Back in 2015 I wrote a post – The Hungry Child – about Jane Eyre. In that novel, published in 1847, Charlotte Bronte describes in heartfelt terms the hunger that Jane and her fellow pupils experience at the harsh boarding school Lowood.
More than 170 years later and, depressingly, children are still going hungry. In the UK this has been headline news with the government refusing to extend its provision of free school meals to school children from economically disadvantaged families into the school holidays, despite the campaigning of the Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford. Whatever one’s political views, the outcry from society and the rush from local councils, cafes and restaurants to plug that gap demonstrate how badly the government has judged the mood of the country on this issue, and how strongly people feel about the basic necessity of ensuring children are well fed.
In a serendipitous piece of timing, even before this incident made headline news I had been planning a post on a 21st century novel where childhood hunger rears its head: My Name is Leon by Kit de Waal. De Waal’s novel, which was published in 2016 and shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, follows the experiences of an 8 year old boy – the Leon of the title – who is taken into foster care when his mother is unable to cope.
At the beginning of the novel Leon’s mum, Carol, has just given birth to Leon’s half-brother, Jake. Carol is bringing up her two sons alone without help from either father, and it becomes abundantly clear very quickly that she is not managing: ‘Leon has begun to notice the things that make his mum cry: when Jake makes a lot of noise; when she hasn’t got any money; when she comes back from the phone box; when Leon asks too many questions; and when she’s staring at Jake.’
Leon and Jake are frequently left with Tina, who lives upstairs, and Leon increasingly takes on the role of caring for both his mum and his baby brother, staying at home to look after Jake whilst his mum sleeps, or waking his mum up before he goes to school to remind her to look after Jake.
But de Waal – who prior to becoming a full-time writer worked in family law, sat on adoption panels and has written training manuals on adoption and foster care – makes it clear that Carol’s love for her children is beyond question. As she says to Leon: ‘”I want better for my boys… I want you both to have lovely lives and lots of beautiful things. I want you to live in a posh house with a proper garden.. And I want you to get out of this shithole… So you have to learn things and get an education. Don’t be like me or your dad.“‘ Carol desperately cares for her boys, but her situation, her past and the poor choices she has made limit her ability to provide the secure upbringing her children need.
Carol’s inability to provide the care her sons need is exemplified through food. The fact that ‘Tina’s biscuit tin is always crammed full‘ implies that same kind of abundance is not found at home. In the summer holidays Leon is allowed to ‘eat whatever he wants, but if there’s nothing in the fridge and nothing in the cupboard it doesn’t really count‘. And when Carol does make an effort to feed her children, the result is not good: ‘She says she’s really sorry and she’s going to try harder so she makes a massive breakfast with pancakes and syrup like she saw in a recipe book. It doesn’t taste nice and she starts crying when Leon doesn’t eat it all.’
The situation at home deteriorates and Leon and Jake are taken into care. Their foster mother Maureen is a warm and homely woman, and from the outset food is in abundance. On their first evening, Leon hears the social worker telling Maureen that he and Jake are ‘malnourished‘ . Maureen offers him a Jammie Dodger biscuit, and then another, ‘so Leon had three altogether with some hot chocolate‘ . The next morning he wakes up to the smell of breakfast, and when he goes downstairs Maureen presents him with ‘Bacon sarnie with red sauce. All you can eat‘. For Leon this breakfast ‘tastes like the best thing in the world with soft bread and lots of meat and the sauce that drips on to the plate and he’s got an enormous glass of orange juice which tastes sweeter than Coke and he has a bite of the salty meat and a swig of the sweet orange juice and he keeps doing it until everything is gone‘. De Waal’s use of one long sentence here conveys the way Leon eats and drinks everything without stopping for a breath, so hungry is he and so unused to this type of food. A couple of chapters later Maureen’s range of delicious comforting dinners are listed: ‘It’s impossible to choose a favourite dinner at Maureen’s house. Everything has a funny name like Shepherd’s Pie or Toad in the Hole or Spotted Dick..’ The strangeness of the names of these English classics for Leon suggests how narrow his food experiences have been prior to this, and the fascination of food for this little boy.
Somewhat surprisingly I realised I had never made Shepherd’s Pie, and I haven’t even eaten one for years. It was actually a real revelation to make one and to discover how delicious it is, its tastiness seeming to be in direct proportion to the amount of butter in the mashed potato! For my recipe I used Felicity Cloake’s from Completely Perfect (Penguin, 2011) with a few modifications.
LEON’S SHEPHERD’S PIE
Ingredients (serves 3-4):
400g minced lamb
15g butter
1 large onion, peeled and finely diced
2 carrots, peeled and finely diced
1 leek, outer leaves removed, trimmed and finely diced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
250ml beef stock
1/2 teaspoon cornflour
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
750g potatoes, peeled and cut into evenly-sized pieces
salt and pepper
75g butter
Method:
Melt the 15g butter in a large pan over a medium heat, then add the vegetables, stir around and cover with a lid. Cook for 20 minutes until soft but not brown.
Add the oregano, then turn up the heat and add the lamb. Cook for a few minutes, stirring, until the lamb is brown all over and then add half the stock.
Whisk the other half of the stock with the cornflour and stir into the meat mixture. Add the Worcestershire sauce, turn down the heat and simmer uncovered for 1 hour 15 minutes. Taste the meat, and season if necessary. If it looks dry add a little water or stock.
Let the meat cool slightly whilst you get on with the potato topping. Put the potatoes into a large pan of cold, salted water. Bring to the boil and simmer until tender. Drain and mash with 50g butter. Season to taste.
Preheat the oven to 200C / fan 180C / gas mark 6. Put the meat into a large baking dish and then spoon the potato on top. Dot the potato with the remaining 25g butter.
Bake in the oven for 40-50 minutes until the potato is crisp and slightly brown.
