Fictitious Dishes Read online

  • Woolf believed that To the Lighthouse was “easily the best of my books.”

  • Boeuf en daube is a classic French stew made with beef braised in wine and herbes de Provence; it sometimes includes olives, prunes, juniper berries, or orange peel. It is traditionally cooked in a daubière, a type of terra-cotta pot used to cook food over a flame.

  THE TALE OF PETER RABBIT

  BEATRIX POTTER, 1902

  I AM SORRY TO SAY THAT PETER WAS NOT VERY WELL during the evening. His mother put him to bed, and made some camomile tea; and she gave a dose of it to Peter!

  “One table-spoonful to be taken at bed-time.”

  But Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail had bread and milk and blackberries for supper.

  * * *

  • The story ends with Mrs. Rabbit putting a sick Peter to bed and feeding his three sisters a special dinner of the blackberries they picked that day.

  • Before writing books, Potter wrote charming “picture letters” to the children of her former governess, Annie Moore. On Moore’s suggestion, she expanded the letters into books and so began her publishing career.

  • Potter wrote and illustrated twenty-three tales about anthropomorphized animals living in the British countryside, many of which were based on her real-life pets—her pet rabbit was named Peter Piper.

  • Chamomile, long used in herbal medicine, is believed to settle an upset stomach, quell anxiety, and promote restful sleep.

  • Blackberries also have medicinal benefits: ancient Greeks ate the roots, leaves, and berries to cure gout; during the Civil War, blackberry tea was believed to cure dysentery; and because the berries are full of antioxidants, they are believed to help prevent certain types of cancer.

  THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE

  C. S. LEWIS, 1950

  THE QUEEN LET ANOTHER DROP FALL from her bottle onto the snow, and instantly there appeared a round box, tied with green silk ribbon, which, when opened, turned out to contain several pounds of the best Turkish Delight. Each piece was sweet and light to the very center and Edmund had never tasted anything more delicious.

  * * *

  • Turkish delight, believed to have been invented in Constantinople in 1776 by a confectioner named Bekir Effendi in 1776, is a type of gel candy made with dried fruit and nuts and often flavored with rose water or citrus; it is usually served cut into squares and dusted with powdered sugar.

  • The sweet treat, which quickly became popular throughout Europe and a delicacy of the upper class, was often given as a gift wrapped in a silk handkerchief.

  • The Chronicles of Narnia is full of wonderful food descriptions throughout, beginning when Lucy first wanders into Narnia and has delicious tea, soft-boiled eggs, sardines on toast, and sugar-topped cake with a faun named Mr. Tumnus. In fact, there are several cookbooks that attempt to provide interpretations of the food described in the story.

  • Lewis, an atheist from the age of fifteen, slowly changed his mind in the years after returning home wounded in 1918 during World War I; he converted to Christianity in 1931. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is thought by many to be a distinct allegory for his new religious beliefs.

  MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN

  JONATHAN LETHEM, 1999

  “MAUFISHFUL” SAID GILBERT CONEY in response to my outburst, not even turning his head. I could barely make out the words—“My mouth is full”—both truthful and a joke, lame. Accustomed to my verbal ticcing, he didn’t usually bother to comment. Now he nudged the bag of White Castles in my direction on the car seat, crinkling the paper. “Stuffinyahole.”

  Coney didn’t rate any special consideration from me. “Eatmeeatmeeatme,” I shrieked again, letting off more of the pressure in my head. Then I was able to concentrate. I helped myself to one of the tiny burgers. Unwrapping it, I lifted the top of the bun to examine the grid of holes in the patty, the slime of glistening cubed onions. This was another compulsion. I always had to look inside a White Castle, to appreciate the contrast of machine-tooled burger and nubbin of fried goo. Kaos and control. Then I did more or less as Gilbert had suggested—pushed it into my mouth whole. The ancient slogan Buy ’em by the sack humming deep in my head, jaw working to grind the slider into swallowable chunks, I turned back to stare out the window at the house.

