Food & Fiction: Memorable Meals in Literature | It's Lit! | PBS Digital Studios
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ม.ค. 2019
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Food varies wildly from place to place and from culture to culture; since humans are such sensory creatures, using words to evoke the experience of eating is an excellent way to bring a text to life.
Hosted by Lindsay Ellis
/ chezapoctube
Interested in using this video as a teaching resource? Check it out on PBS LearningMedia: to.pbs.org/3FMx8Dl
Written by Angelina Meehan and Lindsay Ellis
Directed by Andrew Matthews
Animation by Dano Johnson
Fact Check by Elisa Hansen
Produced by Amanda Fox
Executive in Charge (PBS): Adam Dylewski
Looking for more It's Lit? You can find the latest season on Storied, PBS's home for arts and humanities content here on TH-cam. Subscribe to Storied for the latest episodes of It's Lit and get your folklore fix with Monstrum while you're there! th-cam.com/channels/O6nDCimkF79NZRRb8YiDcA.html
To be fair - Turkish Delight would be pretty awesome in WW2 Britain with its sugar rationing; not so much in today's world where many are swimming in sugary treats.
t acitus Lucy was all excited about sardines too! As a middle class child in the 70s I couldn’t understand how anyone could even stand sardines
Yeah. As a kid I was briefly obsessed with Turkish Delight. as an adult I finally got to try it. It’s good. It has a unique and enjoyable texture. But it’s sure nothing amazing
@@MaxOakland As someone who grew up eating Turkish delight in Africa thanks to the Ottaman empire I have to say I only fell in love with it when I tried the high quality ones with rich flavours from Turkey. Give it another go if you can, there are online vendors who sell the good stuff.
I always feel more intelligent after watching anything Lindsay does.
Because she's a white woman talking at a camera.
@@new-lviv To be fair, PBS probably pays a lot more than TH-cam.
That is merely an assumption though, I don't know that for certain.
@@Sykdude because I always learn something
Rich Are you seriously making this about race?
This is not directly related to literature, but Ghibli movies always use food so beautifully and effectively. Hearty food often helps add to the comforting ambience of a place, the childlike sense that there's wonder every you look. It is also useful in building relationships between characters- the most famous example of this is the food Haku gives to Chihiro in Spirited Away. Tantalizing food has become a huge part of Ghibli iconography, so much so that when I went to the Ghibli Museum there was a temporary exhibit about food, and it was packed.
I genuinely can't watch Howl's Moving Castle without stopping at the part where they make breakfast to go make myself breakfast.
The food in Spirited Away definitely looked worth getting turned into a pig for.
Great point! Or, on the other end of the spectrum, he shows how poor Kiki is throughout most of Kiki's Delivery Service by having her only being able to afford to make herself pancakes, and being so grateful whenever anyone else shares food with her.
Anime food always looks amazing.
Seriously, No Face's feast? Looks amazing and I want half of the food there.
OMG THAT'S AWESOME!!!!!! wish I could have seen it!!!!
It's PEOPLE! SCIENCE FICTION FOOD IS PEOPLE! YOU'VE GOT TO TELL THEM LINDSAY! YOU'VE GOT TO TELL THEM!
*Is dragged away for rendering*
"In a heartbeat, a thousand voices took up the chant. King Joffery and King Robb and King Stannis were forgotten, and King Bread ruled alone."
The persian Suffi poet Faraduddin Attar wrote a beautiful verse in his astonishingly critical, cynical and even proto-atheist "Book of sufferings" in the 12th century, about how a "fool" discovered "the greatest name of god" (because he has 99 in islam) that is "bread" since when he came into a town in the midst of a great hunger, no one called to prayer and all teh people in teh streets and all the callers in teh mosques only had one name on their lips: bread. And henceforth he knew, that bread has to be the greatest among the names of god.
Lindsay Ellis, I'm surprised you didn't touch on Redwall's use of food. Brian Jacques wrote that when writing about food and feasts, he was influenced by the food shortages during WWII. While reading his favorite books during this period, he noted most authors tended to gloss over meals and mealtimes, relegating it to something perfunctory. The meal may have been the scene, but the food in that scene was little more than background dressing. Because of this, he decided that scenes where food was part of the story, he would make the food as much a character as the animals who acted out his stories. He even went so far as to write and publish a children's cookbook based on some of the items in the story. (I have that book for my daughter.)
