In Spring 2021 I wrote a post about Elizabeth Strout’s Pulitzer-prize winning novel Olive Kitteridge (published in 2009) and the protagonist’s hunger that acts as a metaphor for unresolved desires and issues. Continue reading “Lucy Barton: the hungry woman”
Tag: muffins
An American Christmas Breakfast
‘”I shall take the cream and the muffins”, added Amy, heroically giving up the articles she most liked.’ (Louisa May Alcott, Little Women)
Every year since I started this blog, I have written a Christmas-themed post: there have been, amongst others, mince pies from Pride and Prejudice, Christmas cake from Jane Eyre and fudge from Dylan Thomas’s A Child’s Christmas in Wales. This year, feeling that I had exhausted my knowledge of Christmas food in English Literature, I decided to look across the Atlantic to America to Louisa Alcott’s Little Women (the new film version of which, directed by Greta Gerwig, is due for release this Christmas). Continue reading “An American Christmas Breakfast”
Afternoon tea
ALGERNON: When I am in trouble, eating is the only thing that consoles me. …At the present moment I am eating muffins because I am unhappy. Besides, I am particularly fond of muffins.
JACK: Well, that is no reason why you should eat them all in that greedy way. (Takes muffins from ALGERNON)
ALGERNON: (Offering tea-cake.) I wish you would have tea-cake instead. I don’t like tea-cake.
(Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest)
Food-wise you can’t get much more quintessentially English than afternoon tea: sandwiches (ideally cucumber and crustless), scones with jam and cream and an array of cakes. Continue reading “Afternoon tea”
Muffins
The English muffin – the yeasty bread-like concoction as opposed to the American cupcake version that is more widely consumed nowadays – dates back more than two hundred years. Continue reading “Muffins”