David Copperfield’s Batter Pudding

 

In my last post, about eating other people’s food, I wrote about the episode in David Copperfield where the young David ‘loses’ his meal to the hungry waiter in the Yarmouth inn.  As well as drinking David’s ale and eating his chops, he also dives eagerly into his ‘batter pudding’: Continue reading “David Copperfield’s Batter Pudding”

The Corrupting Effects of Food

In my last post I wrote about apricots in The Duchess of Malfi and how they are used to ascertain the Duchess’s suspected pregnancy.  Once the pregnancy – and the Duchess’s marriage to her steward Antonio, her social inferior – are confirmed, the Duchess’s villainous brothers set out to destroy her and her family (see http://frompagetoplate.com/2014/05/25/apricots/)

The idea that food, rather than being a form of celebration or sustenance, can have a more malevolent side to it, is a popular idea in early 17th century Jacobean revenge drama.   Continue reading “The Corrupting Effects of Food”