I'll Have What That Character's Having: Foods We Want to Try
Emily: “Raspberry Cordial” – Anne of Green Gables
I imagined this to be like an old-time Shirley Temple, but far more sophisticated. That lush Diana Barry could not wait to get her paws on a tumbler-full (I typed that “tumblr,” twice. Internet!) of this shit, so it must have been good because, since she was vaguely rich, I assumed she must've been something of a cordial aficionado. Of course what she was drinking actually turned out to be currant wine (notably absent from the list), but according to the Anne of Green Gables Cookbook, this elixir is basically just raspberry sugar-water.
Katie: “Edible Teacup” – Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
Yes, there’s a chocolate river. Yes, there are plants that kids smash their feet into and then eat out of. Yes, there is lickable wallpaper (a close second). But what I want most from that movie is the teacup that Wonka eats, and I am not alone. I Googled “willy wonka eating teacup” and there are like 95,000 results. I heard that they made the cup out of wax and that they had one million takes where Gene Wilder had to chomp wax teacups. But I still want one.
Emily: “Turkish Delight” - The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Has any person in literature had a bigger craving for anything than Edmund had for Turkish Delight? The way he lusted after it made me assume it was like a decadent, life-affirming pâté. Someone brought a box of the hazelnut variety into my office recently and it was disappointingly pedestrian. Not served in an ornate silver mini-chest? Not followed by a goblet of steamy mystery drink? Conclusion: Turkish Delight is not a treat worth alienating your entire family for.
Katie: “Bubble and Squeak” – Bedknobs and Broomsticks
OK, so I looked this up and actually it's when you mix “mashed potatoes into shredded and sauteed cabbage.” Uhhh gross? Also sometimes it can come with “leftover bits of beef,” so. Mmm.
Emily: “The Cake Fauna Makes” – Sleeping Beauty
First of all, this cake is so big it has to be held up with a broom. It’s nice that Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather are so well-meaning, but it’s like Amelia Bedilia up in that castle until they realize they're fairies and they can just use magic to do everything. So dancing little eggs, sack of flour, thing of yeast (?) — animate and bake yourselves!
Katie: “Crullers” – The Wizard of Oz
Emily tells me that the revolting-looking things that Auntie Em hands out to the family at the beginning of The Wizard of Oz are actually crullers, but I’m not buying it. Dorothy mostly uses hers for angry gesturing and feeding Toto. I feel like if she were actually given a cruller — a delicious doughnut — she would have eaten it herself. Dorothy, help me understand.
Emily: “The Medicine” – Mary Poppins
Mylanta is Mary Poppins a fun nanny! Who could possibly be more fun than a sitter who administers what appear to be psychotropic drugs to her charges? Cordial makes another appearance here, but it is Julie Andrews exclaiming “rrrRUM Punch!” that is so invigorating, it makes me feel like I want sit down and write myself an epic to-do list.
Katie: “The Gray Stuff” - Beauty & the Beast
I know Lumiere says it’s “delicious” but also, it’s gray. What is it? It looks like a pile of some kind of whipped cream on top of a cracker, but GRAY. Belle sticks a finger in it (rude) and looks upward like she’s contemplating the taste, but I can’t tell if she thinks it’s great or not. It is, however, one of just three bites she takes at that entire feast (the others being a cherry and another rude finger full of some … brown stuff) so maybe she saw it and was like “OMFG I LOVE the gray stuff.” Who knows! (I need to.)
Emily: “Cheesy Blasters” - 30 Rock
I just want like ONE bite of this in the same way that I sometimes want to snap into a Slim Jim. This is thanks, in large part, to the catchy theme song ("you take a hot dog, stuff it with some jack cheese, fold it in a pizza [shredding guitar solo], you got Cheesy Blasters!") that I sing to my boyfriend fortnightly. I would also maybe eat one of those tacos in a tote bag from Taco Town.
Katie: “Toot Sweets” – Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Basically these are recorders made out of fruit-flavored candy cane, but they look so much better than that. There’s an entire song dedicated to them. Wikipedia warns that Toot Sweets act as dog whistles that ultimately “ruin the sanitary conditions of the factory,” so this candy is best eaten carefully, stealthily, and out of the presence of canines and other animals sensitive to high-pitched tones.
Emily & Katie: “Butterbeer” – Harry Potter
No explanation necessary.
Emily Weiss and Katie Heaney live in Minneapolis and are really hungry.
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anything, ANYTHING from the Redwall books.
@Lucia Martinez http://www.amazon.com/Redwall-Cookbook-Companion-Books/dp/0399237917
Also, why has no one mentioned pumpkin juice??
@Lucia Martinez you may or may not have gone through a phase of making carrot and mushroom pasties. nerd.
@Lucia Martinez Yes. Yes, yes, yes. I may causally re-read these books from time to time and just skip around to the food parts. And whenever the hares show up. I love the hares!
@Lucia Martinez yessss Brian Jacques was the master of that shit!!!
@Lucia Martinez This recipe is as close as real life can get to Deeper n' Ever Pie. It's pretty great. http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2009/03/root_vegetable_and_mushroom_pie
@pearlforrester YES. THAT ONE.
and if anyone would like to make me a buttercream anything, I'll eat it.
@Lucia Martinez GET OUT OF MY BRAIN.
@Lucia Martinez YAAYYYYYEEEESSSSSS this was this first thing I thought of when I saw the title of this post. What was with those little talking animals and their forest feasts?!
@Lucia Martinez Holy. Shit. YES.
@Lucia Martinez The otters' watercress soup! I crave it.
Y'all know there's a Redwall cookbook? It's totally for kids and is a mix of traditional British sorts of things, like scones, and things that were hopefully never eaten in abbey or on pirate ship, such Cheesy Hedgehog Bake, which is sort of a fritata with tomatoes and crushed corn flakes. Fun though.
@Lucia Martinez YES! I did a whole oral presentation once all about the food from Redwall. And this was BEFORE the cookbook, mind you, so I actually copied out passages from the book and reverse-engineered recipes myself. It was a pretty badass presentation, if I do say so myself.
I want some October Ale!
@KikiCollins I only stumbled across the cookbook when I got it into my head that I should do something similar – write down all the foods as I came across them and note the book for cross-referencing later. The next step would have been finding/making up recipes for everything.
I think the cookbook recipe for October Ale was grape juice and soda.
@Lucia Martinez I thought I was the only one. It was my immediate thought when I saw this post!
@Lucia Martinez I have the Redwall book, and am making shrimp and hotroot soup as we speak. It is delicious! But I think it would be more delicious if I were sharing it with a entire otter holt.
@Lucia Martinez I don't care if this is like a month later, but REDWALL BOOKS DURING SCHOOL READING TIME MADE ME DROOOOOL. I used to imagine the church at the top of my street was Redwall, I was obsessed, and my brother and I would constantly talk about how awesome all the food sounded. YUMMM. No way I could've handled the hot zoup. I'm no hare.
@Lucia Martinez Yes!! I am so glad so many people are seconding how amazing ALL the food in the Redwall books sounds. I want to eat any of the cheeses, especially the ones studded with nuts.
1. A Wonka Scrumdiddlyumptious bar. The closest I can find is a vanilla Charleston Chew and you'd better believe I pretend every time.
