When we had done, [the waiter] brought me a pudding, and having set it before me, seemed to ruminate, and to become absent in his mind for some moments.
‘How’s the pie?’ he said, rousing himself.
‘It’s a pudding’, I made answer.
‘Pudding!’ he exclaimed. ‘Why, bless me, so it is! What!’ looking at it nearer. ‘You don’t mean to say it’s a batter-pudding!’
‘Yes, it is indeed.’
‘Why, a batter-pudding,’ he said, taking up a table-spoon, ‘is my favourite pudding! Ain’t that lucky? Come on, little ‘un, and let’s see who’ll get most.’
The waiter certainly got most. (David Copperfield, Charles Dickens) Continue reading “Eating someone else’s food”
Christmas Cake: the final touches
And then, at tea…the ice cake loomed in the centre of the table like a marble grave. (Dylan Thomas, A Child’s Christmas in Wales)
A Child’s Christmas
Until now I haven’t written about children’s literature – mainly because I thought this was an area I would move on to once I had exhausted food in the adult classics of English Literature (if I ever do!). But with my thoughts turning to Christmas, I remembered Dylan Thomas’s charming A Child’s Christmas In Wales and its references to seasonal fare. Continue reading “A Child’s Christmas”
Christmas Cake
Christmas is a favourite time of year in literature, with its appearance serving many different narrative functions. Continue reading “Christmas Cake”