Fictitious Dishes Read online

  Blomkvist closed his eyes for a moment, then he sat up and took a bite. His throat hurt so much that he could scarcely swallow.

  * * *

  • Blomkvist and Lisbeth both have a large appetite for sandwiches. They consume between thirty and forty of them in the novel, and the word “sandwich” is mentioned in almost every one of the book’s twenty-nine chapters.

  • The Swedish word for open-faced sandwich is smörgås, which is composed of the words smör (“butter”) and gås (“goose”).

  • Sandwiches in the novel are made with savory ingredients including cheese, dill pickles, caviar, hard-boiled egg, pickled herring, liver sausage, liver pâté, cucumbers, rye bread, mustard sauce, and chives.

  AMERICAN PSYCHO

  BRET EASTON ELLIS, 1991

  SHE DOESN’T SAY ANYTHING until we’re seated at a mediocre table near the back section of the main dining room and that’s only to order a Bellini. For dinner, I order the shad-roe ravioli with apple compote as an appetizer and the meat loaf with chèvre and quail-stock sauce for an entrée. She orders the red snapper with violets and pine nuts and for an appetizer a peanut butter soup with smoked duck and mashed squash which sounds strange but is actually quite good. New York magazine called it a “playful but mysterious little dish” and I repeat this to Patricia, who lights a cigarette while ignoring my lit match, sulkily slumped in her seat, exhaling smoke directly into my face, occasionally shooting furious looks at me which I politely ignore, being the gentleman that I can be. Once our plates arrive I just stare at my dinner—the meat loaf dark red triangles topped by chèvre which has been tinted pink by pomegranate juice, squiggles of thick tan quail stock circling the beef, and mango slices dotting the rim of the wide black plate—for a long time, a little confused, before deciding to eat it, hesitantly picking up my fork.

  * * *

  • The book’s depiction of sexual violence toward women was so graphic that its original publisher, Simon & Schuster, withdrew from the project, citing aesthetic differences; subsequently, Vintage Books purchased the rights and published the novel.

  • The first record of meatloaf is from Apicius, a Roman cookery collection, which dates to the fifth century A.D. The meatloaf recipe appears in the second section, Sarcoptes (“The Meat Mincer”).

  ANNE OF GREEN GABLES

  LUCY MAUD MONTGOMERY, 1908

  DIANA POURED HERSELF OUT A TUMBLERFUL, looked at its bright-red hue admiringly, and then sipped it daintily.

  “That’s awfully nice raspberry cordial, Anne,” she said. “I didn’t know raspberry cordial was so nice.”

  “I’m real glad you like it. Take as much as you want. I’m going to run out and stir the fire up. There are so many responsibilities on a person’s mind when they’re keeping house, isn’t there?”

  When Anne came back from the kitchen Diana was drinking her second glassful of cordial; and, being entreated thereto by Anne, she offered no particular objection to the drinking of a third. The tumblerfuls were generous ones and the raspberry cordial was certainly very nice.

  * * *

  • Thinking she’s serving raspberry cordial, Anne inadvertently intoxicates her “bosom friend,” Diana Barry, by giving her currant wine.

  • Raspberry cordial is a sweet drink made from crushed raspberries, sugar, and lemon juice.

  • The novel is extremely popular in Japan, and Japanese fans often have Anne-themed weddings, with the brides wearing red wigs. The Japanese post office has even issued an anime Anne postage stamp.

  • The real Green Gables house is a major tourist attraction on Prince Edward Island, as is the Avonlea Village theme park, where people dress up as Anne, Diana, and other characters from the Avonlea series.

  THE BELL JAR

  SYLVIA PLATH, 1963

  THEN I TACKLED THE AVOCADO AND CRABMEAT SALAD. Avocados are my favorite fruit. Every Sunday my grandfather used to bring me an avocado pear hidden at the bottom of his briefcase under six soiled shirts and the Sunday comics. He taught me how to eat avocados by melting grape jelly and french dressing together in a saucepan and filling the cup of the pear with the garnet sauce. I felt homesick for that sauce. The crabmeat tasted bland in comparison.

  * * *

  • After winning a prestigious internship at Ladies’ Day magazine, Esther attends a welcome luncheon hosted by the magazine and stuffs herself with delicacies like caviar and crabmeat-filled avocados, only to regret it later when she and her fellow diners get violently ill from food poisoning.

  • The Bell Jar was Plath’s only novel.

  • Like Esther, Plath struggled with mental illness. She committed suicide at age thirty, a month after the publication of The Bell Jar.

  • Native to central Mexico, avocados may date back as early as 8000 B.C. and were cultivated by 1200 B.C. They were introduced in the United States in 1871, when three trees were planted in Santa Barbara, California.

  OLIVER TWIST

  CHARLES DICKENS, 1837

  CHILD AS HE WAS, HE WAS DESPERATE WITH HUNGER, and reckless with misery. He rose from the table; and advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand, said: somewhat alarmed at his own temerity:

  “Please, sir, I want some more.”

  The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. The assistants were paralysed with wonder; the boys with fear.

  “What!” said the master at length, in a faint voice.