2. Cartoon chicken leg, why do you look so good?
@apatosaurus But they made those? http://www.amazon.com/Wonka-Chocolate-Bars-Scrumdiddlyumptious-12CT/dp/B0043RW70M
Don't know if it's the same as in the book/movie though…
@punkahontas Oh, they're totally different! The one in the movie is super long and has some kind of marshmallow or coconut type filling. This one has peanuts and toffee, which I'm sure is delicious, but not the same. Get out of here, phony Scrumdiddlyumptious, you know?
@apatosaurus I miss the Wonka bars that they replaced with those deluxe or gourmet Wonka bars. But a chocolate bar with graham cracker in it? That was delicious. Bring back Wonka bars!
@apatosaurus CARTOON CHICKEN LEG – yes!
@apatosaurus Yeah, that one did look special. Why wouldn't they just make it like that? It's not like no one has ever seen the movie!
I am British, and let me tell you, Bubble and Squeak is BEYOND. Beyond beyond beyond. Excellent. In fact I had it for dinner just two nights ago, complete with lashings of ketchup. Droooool. It's so much more than mash and cabbage – it's YESTERDAY'S mash and cabbage, squidged together and fried until golden brown and crisp on the outside, fluffy and satisfying within.
Also, HAZELNUT turkish delight? What? No wonder you were disappointed.
@sophduck hold up. fried!????!?
@annierebekah but of course. FRIED, my friend, is the whole point of the dish. Try it. Thank me later.
@annierebekah Yeah, it all sounded disgusting (particularly with the addition of ketchup?) until she added that it was fried. Anything is delicious fried.
@thebestjasmine: and anything fried is good with ketchup/catsup.
@Hot mayonnaise Hmm, I think only fried potato items are good with ketchup. But it was the idea of mashed potatoes with it that made me want to gag. Once you FRY the mashed potatoes, though, that makes the whole thing sound a lot better.
@sophduck Is it ok if I leave out the cabbage (ick!) and just fry up some mashed potatoes?
@sophduck bubble & squeak rocks! had some a few weeks ago with bacon and gouda and eggs on top, nomliciousness.
@madge Mmmmm, that sounds delicious.
@Mister Horrible
Yep but only if you replace them with any vege. Cabbage and beef hash is traditional but any other vege is acceptable. hell some folks fry up left over veggie curry as bubble and squeak… So long as its got potatoes usually mashed…
@sophduck
Yes, hazelnut Turkish delights sounds disgusting. Rosewater Turkish delight is worth at least a bratty sibling.
@sophduck Yes! This! And not just fried – fried in butter. Lovely, golden, crispy, buttery, loveliness. Did I mention that it's lovely? Great as part of a cooked breakfast, maybe with bacon and a poached egg.
@sophduck Alright, that sounds amazing but I just can't get past the name. Even if it doesn't actually squeak, it conjures up the thought of eating squeaky foods (like string beans). It needs a new name for me to eat it.
@jen325
Those are the sounds it makes cooking!
ALSO: bangers and mash.
@atipofthehat AHA! In that case, I will have to hear it being prepared before eating it, and it will have to make that sound. I have a pretty strong aversion to certain textures in my mouth (read that any way you see fit). I'm not sure about cabbage taste-wise, but this preparation sounds tasty enough to make up for it.
@Pixie Rosewater Turkish Delight really is the kind of thing you eat till you feel sick and then finish off the plate and then look kind of longingly at the empty plate and wish you had some more.
I used to get Rum Raisin ice cream in the hopes that it would maybe taste something like "Rum Punch."
I would also like a slice of Bruce Bogtrotter's chocolate cake from Matilda, please. And I've always wondered what my ice cream flavor would taste like (to others, of course), should Miss Jewls concoct one for me.
@apatosaurus
Speaking of Roald Dahl concoctions, I always wanted to take a bite out of the giant peach.
@apatosaurus: I had an awesome cookbook I ordered from those Troll Book fliers they handed out in grammar school that was a collection of recipes inspired by Roald Dahl's books. They had a recipe for Bruce Bogtrotter's cake (it looked fantastic), as well as recipes for lickable wallpaper from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and the bird pie from The Twits.
(Totally gonna go dig that up now when I get home today.)
@HydrogenJukebox: Oh! I bet it's the Revolting Recipes book! I need to get a copy of that. Thanks for the reminder!
@apatosaurus Ms Jewls was the shiz. I always wanted to try Maurecia's flavor, for some forgotten reason.
@apatosaurus I love the Wayside School ice cream flavors! But now that I am reading the Wikipedia on the books, I wonder why I was such a weird child.
@apatosaurus oh my god yes.
@beanie Now you've got me reading the wiki pages for those books. I had the math books, they were so weird. Also I loved Miss Zarves so much that I'm changing my Hairpin name.
-Formerly TheWaitress
@apatosaurus I made it from the Revolting Recipes book when I was wee! I remember it being great. And also very drippy? I think you pretty much smothered it in chocolate as well as it been chocolate sponge etc.
@apatosaurus yes! and in the movie he grabs a fistful the size of a basketball and it looks so sweet and juicy and ahhhh
@apatosaurus The Hairpin Hivemind has struck again! I was just telling some elementary-school aged friends about the ice cream story the other day! I saw the book at B&N over the weekend and have been obsessing since.
(Also, my first post! I don't know how I resisted so long; the Hairpin is singing my life with its words.)
I just googled "what is the gray stuff in beauty and the beast" and WikiAnswers said, "no one knows. It is mentioned in one line of the song be our guest. Lumiere tells Belle to "try the grey stuff, it's delicious, don't believe me?, ask the dishes!" As Lumiere tells her to try the grey stuff, Belle dips a finger into a dish of something grey. The dish proceeds to dance out of the frame. No other mention is given to the grey stuff."
But I think it might be a kind of pâté.
@annierebekah I always thought it looked pate-ish. which, yeah, is pretty delicious, if you like that sort of thing. which the french do.
@annierebekah i always assumed it was some sort of pudding thing. grey pudding… mmm, delicious.
@annierebekah
A few years ago my sister and I realized that the grey stuff is the only thing she consumes during that entire song.
Sister: "THAT'S BULLSHIT"
Diana: "I WOULD NEVER BE YOUR GUEST"
@teenie Ditto pate.
I've actually never had Turkish Delight because I am afraid it will never, ever live up to the description in the book, and thus ruin my childhood love for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
@Bebe It is disgusting – sticky and overly sweet.
@Bebe Lies. It is delicious (though it's basically rarefied gum drops, so if you don't like sugar, don't bother). And it should only be sticky if it gets wet or if it's poorly made. Also, go for fruit flavoured or rosewater or something. The very idea of hazelnut lokum is gross to me.
@Bebe I was completely surprised when I first had Turkish Delight. I had imagined something chocolaty and it is definitely not! Maybe I'll bring some to the NYC meetup next week? Good ice breaker.
@Steven Hmm… I was imagining some sort of merengue-y type thing (or however you spell that). I do love gummy candies, though. I'm torn! Maybe I'll just opt for whatever was in that mystery hot chocolate instead.
@Rosebudddd I was also surprised! I somehow skipped over the "dessert" descriptors in the Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe, and assumed it was some really good TURKEY. Very disappointing.
