Which foods in books made you hungry when you read about them?

[ABowlOfPorridge]

Heidi always made goat’s cheese and goat’s milk sound so good but I hated them when I finally got to try them as an adult.

The feast at the Beavers’ house sounded so good especially the marmalade roll.

Which literary culinary delights appealed to you?

Love Heidi! And love goats cheese, grilled on the fire.

James Herriot stops at a pub for lunch one day, starving after calving a heifer, and has: an entre Wensleydale cheese to himself, ham, eggs, fresh bread, butter and jam.

It sounds exquisite

I don't think Heidi's grandfather had ever heard of fruit or vegetables though, so it's probably just as well that she was sent off to boarding school.

Enid Blyton had so many descriptions of food in her books that decades later I still remember being astonished at how much time was spent describing it. Also how the Famous Five would turn up at a random farmhouse looking for a meal, and Mrs Farmer would aplogise that she could only offer half a ham, a dozen hard boiled eggs, freshly baked bread, dozens of different vegetables (and probably a freshly made trifle).

And yes, since studying children's lit I can understand there was a reason, but at the time I assumed it was a cultural thing as I am Australian. Even at my tender years I was impressed that they were only a couple of years older than I was and were allowed to go by themselves on extended cycling holidays.

I'm going to shock you now and take you all away from children's books.

John Grisham often includes southern dishes and they sound delicious.

Had to find the What Katy Did at School bit:
“The top of the box was mostly taken up with four square paper boxes,round which parcels of all shapes and sized were wedged and fitted.The whole was a miracle of packing. It had taken Miss Finch threemornings, with assistance from old Mary, and much advice from Elsie,to do it so beautifully.Each box held a different kind of cake. One was of jumbles, anotherof ginger-snaps, a third of crullers, and the fourth contained a bigsquare loaf of frosted plum-cake, with a circle of sugar almonds set in the frosting. How the trio exclaimed at this!"I never imagined any thing so nice," declared Rose, with her mouthfull of jumble.”

Also a newer book, series of books actually, the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. Even though I mainly read it in bed before bedtime it always makes me think of wanting a coffee (not the most suitable drink at bedtime though). So it’s always “aaah, I’m so looking forward to the cup of coffee in the morning”.

Some of the time it was a rationing thing, though. There’s almost no mention of the war, ever, apart from in The Adventurous Four (and even then it’s just ‘the enemy’ who have ‘the sign of the crooked cross’ on their planes), but she was writing some of her most food-obsessed series right through the war years and their aftermath when food rationing was still in place. The first Faraway Tree book was published in 1939. The first St Clare’s book was published in 1940. The first Famous Five book was published in 1942.

It makes a lot more sense of the dwelling on exactly what they ate for midnight feasts, the gigantic hams and pork pies the Famous Five are always tucking into, or whichever land it was at the top of the Faraway Tree where everything was edible.

Various bits in the Lord of the Rings - Hobbit breakfast, the meal at Tom Bombadil's house: 'yellow cream and honeycomb, and white bread, and butter; milk, cheese, and green herbs and ripe berries gathered', supper at Farmer Maggot's house: 'a mighty dish of mushrooms and bacon'.

Sam's stewed rabbit with herbs (and his little box of salt). Sam is the BEST.

Redwall feasts were the first thing I thought of!

oh gosh YES! that stewed rabbit, eaten in that lovely countryside where the smell of wild thyme was everywhere!
And also Tom Bombadill's breakfast from LOTR and the feast the dwarfs and Bilbo had at Beorn's house in The Hobbit.

The stewed rabbit just reminded me of the venison stew from The Children of the New Forest which also sounded delectable.

The magic porridge pot always makes me hungry for porridge despite not even liking porridge that much. I always loved that story.

My child always asks for food when we read “the giant Jam sandwich”

I’m just listening to the bit in LOTR where the hobbits arrive at the Prancing Pony and have a slap up hearty supper washed down with “good deep mugs of beer”

@sashh It’s been a while since I read it but I remember Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood having quite a few descriptions of Southern food. Also a ton of booze; there’s a bit where the children have ice cold Cokes and ham sandwiches and the women drink vodka and grapefruit juice, and I’m never sure which one I fancy most.

There’s a lovely book called Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer by Jane Brocket which is all about the food mentioned in children’s books and includes lots of recipes.

The feasts provided to Sara Crewe in the attic, in A Little Princess.
Many of the meals and picnics enjoyed by The Famous Five.
Food in Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder

One of my DDs has a cookbook featuring recipes from Harry Potter. She's made a few really nice ones.

Egg and lettuce sandwiches from the famous five.
Crescent shaped rolls and hot chocolate with featherbeds of whipped cream from the chalet school. Actually anything from Enid Blyton or The Chalet School.

We often host family for a themed (film/book/tv series) New Year over a few days, with all meals based on foods from the source material. First one we ever did was LotR!

There's a scene in Lorna Doone (ahm highly abridged Ladybird version) where a maid possibly called Betsy comes with a message after walking for miles on a cold wet day and is given a bowl of bacon and peas. I am probably getting it completely wrong as I haven't seen the book in 30+ years, but I pretend that's what I'm eating when I have tortellini and peas.

Some of the food in LM Montgomery's books makes me hungry. Jane's cooking in Jane of Lantern Hill, some of the feast like teas in Anne of Green Gables (when much don't drown in syrup). Always wanted to try the raspberry cordial too...

The Turkish delight and the hot drink the Witch gave Edmund in The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe. I was really upset when I actually got my hands on some Turkish delight and it was disgusting.

@ChessieFL I gave that book to my parents a few years ago; “lashings of ginger beer” is a very common phrase with us!

Coincidentally I've just been re-reading the Katy books, that box just sounded so good!

Milly-Molly-Mandy’s mum used to make ‘lid potatoes’ I think where the cut of the top but not quite, scooped out the middle and mixed it with butter and salt then put it all back inside to be eaten 😋

I’d love to try Frobscottle or Butterbeer and the maple candy from Little House on the Prairie

I made my daughters a themed dinner a while ago. Started with beef consomme, then a small fillet of sole, then chicken casserole....at this point elder dd twigged it was the murder meal in Strong Poison. No arsenic in the sweet omelette you'll be pleased to hear. Sadly I don't have a chafing dish. Not sure I know what one is.

The Christmas breakfast in Little Women (that they gave away).

One of Ian Fleming's books has a description of scrambled eggs and black coffee. I read the book while still a child and wanted to recreate that breakfast, though we didn't have coffee in our family, only tea.