  “Please, sir,” replied Oliver, “I want some more.”

  The master aimed a blow at Oliver’s head with the ladle; pinioned him in his arm; and shrieked aloud for the beadle.

  * * *

  • Because Oliver asks for a second serving of gruel, he is sold into a terrible apprenticeship with an undertaker.

  • Oliver Twist’s realistic images of poverty, crime, and injustice shocked its readers upon its publication; Dickens wrote the novel with the intention of shedding light on the grim and inescapable fates assigned to the poor, of which many of his middle-class readers were ignorant.

  • Dating back to ancient Greece, gruel—a thin porridge made by boiling oats, rye, wheat, or rice with water or milk—has long been a staple food of peasants in the Western world.

  ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND

  LEWIS CARROLL, 1865

  THE TABLE WAS A LARGE ONE, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it:

  “No room! No room!” they cried out when they saw Alice coming.

  “There’s plenty of room!” said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.

  “Have some wine,” the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.

  Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. “I don’t see any wine,” she remarked.

  “There isn’t any,” said the March Hare.

  “Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,” said Alice angrily.

  “It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited,” said the March Hare.

  * * *

  • Lewis Carroll (pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) first told the fantastical story to the three young daughters of his friend Henry Liddell, to entertain them in a rowboat; months later, Carroll gave the middle daughter, ten-year-old Alice, a manuscript of the tale called Alice’s Adventures Under Ground.

  • Carroll’s original manuscript was illustrated with the author’s own sketches, although it is Sir John Tenniel’s forty-two woodcut engravings for the first published edition, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), that most readers associate with the book.

  • Alice has been used for more than a century to sell products—from Wonder Bread and Philco refrigerators to vacations in Yellowstone Park.

  THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER AND CLAY

  MICHAEL CHABON, 2000

  HERE THEY FOUND and proceeded to devour a light supper con
sisting of the thrice-picked-over demi-carcass of a by now quite hoary chicken, nine soda crackers, one sardine, some milk, as well as a yellow doorstop of adamantine cheese they found wedged, under the milk bottle, between the slats of the shelf outside the window.

  * * *

  • The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2001.

  • Soda crackers—or saltines—were first made by the F. L. Sommer & Company in 1886, when Sommer began using baking soda to leaven thin crackers; the result was so popular that his business quadrupled in less than four years.

  • Sardines are considered a “superfood,” as they are full of omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin B, iron, calcium, and protein.

  BREAD AND JAM FOR FRANCES

  RUSSELL HOBAN, 1964

  “WELL,” SAID FRANCES, LAYING A PAPER DOILY ON HER DESK and setting a tiny vase of violets in the middle of it, “let me see.” She arranged her lunch on the doily.

  “I have a thermos bottle with cream of tomato soup,” she said.

  “And a lobster-salad sandwich on thin slices of white bread.

  “I have celery, carrot sticks, and black olives, and a little cardboard shaker of salt for the celery.

  “And two plums and a tiny basket of cherries.

  “And vanilla pudding with chocolate sprinkles and a spoon to eat it with.”

  * * *

  • This special meal comes at the end of the book, after Frances’s eyes are opened to the culinary world beyond bread and jam.

  • Welch’s created modern jam in 1918 during World War I for US Army rations, calling it “Grapelade.” The Army bought Welch’s first production run, and soldiers liked it so much they demanded it after they returned to civilian life. Welch’s launched retail Concord Grape Jelly in 1923.

  • Hoban wrote seven books about Frances the badger, and many of her adventures were inspired by the lives of his four children, Phoebe, Brom, Esmé, and Julia.

  • Bedtime for Frances, the first of the Frances books, was illustrated by Garth Williams, the celebrated children’s book illustrator of Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, and the Little House series. The other six were illustrated by Lillian Hoban, Russell’s wife for thirty years.

  HEARTBURN

  NORA EPHRON, 1983

  RICE PUDDING IS THE ONLY THING ARTHUR COOKS but he cooks it perfectly, with exactly the right proportion of rice to raisins. There’s an awful lot of nursery food in this book already so I won’t give you the recipe. My feeling about rice pudding is that if you like it, you already have a good recipe; and if you don’t there’s no way anyone will ever get you to eat it, unless you fall in love with someone who likes rice pudding, which I once did, and then you learn to love it, too.

  * * *

  • The novel is loosely based on Ephron’s personal experience, when she discovered that her husband, journalist Carl Bernstein, was committing adultery.

  • When Rachel realizes that her husband will never change and that the marriage is over, she throws a key lime pie in his face.

  • Her marriage over, and having just given birth to her soon-to-be ex-husband’s child, vulnerable Rachel is comforted by a visit from friends Julie and Arthur, who bring rice pudding to her hospital room.

  • Rice pudding is a simple dish of cooked rice and milk, often mixed with other ingredients such as cinnamon and raisins; some version of it exists in almost every country. A few of the many variations include m’halbi (in Algeria), roz be laban (Egypt), kiribath (Sri Lanka), moghli (Lebanon), sütlaç (Turkey), grjónagrautur (Iceland), risengrød (Denmark), riz au lait (France), and arroz con leche (many Spanish-speaking countries).