REMEMBER THOUGH that the book takes place during WWII. sugar is rationed. these kids are completely candy-deprived. i'm not surprised edmund craves the sweetest thing he can think of. i think that's part of the point, how lustful and irrational it is.
@parallel-lines I agree. Turkish Delight is foul.
@Bebe Y'all, please do not mess with anything that is not Ali Muhiddin Haci Bekir (http://www.hacibekir.com.tr). Pretty much all other lokum (particularly what gets imported to the states) is crap in comparison. The roasted pistachio is my favorite, followed closely by rose-lemon.
@Bebe It was either Stephen Fry himself or one of his guests on "QI" that said Turkish Delight tastes "exactly like a hot Turkish urinal." Which is not a thing I want to associate with any part of my childhood.
@Steven I think Hazelnut flavor sounds awesome! I've had like, lemon, rosewater, and some other fruit and they were VERY sweet. Also coated in powdered sugar. Also, I recall being able to purchase something called "Turkish Delight" in drugstores in England? But they were basically fruity gel surrounded by chocolate and THEY were DELICIOUS.
@parallel-lines Not to be THAT person right now, but I always thought Turkish Delight was sick until I ate real TD in actual Turkey. It was amazing! So I would like to believe that Edmund got the authentic stuff.
@plonk Exactly. I read this book, "Few Eggs, No Oranges" which is a diary of life during the war. Everyone would go mad over a rare proper cake or cherries coming into season and actually being in the shops.
A friend brought me fresh turkish delight from Turkey and it was amazing. So many different flavors and perfect.
@Bebe up until this very moment, I thought that Turkish Delight was the same thing as turrone, which is delicious and meringue-y. Like a denser, chewy meringue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turr%C3%B3n
Krabby Patty.
@Megan@twitter But it goes straight to your thighs! And then you explode!
@Megan@twitter My sister got her son to eat fairly gross (well, strong tasting, to a 4 year old) canned salmon burgers by calling them Krabby Patties. He's 12 and they still call them that, except he makes them.
Tomacco from the Simpsons. Think of all the things you could make! Ketchup: NOW WITH NICOTINE!
@Anne: Or just smoke while you're eating fries, lazybones. Sheesh.
@Anne They totally did make this! Somebody figured out that tomatoes and tobacco are both members of the nightshade family, and grafted one onto the other. It even looked like real tomatoes. But I'm pretty sure that it was either lethally tobacco-y or it just didn't taste good, so.
To this day I say "Rrrrrum punch! Quite satisfactory" after taking cough syrup. It makes Robitussin surprisingly less vile.
@Dancersize Imitating "rrRUMpunch!" is one of my favorite things. That and "Maaary Poppins, practically perfect in every way."
The imaginary food from Hook!
@Becca YES! Oh my god. The blue icing stuff!
@Becca Why did I have to scroll all the way down the page before this came up? It should have been the first thing in the post!
@Becca I created an account just to say THANK YOU. After reading this I kept thinking about brightly colored mashed potato-like food, with kids scooping their hands into it, and I couldn't think of it for the life of me!
@Becca As someone who doesn't like touching food with their hands (exceptions: while cooking, sandwiches), that scene horrified me as a child!!
@Becca Some friends of mine lived the dream! Bangarang!
@martini ugh, same reaction. That scene still makes me a little gaggy.
@christonacracker @martini The all-too-wrong colors and textures of the Hook food always totally made me go all hurky. Just the idea of it blorping all over the place…gross.
@Becca Rufio! Rufio! Ruffiooooooooo!
snozzberries
brawndo
tomacco
I was so bummed when I learned that turkish delight is a real thing (and it's really grody)
@parallel-lines Also
Slurm
Colon Blow (when my diet is really bad)
Crab Juice
Sabor de Soledad
@parallel-lines
Oh, Lord… Slurm. Never ever ever.
@parallel-lines We made our own Slurm interpretation for a friend of ours that we call Slurms. It was delicious and good! This comment would be better if I could remember the recipe. Then you could judge for yourself. Oh well!
@pixieg It has to be Mountain Dew x a million. Like, just the soda fountain syrup without the carbonated water mixed in. Or Mountain Dew with waaaaaaaaaaaaay too much honey mixed in.
@parallel-lines Brawndo- it's what the plants crave!
Horehound candy- Where The Red Fern Grows. "My eyes never leftmy grandfather's hand. Time after time it dipped in and out of the candy counter: peppermint sticks, jawbreakers, horehound and gumdrops. The sack bulged, so did my eyes."
My vintage copy of the joy of cooking had the recipe, and I actually grew horehound as a kid, and dried it in a plan to make it, but it got all dusty from the drying. I came across horehound candy at a walgreens of all places in college, and all my dreams were made real. It tastes kind of like ricola. It's good, but…herby? Today's kids wouldn't go for it I'm sure.
@E Ahem
@boyofdestiny I know! I'm sorry. It is a literary food though. What if I pretend it's from Little House on the Prarie or Constance of Plimouth instead?!
@E Cracker Barrel has horehound hard candy! Which always seemed hilarious to a younger me because of the use of the word "whore"
@E: horehound is AMAZING, like the best molasses candy evah.
@E Oh dang, I just bought some horehound candy from a Mennonite girl in the Finger Lakes last weekend! I love that I just wrote that sentence.
When I was maybe…7? I saw cordials on the menu when I was out to dinner with my grandparents and immediately started prattling on to them and the waitress about how I had read about them in Anne of Green Gables but had never seen them on a menu before. Having only read the word, however, I pronounced it cor-dee-al instead of cordjal. No one had any idea what I was talking about until I pointed to it.
I also had no idea it was alcohol; I assumed it was some sort of raspberry syrup.
@lavender gooms In Australia, we call it "cord-ee-al", but that's in reference to sweet flavoured syrup that you mix with water. Definitely non-alcoholic. I'm not sure of the interpretations in other countries though- all this time I've read about characters drinking cordial and I assumed they were all having a lovely innocent time with their sugary water, but now I learn that they were all lushes!
I remember being little and watching All Dogs Go to Heaven, and craving a piece of the stringy, drippy animated pizza they eat during that hokey upbeat song about sharing.
@HydrogenJukebox if we're going to to talk about stringy delicious pizza, I want a slice from the original TMNT movie. I remember begging my mom to find pizza like that but sadly, 20 years later, I've yet to find it. Tragedy.
@supergirlieque OMG ME TOO. The cartoon even made the pizza look amazing. Although there was a gas station where my brother's friend worked, and he would give us so much extra cheese that I decided it had to be pretty close to the ooey gooey delicious-looking TMNT pizza.
@HydrogenJukebox I loved the ADGTH pizza! AND when the nice new parents are making the orphan girl (Annabelle?) those waffles. Man.
@HydrogenJukebox
My sister and I decided long ago that in heaven all they serve is the pizza from Archie comics and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
This one time (high school), I wanted to try lembas, and then I realized it was glorified Elvish hard tack. It's like when they try and sell you "polenta" for a ton of money, and then it turns out that polenta is just corn mush from Italy.
@bouncy castle Real polenta is fantastic; the kind in the grocery store is not the same.
