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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsThe 12 Most Unforgettable Descriptions of Food in Literature
Haruki Murakamis stir fry, Maurice Sendaks chicken soup with riceonly the most gifted writers have made meals on the page worth remembering.https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2022/03/unforgettable-food-scenes-books-haruki-murakami/627601/
https://archive.ph/zgwjP
In literature, references to eating tend to be either symbolic or utilitarian. Food can indicate status or milieu (think about all those references to Dorsia in American Psycho), or it can move the plot forward (Rabbit Angstroms peanut-brittle habit in John Updikes final Rabbit book). Even in the hands of the greats, food scenes can seem less than central to a story, more filler or filigree than substance. There are exceptions, howevermoments in which food unlocks a higher story form. Here are 12 of my favorites.
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami
In addition to having one of the best opening lines of any novel ever, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle contains some of the most memorable meals in all of literature. In a novel that is all surreality, darkness, and rabbit holes, Murakamis simple descriptions of sustenance have an almost metronomic qualitythe only thing anchoring the story to reality as it slips away from its main character, Toruwhile setting the tempo for a strange, unfolding mystery:
At noon I had lunch and went to the supermarket. There I bought food for dinner and, from a sale table, bought detergent, tissues, and toilet paper. At home again, I made preparations for dinner and lay down on the sofa with a book, waiting for Kumiko to come home Not that I had any great feast in mind: I would be stir frying thin slices of beef, onions, green peppers, and bean sprouts with a little salt, pepper, soy sauce, and a splash of beera recipe from my single days. The rice was done, the miso soup was warm, and the vegetables were all sliced and arranged in separate piles in a large dish, ready for the wok.
Such scenes show up repeatedly in Murakamis work. Every time, the effect is somehow both mouthwatering and unnerving. Note the simplicity of the menu, the methodical preparation, the sense of time and of waiting. Murakamis descriptions of food do exactly what his novels do bestthey take the mundane and make it somehow magical, take the real and warp it into a dream.
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Sky Jewels
(7,186 posts)I'm glad they made the list.
I can still see and hear my professor reading this passage, some 35 years ago.
FirstLight
(13,366 posts)The Moveable Feast had some great food scenes
I tried to copy a couple links but my browser isn't having it >
betsuni
(25,736 posts)"Lipp's is where you are going to eat, and drink too. It was a quick walk to Lipp's and every place I passed that my stomach noticed as quickly as my ears or nose made the walk an added pleasure. There were a few people in the brasserie and when I sat down on the bench with the mirror in back and a table in front and the waiter asked if I wanted beer I asked for a distingue, the big glass mug that held a litre, and for potato salad.
"The beer was very cold and wonderful to drink. The pommes a l'huile were firm and marinated and the olive oil delicious. I ground black pepper over the potatoes and moistened the bread in the olive oil. After the first heavy draught of beer I drank and ate very slowly. When the pommes a l'huile were gone I ordered another serving and a cervelas. This was a sausage like a heavy, wide frankfurter split in two and covered in a special mustard sauce.
"I mopped up all the oil and all of the sauce with the bread and drank the beer slowly until it began to lose its coldness and then I finished it and ordered a demi and watched it drawn. It seemed colder than the distingue and I drank half of it."
LudwigPastorius
(9,219 posts)..by one F.Z.
The dangerous kitchen
If it aint't one thing it's another
In the middle of the night when you get home
The bread things are all dry 'n' scratchy
The meat thing
Where the cats ate through the paper
The can things with the sharp little edges
That can cut your fingers when you're not looking
The soft little things on the floor that you step on
They can all be dangerous
Sometimes the milk can hurt you
(If you put it on your cereal
Before you smell the plastic container)
And the stuff in the strainer
Has a mind of its own
So be very careful
In the dangerous kitchen
When the night time has fallen
And the roaches are crawlin'
In the kitchen of danger
You can feel like a stranger
The bananas are black
They got flies in the back
And also the chicken
In the dish with the foil
Where the cream is all clabbered
And the salad is frightful
Your return in the evening
Can be less than delightful
You must walk very carefully
You must not lean against it
It can get on your clothing
It can follow you in
As you walk to the bedroom
And you take all your clothes off
While you're sleeping
It crawls off
It gets in your bed
It could get on your face then
It could eat your complexion
You could die from the danger
Of the dangerous kitchen
Who the fuck wants to clean it?
It's disgusting and dirty
The sponge on the drainer
Is stinky and squirty
If you squeeze it when you wipe up
What you get on your hands then
Could un-balance your glands and
Make you blind or whatever
In the dangerous kitchen
At my house tonight
betsuni
(25,736 posts)Emile Zola, "The Belly of Paris."
Anything by Angelo Pellegrini.
Anything by M.F.K. Fisher.
James Beard, "Delights and Prejudices."
Ernest Hemingway, "A Moveable Feast."
Betty Fussell, "My Kitchen Wars."
Anything by Elizabeth David.
A.J. Liebling, "Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris."
George Orwell, "Down and Out in Paris and London."
John Lanchester, "The Debt to Pleasure."
Jeffrey Steingarten, "The Man Who Ate Everything."
Nora Ephron, "Heartburn."
Anything by Jim Harrison about food.
Jeremiah Tower, "Start the Fire."
Ludwig Belemans, "La Bonne Table."
Joseph Wechsberg, "Blue Trout and Black Truffles."
IcyPeas
(21,928 posts)This wasn't so much a meal as a preparation for soup. Vermeer and his wife were looking for a maid.... Vermeer watched while Griet cut up the vegetables for soup and sorted them by color. He was intrigued by her sorting the vegetables by color and in the novel she ended up mixing his oil paints.
The man was watching me, his eyes grey like the sea. He had a long, angular face, and his expression was steady, in contrast to his wifes, which flickered like a candle. He had no beard or moustache, and I was glad, for it gave him a clean appearance. He wore a black cloak over his shoulders, a white shirt, and a fine lace collar. His hat pressed into hair the red of brick washed by rain.
What have you been doing here, Griet? he asked.
I was surprised by the question but knew enough to hide it. Chopping vegetables, sir. For the soup.
I always laid vegetables out in a circle, each with its own section like a slice of pie. There were five slices: red cabbage, onions, leeks, carrots, and turnips. I had used a knife edge to shape each slice, and placed a carrot disc in the center.
The man tapped his finger on the table. Are they laid out in the order in which they will go into the soup? he suggested, studying the circle.
No, sir. I hesitated. I could not say why I had laid out the vegetables as I did. I simply set them as I felt they should be, but I was too frightened to say so to a gentleman.
I see you have separated the whites, he said, indicating the turnips and onions. And then the orange and the purple, they do not sit together. Why is that? He picked up a shred of cabbage and a piece of carrot and shook them like dice in his hand.
I looked at my mother, who nodded slightly.
The colors fight when they are side by side, sir.
He arched his eyebrows, as if he had not expected such a response. And do you spend much time setting out the vegetables before you make the soup?
Oh no, sir, I replied, confused. I did not want him to think I was idle.
From the corner of my eye I saw a movement. My sister, Agnes, was peering round the doorpost and had shaken her head at my response. I did not often lie. I looked down.
The man turned his head slightly and Agnes disappeared. He dropped the pieces of carrot and cabbage into their slices. The cabbage shred fell partly into the onions. I wanted to reach over and tease it into place. I did not, but he knew that I wanted to. He was testing me.