  Food really mellows me out.

  * * *

  • White Castle was founded in 1921 by Edgar Waldo “Billy” A. Ingram and Walt A. Anderson. In addition to making the chain’s signature square “sliders,” Anderson invented paper-wrapped burgers and the paper hats worn by servers.

  • The novel won the 1999 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction and the 2000 Gold Dagger award for crime fiction.

  EMMA

  JANE AUSTEN, 1815

  THESE WERE PLEASANT FEELINGS, and she walked about and indulged them till it was necessary to do as the others did, and collect round the strawberry-beds . . . and Mrs. Elton, in all her apparatus of happiness, her large bonnet and her basket, was very ready to lead the way in gathering, accepting, or talking—strawberries, and only strawberries, could now be thought or spoken of.—“The best fruit in England—every body’s favourite—always wholesome.—These the finest beds and finest sorts.—Delightful to gather for one’s self—the only way of really enjoying them . . . white wood finest flavour of all—price of strawberries in London—abundance about Bristol . . . no general rule—gardeners never to be put out of their way—delicious fruit—only too rich to be eaten much of—inferior to cherries—currants more refreshing—only objection to gathering strawberries the stooping—glaring sun—tired to death—could bear it no longer—must go and sit in the shade.”

  * * *

  • Despite proposals, Austen never married, setting her apart from many of her novels’ characters, who are husband hunters.

  • Strawberries are not technically berries, as their seeds—about two hundred on each—are on the outside of the fruit.

  • Strawberries have long been associated with flirtation, love, and sex. An old French tradition is for newlyweds to eat a breakfast of strawberry soup—made with sour cream, powdered sugar, and borage (starflower)—to celebrate their love.

  VALLEY OF THE DOLLS

  JACQUELINE SUSANN, 1965

  SHE WALKED INTO THE BATHROOM and took a red pill—she had taken one every night for a week until Lyon had returned. She had the feeling that it had been the only thing that had saved her sanity. She hadn’t taken one since his return. But here we go again, she thought. Thank God for the lovely red dolls. They made the nights bearable.

  * * *

  • A guilty pleasure for many of its readers, Valley of the Dolls has a cult following and has sold more than thirty million copies since its publication. It’s one of the top-ten bestselling books of all time.

  • The “dolls” in the title is a slang term for sleeping pills; “doll” was originally a shortened form of the medication dolophine (methadone), but ultimately it referred to any type of barbiturate.

  • Before her writing career began, Susann pursued acting and is said to have had several romantic relationships with celebrities—both men and women—which are chronicled in her novels.

  • Though never confirmed by Susann, many of the novel’s characters are rumored to be based on real-life celebrities—alcoholic Neely on Judy Garland; tragic Jennifer on both Marilyn Monroe and Carole Landis; and bawdy Helen Lawson on Ethel Merman.

  ULYSSES

  JAMES JOYCE, 1922

  MR LEOPOLD BLOOM ATE WITH RELISH the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencod’s roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.

  * * *

  • Ulysses takes place on June 16, 1904, the day when Joyce and Nora Barnacle, his future wife, first went out together.

  • A holiday commemorating Joyce takes place every year on J
une 16 in Ireland, Europe, the United States, and beyond; it is called Bloomsday (named after protagonist Leopold Bloom). Fans and readers of Joyce celebrate with readings, performances, pub crawls, and other activities.

  • Bloom has a lucky potato, which he carries in his pocket.

  • Bloom drinks his tea out of a moustache cup that his daughter, Milly, gave him for his twenty-seventh birthday. Invented in the 1860s and popular during the late Victorian era, the moustache cup has a semicircular ledge that extends across part of the cup’s opening and keeps the user’s moustache from getting wet while he drinks.

  BOOK SUMMARIES

  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain, 1884. This classic follows the exploits of the title character as he sails down the Mississippi River on a makeshift raft with a slave boy named Jim.

  Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, 1865. The fantastical experiences of young Alice, who follows a white rabbit with a pocket watch in his waistcoat, only to fall down a deep hole to arrive at a strange place called Wonderland.

  The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon, 2000. The tale of two cousins who team up to create comic books together in New York City in the 1940s.

  American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis, 1991. The chilling story of Patrick Bateman, a wealthy young Wall Street investment banker turned serial killer in the late 1980s.

  Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery, 1908. The adventures and mishaps of Anne Shirley, an independent-minded red-headed orphan with a hot temper, living on a farm in Avonlea on Prince Edward Island, Canada.

  Beezus and Ramona, Beverly Cleary, 1955. The first of the Ramona book series, this children’s book tells the story of Beatrice “Beezus” Quimby and her pesky four-year-old sister, Ramona.

  The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath, 1963. The semiautobiographical novel about Esther Greenwood, a promising young woman who struggles with depression and descends into crippling mental illness.

  “Big Two-Hearted River,” Ernest Hemingway, 1925. In this short story, soldier Nick Adams returns to the remote place on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula where he used to go fishing before he served in World War I.

  Blueberries for Sal, Robert McCloskey, 1948. Set in a town in Maine, this children’s picture book tells the story of a little girl named Sal who goes blueberry picking with her mother and encounters a mother bear and cub engaged in the same activity.

  The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison, 1970. A year in the life of Pecola Breedlove—an African American girl living in Lorain, Ohio, in 1941—as she faces racism and struggles with an inferiority complex as a result.

  Bread and Jam for Frances, Russell Hoban, 1964. Beloved by picky and non-picky eaters alike, this children’s classic is about a young badger who decides she will eat nothing but bread and jam until, one day, she tires of it after having it for the sixth meal in a row.

  The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger, 1951. A quintessential coming-of-age novel related mostly in the first person by the famous protagonist, teenager Holden Caulfield, after his expulsion from yet another prep school.

  “Chicken Soup with Rice,” Maurice Sendak, 1962. A delightful children’s poem that celebrates eating chicken soup with rice every month of the year.

  A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole, 1980. The comic story of Ignatius J. Reilly, a slovenly thirty-year-old ne’er-do-well who lives with his mother in New Orleans.

  The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen, 2001. This novel relates the intertwined stories of the Lamberts, a dysfunctional and repressed Midwestern family—as they prepare to spend “one last Christmas” together in their Ohio home.

  East of Eden, John Steinbeck, 1952. Inspired by the story of Cain and Abel, this book tells the enmeshed stories of two California families, the Trasks and the Hamiltons, and examines humankind’s perpetual struggle between good and evil.

  Emma, Jane Austen, 1815. Austen’s classic chronicles the exploits of wealthy twenty-year-old Emma Woodhouse, who has sworn off marriage yet fancies herself a talented matchmaker for others.

  Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson, 1971. The story of Raoul Duke (a loosely veiled version of Thompson himself) and his lawyer, Dr. Gonzo, as they make their drug-addled way to Las Vegas on assignment for Sports Illustrated and instead binge on recreational drugs.

  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson, 2005. The story of journalist Mikael Blomkvist, who teams up with computer hacker Lisbeth Salander to catch a serial killer in Sweden.

  Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell, 1936. The saga of a proud, rich, and beautiful Southern belle, Scarlett O’Hara, and her romantic liaisons with Ashley Wilkes and Rhett Butler during the Civil War and Reconstruction.

  Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon, 1973. Narrative and character shatter as Tyrone Slothrop, a US Army lieutenant, travels deeper into Europe during World War II to uncover the secret of the Nazis’ classified new rocket (the V-2) in this complex and experimental novel.

  The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925. The story of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his pursuit of the American Dream in the Roaring Twenties.

  Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift, 1726. A satire that recounts the sea adventures of Lemuel Gulliver, whose journey takes him to various unusual and outlandish places.