@bouncy castle Yeah, but apparently elven hard tack tastes FANTASTIC. Every time they eat it in the book, they're like yum, this is the best food ever. They do get a little sick of it eventually, but it's pretty clear that in normal circumstances where you don't have to eat it at every meal, it's awesome. I always imagined it kind of like a less sweet version of a tea cake – light, thin, crispy around the edges.
All of the picnic food in Wind in the Willows. And some butterbeans and Pass the Damn Ham from To Kill a Mockingbird.
@charmcity Butterbeans were one of my favorite foods as a kid (I know, WEIRD KID!) so I never thought of them as literary!
@lovelettersinhell I still love butterbeans!!
@Sarah H. I was very sad to learn that they're basically just lima beans.
I hope the next happy hour has a recipe for the Flaming Moe.
@parallel-lines
Barney's Thanks-tini and Romulan Ale also need to make an appearance.
@Dancersize: Pangalactic Gargleblasters too?
@HydrogenJukebox But we already have a recipe for that. And if you can't find some of that Ol' Janx Spirit, you can always wrap a gold brick in a slice of lemon and smash your brains out.
@parallel-lines Isn't that just a gin and tonic?–
I have Harriet M Welsch to thank for my lifelong obsession with tomato sandwiches.
@TheWaitress OH MAN I have tried this many times, also thanks to Harriet M Welsch, but mine always get soggy. I don't get it.
@christonacracker the trick is to seal the bread with miracle whip first. then eat it right away. I know Harriet is all about smushing the tomatoes on the bread, but I prefer neat slices.
@christonacracker Salt the tomato slices slightly (or don't) then lay them on paper towels for like a minute each side to wick away the moisture. I think I saw this on Barefoot Contessa and it has changed my entire tomato sandwich eating life.
@NightOwl oohhhhhh this makes sense.
@Miss Zarves I hated tomatoes as a child (up until I was 25, actually), and so I was always so grossed out by Harriet's tomato sandwiches. I'm still kind of grossed out that she ate them in the winter, because winter tomatoes are disgusting. But man now that I like tomatoes, a late August tomato, sliced, on good bread, with salt on it, is incredible.
I still think that the idea of eating them hours after making them is gross, though. That shit you have to eat 30 seconds after preparing.
@Miss Zarves Harriet the Spy always wanted me to have an egg cream…in the little fancy cup!
@christonacracker Toast the bread, ever-so-lightly — not so much that it's hard and brown like breakfast toast, but just enough so it gives the bread some structure. (Also, don't use Wonder Bread.)
@beanie me, too! i never knew what it was until about 3 years ago, but i'm still fascinated by them and get all excited about drinking one. also, yes to tomato sandwiches (and really, absolutely anything Harriet the Spy related). i tried to emulate that shit so hard. i checked the houses of everyone i knew for a dumbwaiter.
can i just say this entire thread has been the delight of my otherwise abysmal week. being a voracious reader as a kid really has its payoffs sometimes.
a friend and I tried to make Butterbeer from a Heston Blumenthal recipe: we substituted almost all the spices for cinnamon and it tasted like hot antiseptic. But, just in case any lovely Hairpinners are better equipped and less drunk:
2 cans ale
¾ tsp ground ginger
½ tsp ground cloves
¾ tsp ground nutmeg
120g caster sugar
5 egg yolks
20g unsalted butter
Pour the ale into a saucepan and stir in the ground ginger, cloves and nutmeg: heat this mixture until it is warm. In the meantime, using a hand-held blender, blitz the egg yolks and sugar in a bowl until light and creamy. Once the spiced ale is warm, add the egg yolk and sugar mixture and return to the heat, stirring constantly, until the liquid starts to thicken slightly. Be careful not to let the saucepan get too hot or the eggs will scramble. Maintain this temperature for 2 minutes. After 2 minutes, remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the butter until it melts. Then froth the mixture with a small cappuccino whisk until it looks like frothy, milky tea.
@elsbet If you add rum to that instead of beer you pretty much have hot buttered rum, which is EXCELLENT.
@parallel-lines Yes, it is! Also, take away the egg yolks.
@thebestjasmine yes! I think the egg-yolks were where we went wrong; they congealed on the bottom of the pan – a little like a burnt plastic bag. Thank god for Ask A Clean Person.
@elsbet Did you temper the yolk before adding it? That… could be where it went wrong?
@lovelettersinhell Also… butterscotch schnapps in cream soda tastes like what my tongue/brain (kind of like heart/vagina) believes butterbeer to be.
@elsbet Screw Butterbeer (okay, not really, but still), I want to try Firewhiskey! Except… that sounds kind of like just regular whiskey. But no, it has to be different! Because it's magical! Right?
I always wanted to try that blue milk from one of the beginning scenes of the first Star Wars movie, with Uncle Owen and Aunt Veru. It made me think of Downy and I have always wanted to try drinking Downy.
@NightOwl Why not? There was a "My Strange Addiction" where a gal was addicted to eating dryer sheets…
@DrFeelGood Hahahaha yeah I know I almost edited to say "but this borders a little too much on My Strange Addiction territory". It just looks so creamy!
@DrFeelGood There was also one on laundry soap. The girl quit college because she "couldn't handle being alone on campus with all that soap!"
Pretty much everything from Laura Ingalls Wilder's memory. Farm Boy was basically Overeaters Anonymous. Jars of fucking doughnuts on a daily basis? Yes, thanks.
@christonacracker Oh my god, Farmer Boy. Looking back, I think it's my favorite book, simply because of all the food. Popcorn! Doughnuts! That taffy that they fed to the pig!
@christonacracker Oh my God, seriously. I always wanted the thing where they put the hot maple syrup on snow. Those books even made a pigs tail roasted over a fire sound delicious.
@punkahontas the stupid pig tail sounded totally good! Also, speaking of pig parts, she was pretty good at making a game of catch with pig organs sound like wholesome fun.
@punkahontas I have done the maple syrup on snow thing. it is delicious, if inclined to get stuck in your teeth.
@christonacracker …like football? (aka "pigskin"?)
@Lucia Martinez I did the store bought maple syrup over some ice cubes. It is not the same.
@christonacracker I used to have my mom make me fried apples 'n onions.
@lalaland it has to be snow, and the syrup has to be the good, thick stuff, poured hot. also delish if you add in some brown sugar while it's heating.
@Lucia Martinez no, Pa inflated the pig's bladder for the girls to toss around.
@christonacracker duhhh gawd what kind of slackass LHOTP devotee do you think I am? I mean tossing a pig bladder around–aka football–is generally considered good wholesome fun. questionable though that general consideration may be.
@punkahontas You need this: http://www.amazon.com/Little-House-Cookbook-Frontier-Ingalls/dp/0064460908
@christonacracker I can't reread Farmer Boy without a snack. Especially when he's talking about the holiday meals? My God. All of the doughnuts and pie alone kill me, and I still need to make fried apples n'onions. And everyone in this thread who hasn't read The Wilder Life needs to read it immediately.
@Lucia Martinez That sounds delicious. I grew up in Texas, so sadly I had to improvise. I also ate an acorn (shelled) once as a child as the Redwall books made them sound so delicious! My childhood was a series of culinary letdowns.
