Eating with a French family

As I noted in a previous post – on Virginia Woolf’s To the lighthouse  – French food is very close to my heart (and stomach!). But whilst I have spent many enjoyable an hour in cafes, bistros and restaurants, some of my most vivid and long-lasting impressions of French food were nurtured in the home.  Continue reading “Eating with a French family”

Food in the historical novel

Since I started this blog more than five years ago, I’ve discovered how much literature can tell us about the food preferences and practices of a particular society or culture. Continue reading “Food in the historical novel”

Food and adventure 2: croissants

and then the waiter came with the coffee and croissants’ (Mary Stewart, Madam, will you talk?)

In my last post I wrote about the romantic suspense novels of the 20th century novelist Mary Stewart, with a focus on the wonderful French food that permeates her first publication Madam, will you talk? Out of all the delicious-sounding foodstuffs that Stewart describes, I decided to focus on ‘croissants’ – they recur throughout the novel, they are viewed as a classic French food and I also learnt to make them in France. Continue reading “Food and adventure 2: croissants”

Food and adventure

There’s nothing like an adventure for stirring up an appetite. All that fresh air, exercise and adrenaline can leave one feeling ravenous. Enid Blyton’s Famous Five novels are a case in point, with the four adventure-prone children (plus dog) always finding the time to have a picnic – with ‘lashings of ginger beer’ – even in the middle of high drama and tense action.  Continue reading “Food and adventure”