Jack Linde: I here to say this exact thing! I’d argue that Brian Jacques writing about food also embodies a kind of perpetual hope that his books characters tend to have- particularly because the antagonists rarely eat as much as the protagonists.
Yeah, I kept waiting for Redwall to come up, it's been years since I've read any of those books but I can still remember so much of the food and drink that were described in the feast scenes. Hell, even the travel rations sounded pretty good at times. Still, great video Lindsay! Always love your stuff!
@@MrMeltJr Right... for your daughter. ;)
As a fellow owner of the cookbook, I was thinking of Redwall the whole time as well. Descriptions of food are one of the key things that make a Redwall book a Redwall book. (And the recipes from the cookbook are actually pretty good!)
@@thatjillgirl Sadly, my daughter and I are Jewish, so a lot of recipes required "alterations", but they're still good recipes. On a side note, I posted in Binging With Babish 3M subscribers video, that for when he hits 4M or 5M, he should try to recreate the feast from the opening of Redwall as his celebration video.
By the way, thatjillgirl, I don't mind hanging out, but can we avoid places with hills? ;P
But what about Second Breakfast?
Man Ray Luncheon! Dinner! Gotta have that nice crispy bacon. 😋
Don't forget elevensies!
Man Ray The Breakfast Club👩🏻🦰. Or Breakfast at Tiffany's BAT, or the Last Supper. ⛪️ Tea party, hmm.
"Are you feeling eleven-o'clockish a bit, Pooh Bear?"
I don't think he knows about Second Breakfast!
You have to understand, in C.S. Lewis's time, candy was a LOT blander...
Considering that there was a sugar ration, it actually makes sense why Turkish Delight would be so tempting to Edmund. The reason we can brush it off as not that good is because we have plenty of sugar.
@@animeotaku307 There's also the fact that it was MAGIC candy made to make Edmund more susceptible to suggestion, so that's a big factor as well.
@@animeotaku307Real turkish delight in Turkey is delicious . They ones you can buy at american stores taste like disgusting gummy bears with ashy corn starch all over it 🤢
@@iloveyou-pm4tj SOOO true!!! I never appretiated it until someone got me Lakoum from Turkey.
I liked how you brought up Lembas Bread and ale from The Lord of the Rings. However, I am surprised you said nothing about the extra meals, such as Second Breakfast, that are part of typical Shire life. I personally found this aspect more memorable and conceptually interesting. One of the first questions they ask is when will they eat and having to skip meals is a chief complaint in the early part of the work. Towards the end, no one gives a second thought to it. They have more important issues to think about. The reason the Nazgul find and attack the Fellowship on Weathertop is because Merry and Pippin decide to cook after the group has been told not to light a fire. Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli perplexingly and aggravatingly find them smoking, laughing and eating in celebration of the Ent's destruction of Isengard after tracking them for days, fearing they had been killed. In the Return of the King (movie), the first thing the hobbits do when they get back is go drinking. The book and movie also place significant weight on Golemn's preference for raw food and willingness to eat goblin flesh in contrast to the hobbits' repulsion for these things. It symbolizes his transition from the hobbit Sméagol to the monster he is now. For the hobbits, food is heavily related to their journeys, identities and individual character development. For the Lord of the Rings as a whole, food is an indicator of mood and a catalyst for the plot.
second breakfast is (or was) nothing special though, especially among farmers. You get up at say 6am and have breakfast, then have 'second breakfast' around 10-11.
@@thomasc8482 That makes sense, but most people in the Western world are not farmers. They do not eat like this and most would not understand where the idea of a second breakfast comes from. It is worth bringing up, especially as it is notable in this particular work.
I love the way that Suzanne Collins’ describes food or how Katniss was eating
Wait, did you say Pita was a bread maker’s son in the Hunger Games? .... hunger, bread maker, pita! It all comes together.
it's Peeta but you had me there for a sec
Flora L. Print It’s still on purpose.
In a country called Panem.
Alyss15Nightingale
Oh, and here I figured that Peeta was a bizarre reference to the animal rights group, subtly commenting about how the dystopian society forces people to behave like animals, but animals that still deserve the right to peace.
