Food in Books

There’s nothing new about fictional characters sitting down and chomping down on some good food during the course of a novel. Indeed, the "communion" of characters sitting down to eat, one of the primal desires we all share, is a fundamental pattern throughout the history of fiction. However, the evolution of food in novels is a little more interesting.

I recently ran across this article in The New Yorker. It’s about the varying degrees with which food appears in works of literature. For example, in the nineteenth century, the food is basic fare,  often  describing the meals of the working class (I’m thinking of the novels of Charles Dickens here). Perhaps the point of this elementary cuisine is to show the everydayness these characters dwell in.

Then there are other authors, more contemporary ones, that describe the food in such great detail, you could probably follow the recipe and make the dish yourself. The writer of this article for The New Yorker did just that.

Read the article here:
Cooked Books

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