I found a post on Jezebel (and have since lost the link and am too lazy to google it, I apologize for my Monday Morning Laziness) about food in literature. I believe the exact title of the article was Screw the Plot: What's for Lunch?
I wouldn't go so far as screwing the plot because I'm picky enough about the books that I like and immediately and on principle reject formulaic writing, predictable plots, characters with the complexity and emotional ranges of two by four planks of wood, and Annoying Writing Styles in General, which means by definition I loathe, abhor and detest most genres, including chick lit, romance and mystery novels (yes it is EXTREMELY difficult for me to find books that I actually enjoy, let alone love), but I DO love reading about food.
And in honor of this food in literature idea I have compiled a list of the All Time Yummiest Food References in Literature (albeit most of said "literature" is actually children's books. Maybe as a child I was less picky about plot and so focused more on food? Or maybe I had a particularly hungry childhood, could be either) In My Opinion.
10. Enid Blyton's Midnight Feasts, in either the Malory Towers OR the St. Clare's series. Both boarding schools seemed to have ridiculous late night food orgies. Sausages and condensed milk and pot pies and tinned pineapples and tinned sardines and ginger beer! At midnight!
9. Ms. Trunchbull's ginormous special chocolate cake in Roald Dahl's Matilda, that she forced Bruce Bogtrotter to scarf down in front of the entire school because he dared to steal a slice of it, causing him to go into a chocolate cake coma
8. J.K. Rowlings' Hogwarts dinners. All of them. Plus anything Mrs. Weasley cooked, with butterbeer to wash it down
7. Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I want to eat the entire factory. Minus the Oompa Loompas, because they creeped me out, and also minus Willy Wonka, because I don't want him to Veruca Salt my ass for being greedy
6. Louise Fitzhugh's Harriet the Spy tomato sandwiches with mayonnaise. So simple and yet so yummy sounding that I used to make myself tomato-mayo sandwiches whenever I wanted to read the book, and I don't even LIKE mayonnaise
5. Hot butter on toast for tea in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, preferably to be eaten while one is warming one's feet by the fire in one's flouncy 19 century dress
4. ALL the campfire/stakeout food in Blyton's Famous Five series: sausages and ginger beer and hard boiled eggs and squashed Mars Bars and treacle pudding
3. Turkish Delight in C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. FYI for those who have never eaten it: Turkish Delight tastes like rose water crap. But I still wanted to eat it SO BADLY when the White Witch offered it to Edmund and I totally would have sold out my siblings as well just to try some
2. Assorted food in Enid Blyton's Faraway Tree series: Google buns (sticky buns with a warm, juicy middle), Toffee Shocks (toffees that would get bigger as you sucked on them and would eventually explode in your mouth, thus shocking you), Pop Biscuits (digestive type biscuits that would secrete honey with each bite) and Hot and Cold Delights (candy that would get hot and then cold and then hot and then cold and which I imagined to be some kind of bipolar ice cream bar)
1. AND THE BEST FOOD DESCRIPTION EVER: The Land of Goodies from the Faraway Tree (Blyton again). A completely 100% edible land full of candy houses and lollipop flowers and rivers of caramel and ice cream trees? CLEARLY THE WINNER.