What? No, I’m not overthinking this. How dare you??!!
[Stares in Kropotkin]
Still loving this series, and if there's one author that loves to go off on food, it is Brian Jacques. It's not a Redwall book if there aren't a minimum two long, loving, obsessive passages describing feasts the characters attend in almost painful detail. And don't worry about when they leave the Abbey to travel and can't have feasts anymore - he'll still tell you enough about the food they eat on the road that you could probably make it yourself at home just from his descriptions. Not that I think his food passages have no point, he just also... very clearly enjoyed them.
Aspiring Polymath I’ve never read a Redwall book, but I’ve heard several people I know discuss them and it seems an interesting idea. I’ve read books with the protagonists as horses and leopards, and I read various books about little people (like The Borrowers) at points in the past. Do you have any advice on a good starting place for Brian Jacques and his writing? Part of my resolutions were to try new things so... I think this falls under that umbrella. 😅
Know that if you're a completionist when it comes to book series, Redwall may get a little boggy for you. It's 20 books long and as it went on he started recycling plot points and character types to the point where, for me, I felt like I was reading the same book over and over. That said, several of the books are still very good.
I'd say that if you're the type of person who thinks you should read the Hobbit before you read Lord of the Rings, read Mossflower first. If you think you should read Lord of the Rings first, start with Redwall. Either way, read Mattimeo directly after reading Redwall (then Mossflower.)
(Personally I'd read Redwall and Mattimeo first, even though I think Mossflower is the better book. Maybe it's just because that's how I read it but I feel like it builds up the expectation for Mossflower and it delivers.)
If you do find yourself skipping books as you go along, two I would definitely recommend reading are Mariel of Redwall and Rakkety Tam. Those are two of my favorites, even though Rakkety Tam came pretty late in the series. The only other things I can think to mention are that they're not strictly in chronological order, but that's okay because mostly the plots are only tangentially related to each other. I hope this was a helpful reply, if very long.
Aspiring Polymath No, not too long at all! I often write long answers to people, or long question, and then I get a reply of like three words and I’m vaguely disappointed, lol! I put in time and thought (though true I didn’t have to), and the person barley acknowledges it!
I appreciate you adding the different orders depending on my reading style, that was really thoughtful. There are a few series I’m interested in but are convoluted. Like the Drizzt books or the craziness of the Terry Brooks books that jump around the timeline. For a total newb it can be daunting because you don’t know where to fall into that world. Where the OG fans did? The beginning of the timeline as it stands now? Somewhere in between?
That said! I used to be a completionist. But as you said about Redwall, a lot of series seem to be stretched and recycled part their BEST IF USED BY date. They aren’t bad, per say, but not at optimum flavor and freshness. 😂 So if I go into a series not sure of the author or the premise I go in with the idea of just reading one to get a taste of the universe and characters or even a few if I like it. Some books have such a great premise, simply to die for! And then.... somehow something happens and they don’t deliver. Be it melodrama or inconsistent tone or pacing or just characters that feel about as substantial as a rainbow or main characters you can’t relate or root for, sometimes even the best premise fails.
In the last few years I’ve strayed from my old diet of almost entirely fantasy books. Partially because my standards are higher. I’m also a writer. I’m getting better at it and I’m constantly taken out of the book by odd wording choices or mistakes. I either see it immediately or think, “Wait what did I snag on? What’s wrong here? What could be better? Oh it’s this... how would I have worded it? How can it be more impactful or lexically clear?” It helps my writing, for sure! But... it’s not the best way to experience a book. When I listen to audiobooks I do that less but it still happens. This happens in all genres but I tend to get more frustrated with fantasy than others. I’ve even had a series or two lately that I just drop entirely, despite liking some or most characters or loving the premise. I get too taken out of it and too frustrated and it’s not worth it to keep going when I could be slipping into the life of someone else on another adventure.
So I really appreciate you taking the reading styles into consideration. I think I’ll start with Redwall then, to get a good snapshot of the series, and then proceed as you suggested from there. I really appreciate the reply and the thought you put into it.
Reading is on a decline and we readers have to stick together!!