@thebestjasmine Thanks to Farmer Boy, I tried cheddar cheese on apple pie. It is fucking AWESOME.
@smartlypretty I made an apple pie with a cheddar crust (sort of regular pie crust with cheese in there too), and it was out of this world. I can't wait to make it again.
@punkahontas yes, and what about vanity cakes with the ice cold milk from the cellar in tin cups? the.best.
@lalaland Ahhh… I tried to do it on ice chips too. Didn't work. sad.
@CrescentMelissa i love when ma and pa go away and the kids are like 'hey hey hey make ice cream every day.'
@CrescentMelissa @punkahontas OMG YES YES VANITY CAKES AND PIG'S TAILS.
@CrescentMelissa Oh, VANITY CAKES! I have been obsessed with what I think they taste like since I first read that book over 20 years ago… in my mind they taste like a lighter cannoli shell.
@DandelionTacy http://www.food.com/recipe/vanity-cakes-162057
@christonacracker liver with fried apples & onions is where it's at. yummmm.
@Lucia Martinez Holy shit, thank you! That's almost my family's recipe for cannoli shells…. I'm a little scared to make vanity cakes because I feel like I'll be so sad if they don't taste as light and crisp as they do in my mind!
This makes me want to go push Nellie into the creek.
@christonacracker There is a Little House cookbook somewhere out there– you can find it on Amazon. I think I would to go a restaurant to try all that Little House food, but maybe not make it myself– it sounds like a lot of work, some of it. When you read on to The House on Silver Lake, there is soooo much salt pork being eaten- every meal it sounds like. If you read the history of the Ingalls family, most of them died of diabetes, or complications of it– sad.
@Leslie Popplewell I remember being fascinated in Farmer Boy when he put an entire cup of popcorn into a cup of milk of the same size. That blew my eight year old mind, from a physics stand point, AND tasted really gross AND got me in trouble when I tried it.
@Delighted by User Okay, but the world needs to know: did it WORK when you did it?
@thebestjasmine I just got an email from the library that my copy of The Wilder Life has finally arrived (almost 4 months after requesting it). Im SO flippin excited to get it!
@Katiesaurous you are going to LOVE IT. For real.
@Katiesaurous Just know that it's going to make you totally want to reread all of the Little House books, so request all of them now. Yayyy, that will be such fun reading.
@punkahontas i tried the maple syrup on snow thing as a kid… using Ms. Butterworths. and a microwave. needless to say, it did not work.
also, fuck yes to everything LH related. i can never get enough.
@christonacracker I always wondered– Laura wrote all this from memories, and a lot of it wasn't written until later in her life. Almanzo must have talked a LOT about his childhood– it's like the musings of a middle aged man on his idyllic childhood– so much food! The Wilder family was described as being fairly well-to-do for farmers, putting money in the bank every year, raising terrific horses, etc. There are detailed descriptions of the enormous barn, how well outfitted it was, yet the Wilders sold that farm a few years after Farmer Boy took place and moved to try farming elsewhere. It always seemed strange to me, like maybe things weren't as wonderful and stable as Almanzo remembered them. Reading that book makes me think of all the long days Laura and ALmanzo must have spent together in their little farmhouse, just telling each other about their childhoods.
@Leslie Popplewell wait, if you read The Wilder Life it sheds a lot of light on all of this. All of these details and such. It was very interesting to read about the books and how they were written after creating this whole fantasy around them when I was little. And the author, as a lot of us that read these books, did the same. It's a wonderful read, but made me a little misty to to get facts instead of what I built in my head around these stories and who Laura was.
@Leslie Popplewell That, and also that a lot of the food descriptions in Farmer Boy were basically food porn for Laura, who had such a food starved childhood.
@Lucia Martinez – How does the maple syrup thing compare to the maple sugar "candy" you can get at World Market and other assorted places? I always pretended to myself they were the same thing …
I want the goopy pizza those fearsome fighting Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would eat on the daily.
And OF COURSE raspberry cordial! But only if it is spiked so I can be intoxicated like Diana.
@LolaLaBalc The guy from Angry Video Game Nerd/Cinemassacre made a bunch of the grossly-topped pizzas Michelangelo mentions in the series, (ok, he kind of cheated and just ordered a bunch of pizzas and topped them after delivery, but I wouldn't want to make 15 pizzas from scratch either) and filmed his methodical/merciless consumption of them. So gross, but I could not look away. He jumps right in with peanut butter and CLAMS.
I'm just going to leave this right here. On the windowsill.
@spiralbetty I had to login to mention the hot chocolate Bart does drink in this episode, or rather chew. I have always wanted my marshmallows to swell up with the absorbed hot chocolate so I could eat it like that. I kind of hate marshmallows for not being amazing, edible sponges.
The cake from the bazaar in Pollyanna! My sisters & will have cravings for it every so often, because it looks GLORIOUS!
Also, Fauna making that cake is one of my favorite clips of film. "Fold??" & "cupscupscupscups!" She's the best.
@one cow. I've always sung Fauna's song while baking.
@one cow. When she folds, doesn't she fold in the ENTIRE egg? Shells and all? I do not want to eat that cake! But when I cook, I always say "tsps" out loud, the way she does. It's so cute!
A friend of mine made butter beer for her daughters birthday party and it was AMAZING!
I think this is the recipe: http://www.yumsugar.com/Harry-Potter-Cocktail-Recipe-12127578
Winnie the Pooh's honey. His honey always looks like it is sooo much more delicious and smackable than my honey.
@Radio_LJ Regular honey is such a disappointment in comparison.
P.S. I love Sleeping Beauty. Visually it's got so much going on. The cake, when it's got the frosting sliding down the broomstick and the godmother fairy is taking each one off and popping it back on, like I Love Lucy at the chocolate factory?! So good/gloopy. When the king is fighting with a fish off the table?! The dragon and the arrows turning to flowers! The magic fight in the cottage with blue and pink sparks!?
P.P.S. I would like to smell/see Klingon food. Just the once. Just for curiousity. If there were a Klingon grocery I imagine, like my local Korean groceries, it would have little ready to go tubs with squiggly things in it, which have a 50/50 chance of being horrid/delicious.
@E The visuals in Sleeping Beauty are absolutely gorgeous.
All the food/booze described in 'A Year in Provence'
@KirRoyale Love that book! My French teacher had us read it in high school and ever since then my life plan somehow involves "move to Provence."
When I first saw 'character's foods we want to try', I immediately thought of the pizza in All Dog's Go To Heaven. So much drippity cheese! So much sharing!
I am always disappointed that Christmas never involves figgy pudding.
I'm incredibly disappointed in myself for not thinking of Screech's Secret Sauce right off the bat.
Any other Enid Blyton readers here? I always wanted the exploding toffee that Moonface had in the Faraway Tree. Anybody else? No? Just me then…
@peenerbambina YES. So much of what Enid Blyton's characters ate sounded foul (TINNED TONGUE WHYYYY) but the Faraway Tree had some good stuff.
@peenerbambina Also see the pop biscuits and google buns referenced downthread.