  THE GREAT GATSBY

  F. SCOTT FITZGERALD, 1925

  AT LEAST ONCE A FORTNIGHT A CORPS OF CATERERS came down with several hundred feet of canvas and enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby’s enormous garden. On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors-d’oeuvre, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold. In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with gins and liquors and with cordials so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know one from another.

  * * *

  • Many titles were in the running for this novel: The High Bouncing Lover; Under the Red, White, and Blue; Trimalchio; Among Ash-Heaps and Millionaires; Gold-hatted Gatsby; and others. Fitzgerald was never satisfied with his final choice of title.

  • The Great Gatsby was written and set in the Prohibition Era, a time rife with illegal bootleggers and speakeasies, a period that Fitzgerald memorably dubbed “the Jazz Age.”

  • The novel’s iconic blue cover featuring two disembodied eyes was painted by little-known artist Francis Cugat while Fitzgerald was still writing the book. It is said that the author loved the image so much that he wrote the eyes into his narrative, as the picture on the iconic fading billboard featuring the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg.

  • According to the American Farm Bureau Foundation, “pastry pigs” should be celebrated on April 24—National Pig-in-a-Blanket Day—which honors this party favorite: small sausages wrapped in biscuit dough.

  GRAVITY’S RAINBOW

  THOMAS PYNCHON, 1973

  NOW THERE GROWS among all the rooms, replacing the night’s old smoke, alcohol and sweat, the fragile, musaceous odor of Breakfast. . . . Pirate’s mob gather at the shores of the great refectory table, a southern island well across a tropic or two from chill Corydon Throsp’s medieval fantasies, crowded now over the swirling dark grain of its walnut uplands with banana omelets, banana sandwiches, banana casseroles, mashed bananas molded in the shape of a British lion rampant, blended with eggs into batter for French toast . . . tall cruets of pale banana syrup to pour oozing over banana waffles, a giant glazed crock where diced bananas have been fermenting since the summer with wild honey and muscat raisins, up out of which, this winter morning, one now dips foam mugsfull of banana mead . . . banana croissants and banana kreplach, and banana oatmeal and banana jam and banana bread, and bananas flamed in ancient brandy Pirate brought back last year from a cellar in the Pyrenees also containing a clandestine radio transmitter. . . .

  * * *

  • The word banana comes from the Arabic word banan, which means “finger”; consequently, a single banana is often referred to as a “finger” and a bunch of bananas is called a “hand.”

  • In the novel, Captain Geoffrey “Pirate” Prentice, yearning for bananas during a wartime shortage, builds a rooftop greenhouse, where he plants his own banana trees.

  • Bananas are the world’s fourth most popular agricultural crop (after wheat, rice, and corn), with over 100 billion eaten yearly.

  A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES

  JOHN KENNEDY TOOLE, 1980

  STOPPING BEFORE THE NARROW GARAGE, he sniffed the fumes from Paradise with great sensory pleasure, the protruding hairs in his nostrils analyzing, cataloging, categorizing, and classifying the distinct odors of the hot dog, mustard, and lubricant. Breathing deeply, he wondered also if he detected the more delicate odor, the fragile scent of hot dog buns. He looked at the white-gloved hands of his Mickey Mouse wristwatch and noticed that he had eaten lunch only an hour before. Still the intriguing aromas were making him salivate actively.

  * * *

  • Published eleven years after Toole’s suicide, A Confederacy of Dunces earned the author a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981.

  • The frankfurter originated as a pork sausage similar to the hot dog in the thirteenth century in Frankfurt, Germany, where it was given out during imperial coronation celebrations.

  • The origin of the hot dog in the United States is often credited to Charles Feltman, a German immigrant who began serving sausages in buns from his pie wagon on the Coney Island boardwalk in the 1870s.

  • Devouring sixty-nine hot dogs in buns in ten minutes at the 98th Annual Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest in Con
ey Island in 2013, competitive eater Joseph Christian “Jaws” Chestnut won for the seventh time in a row and currently holds the world record for hot dog consumption.

  TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

  VIRGINIA WOOLF, 1927

  WHEN THERE ARE FIFTEEN PEOPLE SITTING DOWN TO DINNER, one cannot keep things waiting for ever. She was now beginning to feel annoyed with them for being so late; it was inconsiderate of them, and it annoyed her on top of her anxiety about them, that they should choose this very night to be out late, when, in fact, she wished the dinner to be particularly nice, since William Bankes had at last consented to dine with them; and they were having Mildred’s masterpiece—Boeuf en Daube. Everything depended upon things being served up to the precise moment they were ready. The beef, the bayleaf, and the wine—all must be done to a turn. To keep it waiting was out of the question. Yet of course tonight, of all nights, out they went, and they came in late, and things had to be sent out, things had to be kept hot; the Boeuf en Daube would be entirely spoilt.

  * * *

  • The first edition of Woolf’s beloved modernist novel was printed at the Hogarth Press, the printing house in London that she owned with her husband, Leonard Woolf. The original dust jacket was illustrated by Woolf’s sister, painter Vanessa Bell.