@@SunflowerSpotlight I'm glad it helped you! I agree, readers definitely need to stick together. If you are still looking for any new books to read (and you seem okay with YA books) I'd extremely suggest Tamora Pierce, my favorite female author, and Neal Shusterman. Tamora Pierce does usually still write fantasy, but her Circle of Magic books are among the best books I've ever read, even though they're probably considered Middle Grade as far as reading level goes. With Neal Shusterman I'd suggest either his Unwind books (biopunk/adventure/dystopian) or his Everlost series (sort of... supernatural philosophical adventure?)
SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!
No it's not. It's soy and lentil.
@@Jian13 I literally can't tell if this was a joke about modern Soylent that fell flat or if you just have never seen/heard of Soylent Green, the 1973 movie that "inspired" the product.
@@theoriginalsache The movie based on the book "Make Room, Make Room!"
"Is it good?"
"Eh. it varies from person to person."
Well, as long as we're spoiling plot twists in movies, the Puppetmaster isn't a programmer, he's a PROGRAM!
That Hitchhikers quote is probably my fav ever ^^
And bonus points for the Guide-style animation!
Really? I'm much more a fan of "They hung in the air in much the same way that bricks don't."
I was gonna like that comment but I wanted to leave it at 42 instead
I like better "in the beginning the universe was made, this has been regarded as a horrible decision and has made many people very angry"
(I'm paraphrasing)
@@agustinvenegas5238 I'm pretty sure it's actually: "In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and is widely regarded as a bad move." But, yeah, that's my favorite HHGTTG quote, too.
I'm glad you mentioned Like Water for Chocolate.
I loved the feast scene in the Phantom Tollbooth - when everyone has to eat there words
Omg I love that book!!!!
Where?
Omfg YES
It's when Milo and Tock have dinner with King Azaz the Unabridged. Such a great book.
Lindsay Ellis is better than bread...and bread is pretty great
Anthony Wheeler My God, you’re right! I’d... never have thought of that. And it’s vaguely disconcerting.
@@SunflowerSpotlight :)
Lindsay Ellis is more awesome than..
That channel that must not be named.
BREADTUBE
@Anthony Wheeler That is rather a Shakespearean phrase, as when (I think) Cordelia said she was unto him as water unto wine (i.e. good strong wine needs a bit of good water in it.)
Took a break from my pie and ale to watch this
I don't know how Abigail remains unreplied-to in this comment section, but I'll take that duty upon myself. Hi.
The image used to show Oliver's gruel bowl (when it is just floating there) appears to be a cropped version of the photograph by Dinah Fried in her book "Fictitious Dishes." I thought it looked familiar and it is the same bowl, spoon, and even smear of gruel minus the background. However, the credits say images by Shutterstock. The credit should go to the actual photographer! Fried's book is wonderful and the photographs of iconic foods from literature are amazing. Her work should be given the credit!
Not gonna lie, the way food was described in the hunger games (from the hearty bread with nuts and figs to the thin green soup that tasted like spring) always sounded AMAZING
I've become obsessed with the meaning of food in fiction, and this has been a treat to watch. Especially with me making a list of dishes based on my D&D campaign and the Player Characters.
I'll be honest, Turkish delight is a favourite of mine and to me absolutely as good as CS Lewis made it sound.
Of all the things I would have expected an "It's Lit!" about, this was the last, and I absolutely loved it!
More please!
If comics are included into literature, then Eastman/Lairds "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" commodified the pizza into the often misplaced snack among prepubescent kids it has become today, since the art of ninjutsu or any martial arts and sport for that matter requires a lot of energy to be perfected. A sports/ya/crime/scifi story.
Some food in literature may be iconic but none is so in turn nourishing, useful, culturally important and deadly as Discworld's Dwarf Bread.
those are sweet potatoes (Ipomea batata), not the true yams (Dioscorea sp.) that Achebe wrote about :( poor yams always misrepresented
It’s my biggest pet peeve. Like don’t disrespect my yams! 😤
Can't forget all the great feasts in the Redwall series: hotroot soup, turnip n tater n beetroot pie, salads, trifle, tarts, cakes, each one absolutely delicious.
Captain Rutlidge Those books made candied chestnuts sound like the best thing EVER.