@peenerbambina YES I was going to comment on the way Blyton made everything sound delicious, even kippers pressed into gingerbread (what? but somehow, nom), I just looked up The Faraway Tree on wiki to find out what those toffee things were called! As far as I remember they were some kind of biscuit and when you bit into them all this toffee came out in your mouth. SO GOOD. The rationing thing came up earlier; I think it's one of the reasons wartime authors like Blyton and CS Lewis were able to write so mouthwateringly about cakes and sweets etc. They were probably craving it themselves!
Okay! last one. I loved "The Blue Sword" as a kid. When she's in the tents of the Hillsmen, she eats an interesting cheese, a sticky crunchy dessert and drinks a chai-ish beverage I think they call "malak", and a drink that gives visions. All of those sound SUPER delicious, and the tents sound like something out of an anthropologie catalogue.
@E Aaaaah, The Blue Sword! Yes! It's been a long while since I last read it so I don't remember the food so much, except thinking it sounded way better than the insipid breakfast Harry has with her relatives in the beginning. But yes, the tents always made me lust to see them in real life. Basically I loved that book and still love that book forever and always.
@E & martinipie OMAGAH The Blue Sword and everything that Robin McKinley has ever written ever! Why is she so underappreciated, whyyyyyyy. Yes, all the food in The Blue Sword and The Hero and The Crown sounds so delicious. (Also esp that soup that Luthe makes, I don't know why. Mmmm, potatoes.) And if you haven't you must immediately, immediately read Sunshine 8 times. Robin McKinley + lead character who's a baker = crazy food; the first example that springs to mind is Bitter Chocolate Death…
@E yesssssssssss so good. malak sounds so delicious. and the cheese eaten with knives. everything that she writes is amazing. i don't understand why people don't know. and when i try to tell them their eyes just glaze over and all they see is the silly fantasy novel cover. but it only looks silly if you haven't read the book! i sweearrrrrrrr!!! listen to me! deerskin is also amazing in the most screwed up way possible.
@jetztinberlin My husband independently basically invented the Death of Marat. He was experimenting with port and wound up digging a deep trough in an angel food loaf cake, filling it with strawberry-port sauce, and putting the top of the cake back on. When sliced, it behaved just as Sunshine describes it. Gory and delicious!
I wanted all the food from Little House on the Prairie…needless to say impoverished pioneer food is, er, not that delicious? My parents did consent to making me johnnycakes, which were disgusting, but not too long ago I realized they did it wrong! You're supposed to fry a pound of bacon and then fry the johnnycakes in the bacon fat! My parents decided not to waste a pound of bacon on my Laura fantasy and instead baked them on a tray in the oven. Only problem being they're basically just corn meal, water and salt…so you kind of need the bacon fat.
@Kim Gianfrancesco@twitter oh, wilder missed her calling in food porn.
my favorites were all in farmer boy. don't know why that kid got the best food, but seriously, from a random-ass page: "stacked pancakes," different from regular pancakes in that they are stacked with butter and maple sugar until a buttery sugar forms "and soaked the fluffy pancakes and dripped all down their crisp edges."
why am i eating soup.
The teacup from Willy Wonka is the the #1 thing-from-a-movie I've wanted to eat for my entire life.
@punkahontas but aren't those gigantic gummy bears tempting? Or the white goo out of the mushroom top? It is really my dream to have a Willy Wonka candy room in my house.
@punkahontas Don't you think there's a way to do this? Maybe mold a teacup out of chocolate, and dip it in candy coating. That way it's a teacup shaped M&M and it won't melt!
@punkahontas Me too. I always imagined the teacup as a kind of sugar cookie.
@Mister Horrible I made a paperbag chocolate once, and it was super cool! You melt the chocolate, brush it on the inside of a donut or bakery bag, and stand it up the the freezer, then peel off the bag, and have a perfect little bag shaped chocolate! I bet you could do this with a teacup if you greased it.
@beanie Why has no one else mentioned the mushroom goo? I'm sure it's just whipped cream or something, but you know you want to lick it right out of a giant candy mushroom some day.
Also, I always felt pretty strongly that the teacup would be lemon flavored. Come on, IT MAKES PERFECT SENSE.
@Roaring Girl I always thought the teacup was made up of ice cream cone material-ah so many feelings!
@beanie I agree that the teacup would be mildly lemon flavored, or just sugar flavored. Or, like if honeysuckle was a flavor of candy. It totally wouldn't be chocolate! I think it would taste like ribbon candy, or those big lollipops you get on the boardwalk or fairs.
Now that I've learned it was made out of wax, I imagine it tasting like those candy wax lips, which is not as delicious but probably more accurate.
@punkahontas same here! i always imagine it to have the consistency of thin white chocolate but taste lemon-y with lots of sugar. mmmmm
@punkahontas I honestly just wanted everything from that scene. I'm always envious when they do candyland-like scenes in movies, because I'm like "SO MUCH WANT." Wouldn't it be fun to be in a world of candy?
Oh! I'm so glad Mary Poppins made the list! WHENEVER I pour something out and it makes a "glug glug" sound, be it laundry detergent or tequila, my tongue is forced, impulsively, to roll out "rrrrum punch!"
http://www.cookingiceandfire.com/
I bet Ned Stark wouldn't have eaten most of this stuff.
@D.@twitter ned stark's honor does not allow him to enjoy delicious things.
@D.@twitter http://innatthecrossroads.com/ is better. They do both modern and medieval versions of the recipes.
@breccia GRRM must only sit down to write just before a meal– he is hungry, so he must write about food constantly. Even in scenes that are otherwise important, he must take out time to describe what kind of food is on the table, and how it was prepared.
So many fantasy books, so many awesome sounding dishes! Crystal Singer by Anne McCaffrey had endless food description scenes due to the Crystal Singers' insane metabolism and heightned senses.
Melanie Rawn also had some delicious sounding food; constant banquets and feasts in the Dragon Prince books (lobsters steamed in silk! Giant pastries built to look like each Prince's home castle!) and the Exiles books had almost-modern sounding restaurants and coffee shops that sounded amazing.
MOST of the food in A Song of Ice and Fire sounds delicious, like a certain 77 course meal, but everything that's offered to Daenerys to eat is horrifying.
@lavender gooms
You mean you DON'T want raw horse heart? What's wrong with you?
@lavender gooms YESSSSSS someone mentioned my two faves!! I've always thought klah sounded amazing, even though the recipe in the Dragonlovers' Guide was less than inspiring. And in Exiles, when Cailet gets served that bird-themed meal in Ryka Court? OH YES PLEASE.
@erinzyme OH MY GOD I JUST WANT CAPTAL'S TOWER TO BE WRITTEN.
And yes! The bird breakfast! I had completely forgotten about that.
@lavender gooms She had a major depression and wrote those ones about the lady in NY instead. Its such a bummer. My theory is she didn't know what to do about Collan's secret parentage so deeply hinted at, and just gave up. It ends in such a depressing place.
@E I know, I'm so sad.
There's a line in one of the books where he thinks something along the lines of "he could have been a Garvedian or an Ostin, a (name I don't remember) or even really a Rosvenir, for all he knew" and I always figured those were the names of his four grandparents BUT I GUESS I WILL NEVER KNOW.