  Heartburn, Nora Ephron, 1983. Rachel Samstedt, a cookbook writer who discovers that her husband, Mark, is having an affair, humorously relates how she copes with the aftermath.

  Heidi, Johanna Spyri, 1880. The tale of a cheerful and selfless orphan girl sent by an uncaring aunt to the top of a mountain in the Swiss Alps to live with her reclusive grandfather.

  Hopscotch, Julio Cortázar, 1963. The story of Horacio Oliviera and his lover, who live in Paris and refuse to plan their encounters, instead waiting for coincidence to align them in time and place; and later what happens when Horacio returns to Buenos Aires and reconnects with his childhood friend Manolo Traveler.

  The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis, 1950. The first novel in C. S. Lewis’s seven-volume series, The Chronicles of Narnia, follows the adventures of four children—siblings Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy—who stumble upon an enchanted wardrobe that leads them into the magical land of Narnia.

  Little Women, Louisa May Alcott, 1868–69. The coming-of-age story of the four March sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy—in Concord, Massachusetts, in the late 1800s, relating their daily activities, financial difficulties, family emergencies, illnesses, and love interests.

  Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov, 1955. This celebrated and controversial novel is the story of the unruly obsession and subsequent love affair of a middle-aged professor, Humbert Humbert, with his twelve-year-old stepdaughter.

  Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert, 1856. The story of a doctor’s wife who, disenchanted with her life and her dull husband, attempts to alleviate her boredom through two affairs that end badly.

  The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka, 1915. The novel’s protagonist, Gregor Samsa, wakes up one morning to find that he has been transformed into a huge insect.

  Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides, 2002. A Greek family saga, whose protagonist, Callie Stephanides (later Cal), learns at the age of fourteen that she is a hermaphrodite, due to a genetic anomaly.

  Moby-Dick; or The Whale, Herman Melville, 1851. The story of a sailor, Ishmael, and his voyage on a whale ship, whose captain, Ahab, is seeking revenge on the white whale Moby-Dick, which destroyed his boats and bit off his leg on a previous voyage.

  Motherless Brooklyn, Jonathan Lethem, 1999. This novel follows Lionel Essrog, a Brooklyn detective with Tourette’s syndrome, as he attempts to solve the murder of someone close to his heart.

  The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri, 2003. The story of a Bengali couple, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli, and their son, Nikhil, as they struggle to assimilate and define their cultural identity in the United States.

  Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens, 1837. A rags-to-riches story about an orphan boy, born on the streets to a nameless mother, who
has one harrowing experience after another until his fate changes for the better.

  On the Road, Jack Kerouac, 1957. This Beat novel is a winding narrative by Sal Paradise of the three years he spends traveling across the United States, chronicling his reckless adventures with free-spirited Dean Moriarty.

  One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez, 1967. A mystical and layered tale, this book tells the history of the town of Macondo and of several generations of the Buendía family, who founded it, and the misfortunes that befall them over a period of a hundred years.

  Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier, 1938. The gothic tale of a young woman who marries the wealthy Maxim de Winter, only to find that he is still haunted by the death of his first wife, Rebecca.

  Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe, 1719. This classic details the experiences of a sole survivor of a shipwreck in the Caribbean and his life on a remote island near Trinidad.

  The Road, Cormac McCarthy, 2006. A postapocalyptic story of a man and his son making a difficult journey south toward the Gulf Coast after an unspecified catastrophe has ravaged the Earth.

  The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1910–11. This children’s novel tells the story of the ill-tempered orphan Mary Lennox—sent from India to her uncle’s gloomy Yorkshire mansion—who is transformed when she discovers there her invalid cousin, Colin, and an abandoned garden, then restores them both to good health.

  Swann’s Way, Marcel Proust, 1913. The first of seven volumes of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu), known for its theme of involuntary memory, follows the life of the Narrator, whose name is never disclosed.