I was a little sad that the salad scene in The Bell Jar didn't get a mention. Or The Jungle given how it helped spur the modern food inspection requirements.
bio rph I don’t think The Jungle would have been an appropriate example of food in literature. Uptown Sinclair said he was very disappointed that people focused on the food in the book when the whole point was to showcase the suffering of their fellow man under capitalism (ie dangerous work conditions, long hours, only getting paid for every full hour you worked, filthy streets full of mud that caused the drownings of many children, rent so high that even the grandparents and small children had to work, etc.)
True Sinclar was disaapointed, but the effect the book itself had in the real world is famous, and the entire focus was about the food packing.
bio rph Sinclair said he would have never written it if he’d have known the impact it would make. He considered it a victory to meat packers since the taxpayers, as opposed to the companies themselves, would have to foot the bill for all of the regulations passed.
The focus was not meat; the focus was the unfair, dangerous working conditions IN a meat factory, which Sinclair had seen first hand and could easily write about as opposed to working conditions in an oil or Steel company (also big targets for progressives at the time). He would have made things worse if he had written a book based on hearsay; President Roosevelt launched an investigation to prove Sinclair was a “crackpot” who only told half-truths at best.The animals being slaughtered were an Obvious metaphor for immigrants (such as the Jurgis) being lured in by only to be poorly treated and met with profound disappointment in the “utopian” America they had dreamed of. The rotten meat itself was supposed to show the greed of the corporations that would refuse to throw out the rotten meat despite knowing it would make people sick.
I see and understand your point however as a book that had a focus on the food industry that helped spur an actual change in the real world, I would have liked to see it mentioned given the topic of the video, a discussion which could also have included the author's feelings on the impact of his work.
bio rph I suppose that is true. The Jungle” would have fit well for Lindsay’s Death of the Author video. I am personally not a proponent of death of the author so, to me, including “The Jungle” in this food in literature video would have been inappropriate considering just how upset Sinclair was with the public’s focus on the food. That’s just my opinion though. Good day, sir.
I will never eat any "future food" no matter what. It looks nasty.
There's also the madeleine that keeps coming up in Proust's In Search of Lost Time. It even inspired the ending of Ratatouille.
"Future food" is a very near reality. Cultured meat, genetically modified vegetables, vitamin pills, meal-replacement shakes and bars, foods with a near infinite shelf life, and prepared flash-frozen meals you just need to stick in the microwave for 5 minutes before you can eat it. Eating has never been so easy.
@@SanaSamaha Oh, those are all fine. I was mostly referring to the generic green cubes that always seem to come up in sci-fi. I can accept modified veggies, not those.
Try solylent orange, it's great
Hilariously enough, the "yeast foods" of Asimov Novels eventually developed, across the millennia of Galactic History, to the point where they are considered better (and much more expensive) than the real food stuffs they were originally designed to imitate.
Lindsay does just such a great job with this series please keep her.
When you mentioned culture and food I immediately thought of things fall apart. One of my favorite books every line seemed to be written with purpose.
Brian Jacques’s Redwall series - Exquisite anthropomorphic animals’ food porn literature for children
Every book needs atleast 3 feasts to be a good inclusion to the series
NEW LINDSAY!!!!! It's Loose Canon for Book Foods. Yay. (PBS is the best!)
I love that you used the word "nosh." :)
Keep Yiddish alive!
Huh. I didn't know it was Yiddish, I just thought it was slang.
@@MoonShadowWolfe I mean, slang has to come from SOMEWHERE :P
Huh. I wonder why it's such a common word in the uk
Banquet scenes and the descriptions of woodland creature meals in the Redwall series will always be such a vivid memory from my childhood! I don't remember a ton about the books but many banquet scenes and the way they described all the things they ate, that was always my favorite part of that series! I wanted to live in Redwall Abbey and eat fantastic dinners with the woodland critters before going to battle ~
Lindsay is a national treasure. I'm only subbed because of this series honestly.
I'm glad I was already eating something when I clicked on this video, or else I would have gotten really hungry.
Ulysses is stocked with grilled mutton kidneys, thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liver slices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencod's roes, giblets, eggs, poached eyes on ghost, woebegoggles and fruit, organgrinders crisp of onions, truffles, earth garlic, stewed plums and mayonnaise, daily bread, sugarsticky sweets, filleted lemon sole, Findon haddy, and hot buttered toast.