@lavender gooms She's writing a new fantasy series now that'll be out soon-ish, called Glass Thorns, and finished up The Diviner, sequel to The Golden Key. So at least she's writing again. BUT OH MY GOD JUST WRITE THE CAPTAL'S TOWER ALREADY; I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR IT FOR FOURTEEN YEARS
Definitely anything from Redwall. They feast like nobody else at that Abbey, it sounded dope. Although Martin the Warrior ALWAYS MAKES ME CRY.
And then, Song of Ice and Fire and OMG THERE IS DEFINITELY A WEBSITE THAT TELLS ME HOW TO MAKE NIGHT'S WATCH BUNS (I have not done it yet, but I will). Oh and lemon cakes OF COURSE.
http://innatthecrossroads.com/
@Megan Patterson@facebook and @lavender gooms above–when fantasy geeks and foodies collide, wonderful things happen!
@martinipie oh and @D too! So much Westeros food!
@Megan Patterson@facebook Westeros food makes me a little gaggy. Except for the lemon cakes…which I imagine to be like little tart shaped rings of AWESOME.
@Megan Patterson@facebook Inn at the Crossroads makes most of it look really good.
@Megan Patterson@facebook THE SONG OF ICE AND FIRE COOKING SITE IS SO AMAZING
I totally want to try the gray stuff. I also want Nicki Minaj to include in one of her raps, "don't believe me, ask the dishes."
Goddammit for 20 years I have wanted to put a piece of cheese on a stick and toast it over the fire just like Heidi did. Fuck marshmallows, I want some goddamn toastable cheese!
@Katie Walsh You can, lady! Halloumi – Trader Joes always has some.
@Watts Up? What TJs calls halloumi – or at least, what the TJs near me calls halloumi – isn't actually. It's more like justoleipa. Which isn't to say they aren't both delicious (I mean, c'mon: cheese you can toast!) but they're not the same thing.
@Xanthophyllippa Wait you people can find halloumi at your TJ? I have been mad craving a halloumi sandwich ALL SUMMER and can't find it anywhere in Minneapolis. My TJ only seems to have brie and plain goat cheese…
@MissMushkila No, I have to go to Whole Foods to buy REAL halloumi. The stuff at my local TJ's is justoleipa – cow's milk, and the cheese comes already baked. Halloumi is a combo of goat/sheep milk, and comes raw in its own brine with mint added for flavor and preservatives.
Of course, if you live near a bigger TJ's, they might have real halloumi. The one near me is more like an urban convenience grocery than a real grocery. (Think Tesco Express, for any UK folks.)
Crystals from Fraggle Rock! It looked so delicious and convenient, nom nom nom.
Also, shout out to everyone who came to the Seattle meet-up! Let's do another soon!
@femwanderluster YES the dozers building supplies. I want them STILL
@femwanderluster Holla! We can totally bring that rock candy that looks like crystals. I even know how to make it, thanks to third grade science class.
@emilylouise Yes!
Raspberry cordial is actually something I always take on picnics, partly because of Anne of Green Gables, and partly because of the Moomin books by Tove Jannson- when not drinking coffee, they are swigging raspberry cordial and eating cakes.
I also take alcohol with me on picnics, in case the cordial alone sounded a bit too precious. I start with cordial then move on to the red wine. Much the same.
On Prince Edward Island and in Nova Scotia (and probably other surrounding Atlantic Canadian-type places) they sell an official Anne of Green Gables Raspberry Cordial which is essentially just a raspberry flavored soda. Still, it's pretty cute and stuff.
@LucyLu That settles it. I am definitely doing an Anne of Green Gables pilgrimage.
@Emily — Taco Town! The way Jason Sudeikis screeches "TACO TOWN!" at the end of the commercial with an expression of joy and total derangement is the best thing he's ever done.
@vanillawaif That is totally my favorite thing about it.
@Piefingers@twitter You, madam, have excellent taste!
My currant wine is famous all over the island, Rachel Lynde, as you very well know. And the Reverend Allen himself is not opposed to taking a bit when he comes calling. And as for Christian virtue, making a little wine for a refreshment is far less sinful than meddling in other people's affairs!
@marilla Like times a million. That is all.
@marilla Love! Now, please pass the currant wine.
@marilla There are no words. Well, no. There are these words: If I had a child that was so greedy, I'd sober her up with a darn good spanking!
@marilla you're my hero!
@marilla, I love how your voice gets super-deep with barely contained rage at the end. I loved loved LOVED you in this scene.
My boyfriend and I have a series on another site where we make pop culture/TV foods (he eats, I photograph). For the first one, we made Cheesy Blasters, and they were pretty damn good:
http://warmingglow.uproxx.com/2011/02/the-tv-gourmet-how-to-make-milk-steak-and-four-other-pop-culture-meals/5
We did a Simpsons-themed one that went up today, too.
Also: 'The Berenstain Bears and too much junk food'. I had no idea what kind of junk food it WAS, I just knew that I wanted it. ALL OF IT.
http://www.amazon.com/Berenstain-Bears-Much-Junk-Food/dp/0394872177
@hotdog YES. I still remember the jelly beans and popcorn in the illustrations. I think that book is probably 40% of the reason I am addicted to candy now.
@hotdog YES. That is, like, my platonic ideal of candy. All candy will forever fall short of the perfect specimens in that book. Reading it was such sweet torture.
@hotdog YES OMG. That weird pink popcorn stuff? I would eat the hell out of that.
@hotdog also the sugar cookies! they looked impossibly delicious.
@hotdog OMG THAT YOU FOR REMEMBERING THIS.
Hairpin, get out of my head. I JUST found this Butterbeer recipe last night (haven't tried it yet). From a lady who went to the new theme park in Florida and cloned the recipe.
Did someone already mention an Egg Cream from Harriet the Spy?
@Sarah Marble@facebook I still have no idea what an egg cream is. Also, I have played that game where she imagines what people look like based upon their conversations while drinking her egg cream… and I'm terrible at it.
@Sarah Marble@facebook YUM! I remember really wanting to try one of those as a kid. I imagine it's kind of like the lovely cocktails you get that are made with egg white, but with no booze.
@scully An Egg Cream is apparently also known as a Chocolate Soda, and based on my understanding it's less common in Western parts of the US and is totally gross-sounding.
@Miss Zarves I tried one in a diner in New York once, completely and totally because of Harriet. It was more disappointing than Turkish Delight, if you can even imagine that.
@Sarah Marble@facebook Uh, tomato and mayo sammie anyone?
@Lauren_O'Neal Ive got to chime in on the egg cream. They are indeed gross and strange, but apparently have a small following because of its weirdness. I had one last year from a local coffee shop (South Pasadena, CA) that has a really good reputation, not the kind of coffeeshop that you wanna support because it's not a star bucks but is actually bad and also kinda expensive so you don't actually go there anymore. Anyway, I know they made it correctly with chocolate syrup, milk, and soda water with a foamy top. It tasted like watery chocolate milk with a weird soda water aftertaste. It sounded so yummy but tasted so sad.
@PatriciaPepoire Made correctly, an egg cream should not taste like watery chocolate milk! I had an egg cream a few times at a diner in Brooklyn and it was pretty delicious. But you really have to go to a place that is known for making them well because if you don't they are apparently pretty gross. They have a freakish cult following in New York, so I'm sure the internet is full of ideas about where they are delicious (the place I went recently closed)!
