with. ‘They love margarine better than anything,’ she said. ‘Hold out your hands.’
She spread his fingers and palms with margarine carefully all over, even between the fingers, then told him to go to the door and stand still, holding out both hands with the fingers open. She stood beside him and whistled. In a minute tits and robins and chaffinches and hedge-sparrows were fluttering round him till at last one ventured to perch on his thumb. After that the others were soon jostling to find room on his hands, fixing him with their bright eyes and opening their wings and cocking their tails to keep their balance. They pecked at the margarine on his palm and between his fingers. They tickled dreadfully, and Tolly wriggled and squealed so that they all flew away, but in a minute they were back.
Not all feasts are for humans and in The Children of Green Knowe Lucy M Boston uses this breakfast for birds as a way of bringing together young Tolly and his great-grandmother, Mrs Oldknowe. I’m not entirely sure that I like the idea of being smeared all over with margarine (butter would sound ever so much nicer) but it would certainly be worth suffering this indignity to attract the birds from the trees.
8. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by CS Lewis
“It is dull, Son of Adam, to drink without eating,” said the Queen presently. “What would you like best to eat?”
“Turkish Delight, please, your Majesty,” said Edmund.
The Queen let another drop fall from her bottle on to the snow, and instantly there appeared a round box, tied with green silk ribbon, which, when opened, turned out to contain several pounds of the best Turkish Delight. Each piece was sweet and light to the very centre and Edmund had never tasted anything more delicious. He was quite warm now, and very comfortable.
While he was eating, the Queen kept asking him questions. At first Edmund tried to remember that it is rude to speak with one’s mouth full, but soon he forgot about this and thought only of trying to shovel down as much Turkish Delight as he could, and the more he ate the more he wanted to eat, and he never asked himself why the Queen should be so inquisitive.
In The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe Turkish Delight is forbidden fruit, and therefore all the more delicious. We know for a fact that Edmund is crossing over to the Dark Side as he wolfs down each morsel of this delectable sweetmeat. Several pounds of Turkish Delight would be more than enough for most children – but not Edmund. As soon as he’s consumed the contents of the box he’s desperate for more. I was such a child and have unfortunately grown up to become such an adult. Gluttony is a sin, no doubt – but a truly delicious way of sinning, don’t you think?
9. The Mousehole Cat by Antonia Barber
Mowzer was very partial to a plate of fresh fish. In fact she never ate anything else. But she liked a little variety. So, on Mondays they made morgy-broth, Mowzer’s favourite fish stew. On Tuesdays they baked hake and topped it with golden mashed potatoes. On Wednesdays they cooked kedgeree with delicious smoked ling. On Thursdays they grilled fairmaids, a mouth-watering meal. On Fridays they fried launces with a knob of butter and a squeeze of lemon. On Saturdays they soused scad with vinegar and onions. And on Sundays they made star-gazy pie with prime pilchards in pastry. All in all, Mowzer’s days passed very pleasantly.
Until recently I was a good little vegetarian and never ate fish. Then I realised that fish are barely more intelligent than grass and on some level probably deserve to be eaten. I’m now slowly working my way through the fish kingdom (do fish have a kingdom?) and I can’t think of a better fishy line-up than Mowzer’s weekly menu in The Mousehole Cat. There is something grotesque and terrifying about star-gazy pie though – with the fish heads protruding through the pastry crust and staring (or gazing) accusingly at those who are about to eat them.
10. Alice Through The Looking Glass by Lewis Caroll
“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes - and ships - and sealing-wax -
Of cabbages - and kings -
And why the sea is boiling hot -
And whether pigs have wings.”
“But wait a bit,” the Oysters cried,
“Before we have our chat;
For some of us are out of breath,
And all of us are fat!”
“No hurry!” said the Carpenter.
They thanked him much for that.
“A loaf of bread,” the Walrus said,
“Is what we chiefly need:
Pepper and vinegar besides
Are very good indeed -
Now if you’re ready, Oysters dear,
We can begin to feed.”
I might happily feast on baked hake or star-gazy pie – but oysters? Oysters are a different matter entirely. I’ve always felt sympathy for these poor, unfortunate shellfish ever since I first read the strange and sorry tale of the Walrus and the Carpenter in Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking Glass. You’d need a heart of stone not to be moved by the fat and trusting oysters as they amble along to their peppery and vinegary deaths. In the Sir John Tenniel illustration the oysters have little legs and shoes and somehow this makes their sorry fate all the more tragic. My hard-and-fast rule here? If a creature wears shoes, don’t eat it.
Christopher William’s Hill’s latest book is The Lily-Livered Prince, book three in his Tales From Schwartzgarten series. To celebrate we have three sets of Christopher’s Schwartzgarten series so far (in hardback) to give away, so that’s Osbert The Avenger, The Woebegone Twins and The Lily-Livered Prince plus three feast packs of mouthwatering Hotel Chocolat treats. To win books and chocolate email childrens.books@theguardian.com by December 28 2014 at 5pm saying why you should win. Please can you also include your address and daytime phone number. If you are under 18 can you include a telephone number or email for your parent or carer. Sorry we can only accept entries from the UK for this competition.