Very interesting! I got from my dear mother a book, where the most appetizing feasts, described in classic literature, are gathered. With recipes! And it's marvelous!
Honestly one of the coolest things my eighth grade English teacher did when we were reading Purple Hibiscus and Things Fall Apart was bring in a bunch of Nigerian food that was mentioned in the books for us to try. All of the food described in the books were stuff none of us had ever seen or eaten before, and so it kind of made the worlds of those books feel a little bit more real
I think the books that really got me to notice food in Literature were the Little House Books. It was very common especially in the earlier books for there to be pages of just descriptions of the meals that Ingalls and the Wilders ate. The book Farmer Boy in particular had me surprised at the idea of how massive the meals for people living on a farm were which was apparently pretty common at that time. Which I guess makes sense given the heavy labor that went into the Farmer/Homesteader lifestyle of those times.
That was my favorite part of Little House.
two of my favourite channels, Lindsay Ellis and PBS, have combined. THIS IS THE GREATEST THING ON EARTH!
My only complaint is that I didn’t discover this show sooner, and that’s on me really. Love this!
Although I loved when Lindsay was animated in these, it's nice to see her real face too!
Lindsay: "I'm sorry"
Narrator: "She was not sorry"
The food scenes in the beginning and end of A Wrinkle in Time are also fantastic ones!!
Another angle food is used in two of the books you mention (Hitchhiker's Guide and Year of the Flood) is ethically raised meat. In the Hitchhiker's Guide second book "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" the main characters have a meal where they can "Meet the meat". Here Arthur Dent recoils at the thought of eating a sentient cow, however as Zaphod says “Better than eating an animal that doesn’t want to be eaten”. In Atwood's "Year of the Flood" chickens have been genetically engineered into headless and brainless "Chickie Nobs" which feel no pain and grow more like plants.
I honestly LOVE writing about food, it's how you get people into your story by reminding them of things yummy and of things exciting and new. You can take people anywhere you want once you own their memory of taste of smell.
I’m literally procrastinating writing an essay about food/vegetarianism/feminism/absent referent right now for one of my lit classes 😅
Does that tie into Laurie Penny's "Meat Market"?
Johanna Geisel It’s mainly about The Sexual Politics of Meat, The Edible Woman and Herland, because we had to discuss books we read during our course
I loooove Como agua para chocolate, it's one of my favorite books of all time. The english title sounds really weird to me
The french translation is way worst : "The spices of passion" (Les épices de la passion) :-(
Melt some chocolate then pour water in it. You will see why it's called that.
As per usual, learned new things. Love this series! I wish they could go back vids about genres tho. They haven't done the mystery/suspense/thrillers/crime fiction yet.
Whenever Dianne Wayne Johnson writes about food in her books, I am instantly craving for it
Also to mention Lin Yutang's description of Chinese food
Let me introduce you to the first meal, my character gets, after her world is thrown on it's head:
A strong, thick stew of vegetables, a slice of meat, bread with molten cheese and hot milk with honey
Warm, welcoming, hearty, rich and satisfying. After she had no breakfast other than toast and a gulp of milk and no lunch, in her physical hot but emotional cold and cruel world, but meeting a warm, loving welcome in a family, she didn't know at all, receiving everything she needs to keep going.
Turkish Delight is one of those things that tend to not be taken the way I suspect CS Lewis meant it to be in the books. When Edward was asked what he wanted as a treat by a woman he did not fully trust he asked for Turkish Delight, after which he became obsessed with it. I don't think he asked for it because he loved it so much. I think he asked for it because it was a small treat he enjoyed, and he couldn't think how it could harm him even if she was somehow able to produce it, which I think he thought she wouldn't be able to. It wasn't the treat though, was it? It was the magic. She enchanted it to enchant him to make herself have influence over him, and it worked.
I know this series is about literature but huge honorable mention to the feasts in the Hannibal tv series. It's a feat to make such appetising yet slightly otherwordly dishes that the audience KNOWS contain human flesh (and often are steeped in metaphor)
I don't know if you're old enough, but please run for President, Lindsay.
Clam chowder deserves all the chapters in the world. Yum.
As a middle schooler, I was an avid Redwall series reader, Brian Jacques wrote such descriptive and delicious sounding food and feasts I actually tried making some of the dishes. And failed stupendously.
This was extremely interesting to watch! WE NEED A PART TWO!! ❤️
Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos series (and probably his other books, I haven't read them) use food a great deal. It describes the process of cooking as a way to humanize its main character who is at best a murderer. It uses a homey recipe for bread prepared by his father as a direct way of building up that feeling of home and safety right before he marches off to join a pointless war. In book 10, Dzur, it even uses a meal at Valabar's (a restaurant so good Vlad is willing to literally risk his life to eat there) as a framing device, describing each course in nigh-pornographic detail as a way to set the tone for each chapter. It even establishes Vlad's fathomless lust for a beverage called "klava" and then, later in the series, just casually throws in instructions for how to make it in real life, which always makes me feel closer to my favorite fictional worlds.
I could learn about food in media endlessly
I didn’t know Lindsey was on PBS. That’s true success
This is so awesome! Keep it up, Lindsay and PBS.
Oh, and my personal favorite food writer is Patrick Rothfuss. The way he describes eggs alone makes my mouth water.
I love how in Terry Pratchett's Disk world they have Dwarf Bread. A food staple that most travelers carry because if they are ever in dire need all they have to do is think of the bread and relies that maybe eating that river slug may not be that bad.
Yet the bread has become an intricate part of dwarf culture, politics, and warfare.
Never write hungry.
I've learned that the hard way.
Puffed Rice or draw hungry because I always draw food
This is also why cookbooks based on fantastic worlds like Harry Potter have become so popular. What better way to immerse yourself into another place than to create meals like the ones in your favorite stories.
I wish you would have mentioned Redwall series that man described such wonderful meals they made a cookbook for it.
I disagree *strongly* with much of Lindsay Ellis's critical analysis, but this video was still quite enjoyable. The subject of food in literature has always been one close to my heart. Just take, for instance, this description from the translation of "The Red Fox Fur Coat", the greatest short story ever written:
"In the middle of the party, she noticed someone slicing up some meat, cooked very rare-roast beef, she thought, although these words had suddenly ceased to have any meaning. She reached out her hand and devoured a whole slice. Ah, she thought, the taste of almost raw meat, the action of sinking her teeth into it, of making the blood spurt, the taste of blood on her tongue, in her mouth, the innocence of devouring the whole slice, and she took another slice, already sensing that using her hand was now a pointless waste of time, that she should just pick it up directly with her mouth."
For me, reading that story is a transcendental experience -- as close as I will ever get to being something wild and truly free.
One day I'm going to stop audibly gasping every time (every single time!) you name-drop a book I've read.
Brilliant work Lindsay, thanks a million
I still would love to try Shrimp and Hotroot soup from the Redwall series. Those books always made me so hungry.
The food in Redwall books were definitely a highlight for me.
What I find most interesting about Madame Bovary's wedding cake is how much of it is inedible. Most wedding cakes are supposed to be eaten. This one, apparently, is supposed to be looked at and admired.
I'm always really fond of the "tastes like friendship" trope, and from that the "through their stomach" trope -- food being used to gain trust, befriend, and woo. Not for nothing, one of the first things Harry does in the wizarding world is buy a bunch of magical candy to share with his new friend, and in "V for Vendetta," the scene where Evie wakes up to V fixing her breakfast is always one of my favorites. And in "Hannibal," when Hannibal shows up with some eggs and sausage for Will, it's really effective because while Will is thinking, "Hey, maybe this guy's actually alright," the audience, who knows what's in those sausages, is thinking, "OHHHHHHH NO."
One of my favorite food descriptions is Charles Dickens description of Christmas dinner in " A Christmas Carol ".
The Oliver Twist section made me think of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and its use of food to emphasize how hard his situation was.
If less than three meals are described in detail it's not a fantasy story.
GRRM is the master of describing food.
Just discovered this series. It's so good!
That was a sweet potato, not a yam.
Yam is the king of crops, and a very exacting king at that
In American English, we tend to use sweet potato and yam as synonyms for the orange vegetable, even though they're actually different plants
That is a yam, at least in Canada. What is a yam where you are from?
Canadians also have a thing we call sweet potatoes, but they are shaped the exact same as potatoes, but yellow inside and sweeter, they don't look like yams.
We have 3 yams, those which are purple inside (usually called Japanese or Korean yams), and yams that are white inside (usually less sweet, I have sometimes seen them labeled African yams), and the most common orange yams. All 3 have the distinctive yam shape which looks a bit like an american-football.
This made me think of Don Quijote, and the way Cervantes introduces his personality by showing his usual meals. In class we were discussing this, specifically the part where it says he ate pains and misfortunes (duelos y quebrantos) for breakfast on Saturday, which the Romantics took to be that he went hungry that day; actually, it was a archaic way to refer to eggs and sausage.
That is an extraordinary observation, if accurate. Is the "duelos" in the maxim "Todos los duelos con pan son buenos" also a reference to eggs?
Excellent video as usual. Thank you Lindsay!
I used food in my most recent short story to symbolize time passing as well as subtly tell the reader, via ingredients where the heart of the character lies. The story is about a defector who's been recaptured and is under permanent house arrest in Canada until the day he dies. He basically orders a favourite journalist of his to join him for an evening in an attempt to justify his actions and win over his readers. It's an eight-hour conversation that's subtly played like a game of cat and mouse. Early on I realized that I had two options:
1) Write eight hours of dialogue which would be tedious and definitely miss the sombre reflection intended at some points.
2) Find a way to move time forward.
That's when I remembered the best way to win someone over is cooking for them and the best way to get to know someone is by breaking bread with them. So I had the defector prepare tea, dinner, and dessert for the journalist. This way it flows perfectly like a long, intoxicating conversation between two similarly intelligent people.
You got my curiosity, where can I find said story?
agustin venegas my email address lol that’s it. I haven’t published it yet.
Your story sounds amazing. I love your creative, thoughtful approach to solving a very difficult writing problem. Best of luck.
Oh Lindsay, I want to go back to college and study Literature once again with your video essays
Turkish Delight is incredible. I’m offended by the insinuation that it is not.
"rosewater just tastes like perfume :(" in what universe though
Same
WOW I love lindsey Elis, I love her videos and I watch them even after they are boring because they are nice, long and perfect to go to sleep to
Putting food into written work can be an experience for the author, too. I'm writing a sci-fi series set in 1920s France and, knowing almost nothing about French food, have had to do my research. And yes, that includes cooking the recipes I find. My rule of thumb is I never feed my characters something I wouldn't eat myself. :)
I think C. S. Lewis making Turkish Delight desirable was bc he was making it a symbol of sin. We wud like its extreme sweetness, but eating too much wud make us sick just like sin is bad for us, so I feel it's a perfect image!
Redwall feast scenes always made me so hungry as a kid.
There is a brasilian novel called The Angel's Club (writen for a collection of books, each inspired by a Capital Sin). Focusing, obviously, in the sin of Gluttony, it presents a murder mistery where members of a gluttons gourmet club are being killed after a dinner where each is offered their favorite plate. Highly recomend it, and it was one of the first books that some friends of mine tought could be a good film.
Lindsay Ellis is at PBS? How cool!
I love how diverse this is
I know that in a book actor Vincent Schiavelli wrote, he writes about having a family meal and then includes a recipe for said meal right there in the middle of the chapter. Interesting way to immerse the audience.
I’m Kinda surprised Lindsay did not touch on Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, were the entire plot is the characters sitting around tell stories at around a camp fire as they ate. Sure there is no description of food really, but the feast is the catalyst for Middle English’s greatest work
Food is often used as a mean for people/characters to reconnect with their senses and their body, to feel the simple pleasures of life after too many years of spirituality or moralistic conduct: think about "Babette's feast" by Karen Blixen, or "Chocolat" by Joanne Harris
Lindsay Ellis I have found you again! You've come so far from Nostalgia Chick. PBS has gained a great resource.
From 5:45-6:02 I was just repeating YAMS to my screen. Yams and the phrase "hero's journey" are the major things I remember from reading that book years ago.
I love Lindsay Ellis! I didn't know she was on PBS Digital Studios!
I'd say a work with memorable food is a memorable work. Often times when I randomly recall some of my favourite movies or books and their worlds, my mind goes to the food they had. Sometimes Miazaki's food scenes just pop up in my head and then I'm in a mood to watch one of his movies.
So I guess giving a lot of attention to food in your work could be a good tip for how to make it memorable?