@Katie Walsh i walked in on a coworker eating a tomato and mayonnaise sandwich today and literally jumped up and down and yelled "IS THAT A TOMATO AND MAYONNAISE SANDWICH JUST LIKE HARRIET THE SPY?!?" she said, "yes, except for i'm gonna eat the bread."
gahh i wanted to be harriet the spy SO BAD when i was little, i had the yellow notebook and the trench coat and all my spy tools but i could not for the life of me learn to like tomato/mayo sandwiches
It's not really fictional foods, but reading through A Song of Ice and Fire and holy CRAP stop being so descriptive about every delicious meal! The feasts he describes are INCREDIBLE. BUT I even drool over the "bad" meals … salted beef and bacon served in hollowed out bread heels and hard boiled eggs and mulled wine with cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves and every other delicious spice out there and DANG JON SNOW I KNOW IT SUCKS BEING IN THE COLD, DESOLATE HAUNTED FOREST BUT CAN I COME GRAB SOME DINNER WITH YOU?
@breccia BUT what about the lamprey pies and the puppy embryos? Hmm? Fuck you George, fuck you right in the ear for those. (Just kidding! Keep writing buddy!)
@cat of the canals oh you must mean all the delicious sounding foods that i have certainly not blocked out of my memory, like mashed turnips with butter and spiced wine and rabbit stew and juicy, ripe, symbolic peaches! you sure have a funny way of spelling things.
@cat of the canals So, I love unagi, so I would prroooooobbbaly like lamprey pie, right??? Also, Sansa's freaking lemon cakes. LE NOM! And the fresh oysters!!!
@breccia I don't know if you saw me post the site Inn at the Crossroads earlier but like half the stuff they make is from the Wall. I'm pretty sure they did the salted beef and bacon in hollowed bread. Also it's funny how good most of the food there sounds because half the time they're like OH GOD WE'RE ALMOST OUT OF FOOOOOOD but then they eat pretty well. Also if you read Fevre Dream by Martin it is like 10% moody southern vampires, 10% steamboats, 80% descriptions of food. And it is not a long book, lol.
Anyone remember that episode of Magic School Bus with the carrot snacks that turned a kid's skin orange? They didn't look tasty, but I was always still curious. (Also, now the theme song's stuck in my head, so COME ON THE MAGIC SCHOOL BUSSSS)
@andrea disaster SEAWEEDIES.
@andrea disaster I know I'm responding all over this comment board (so many awesome responses!) but I wanted to say that when I was a baby I ate too much baby food that contained carrots (either mentioned in the ingredients or hidden in pureed meals) and I turned yellow/orange-ish. My Asian pediatrician joked with my mother that I was now more yellow then he was. So, this could happen, is all I'm saying. Even if carrots are gross to me now and I would never eat carrot snacks.
Also, love the magic school bus sooo much.
I was a kid in Finland, and we didn't have peanut butter. (I know.) And so whenever I read Peanuts, which was translated, for some reason, I imagined Charlie Brown's sandwiches to contain something heavenly and Nutella-like. Yeah, we had Nutella.
@hideously Peanut Butter is in the same family as Nutella (in my mind) so I don't think you were way off in your fantasy. My mom is German and they don't do a lot of peanut butter there either.
Did anybody see the Ace of Cakes where Duff made Cheesy Blasters? And also a cake Meat Cat?
@Twinkle Little Bat WUT.
@plonk Truth.
I had no idea what hardtack was when I read The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, but I did get a craving for those delicious nibbly little tea biscuits she had with the Captain.
@Miss Zarves Oh, my stars. That was the best book. But my reenactor friends assure me hardtack is horrendous.
@Miss Zarves We read it in school and had hardtack to go with it at the end. I loved it but everyone else in the class hated it. For about a year after, I made my mom buy me some for regular eating.
Has anyone seen that animated Nutcracker Prince movie from the 90s? Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k09n0xG3ThE&playnext=1&list=PLDE39284B53A03B57.
That scene where the queen makes a bleu cheese cake for the King…everyone thinks it's gross but MAN did I want to eat that thing.
I have A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving to thank for my stunted adult palate: towers of buttered toast and a mountain of popcorn for dinner? Yes please!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-fCt1nitmk
@DickensianCat YES Charlie Brown Thanksgiving: http://x-entertainment.com/articles/0845/
@Valley Girl Oh. My. God. That is AWESOME. Thank you so much for that link!
Whatever the lost boys were eating in hook… Om.
Ok I'm kind of ashamed to admit this, but the pizza they get in Naples in Eat Pray Love.
That book reallly bugged me – especially the Pray and Love sections, but the Eat section was pretty awesome. The way she described that pizza made me want to book a plane ticket immediately.
@scully I hear you, I hated that book BUT loved when she said that no other food even makes sense after eating that pizza. I need a bite of that pizza!
@scully I had that pizza in Naples! Didn't realize it was the pizzeria from the book till I saw the photos of Julia Roberts eating it on the wall. Honestly, I thought Di Fara's in Brooklyn was better but that might be because I had to wait in Di Fara's for two hours before I got the pizza. Anyway, the pizza in Naples was still pretty great – the crust was divine.
I was sort of obsessed with survivalism after reading "My Side of the Mountain," and I reaallly wanted to make/eat the bread that the kid makes by grinding up acorns into flour. But I wasn't sure if that was something you could do in real life. I remember looking really closely at the acorns in my yard trying to decide if they looked poisonous.
@distrighema I googled it and a) they were pancakes! and b) there are recipes. http://evergreenknits.blogspot.com/2006/05/acorn-pancakes.html
@distrighema I had a similar phase after reading Hatchet where I wouldn't leave the house without enough chapstick to smear all over my face as a shield from windburn. You know, just in case…
@distrighema Survivalism! I too was obsessed with My Side of the Mountain. I had a place picked out for when I ran away to live on my own (near a creek about a mile and a half from my parents' home; I'm sure no one would have EVER found me).
FROBSCOTTLE. (The BFG)
Also, not enough picture book love in here:
Cream cheese and jelly sandwiches. Also the giant noodle that falls on a lady's head when the weather goes crazy. (Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs.)
The chocolate ice cream cone (The Very Hungry Caterpillar)
Fresh blueberries out of a tin bucket (Blueberries for Sal)
The rice dumpling that rolls away (The Funny Little Woman)
Stone Soup.
The colored eggs from Humbug Rabbit.
And a million more…
@Kristen Mashed potato sunset at the end of Cloudy.
@Kristen I love Blueberries for Sal! Such an awesome, timeless book, and blueberry remains my favorite type of pie.
@Kristen Yeah, the pancake tower thing in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (book not weird movie) always looked soooooo gooooood. Giant food!
@martinipie Stone Soup! I have always wanted to eat stone soup. Probs it would taste just like my mother's chicken soup. Which would be fabulous.
On Toot Sweets, in the UK we had Whistle Pops when I was in high school. Toot they may, but they were a nightmare to eat. Explanatory link: http://www.skooldays.com/blog/whistle-pop-candy/
@Gillian Donovan@twitter Ugh oh god I think I had one of those once. SO. MUCH. DROOL. Gross.
Oh jeez, you guys, the apples that Pete's Dragon toasted for him. They were so burnty and shiny, and man, that crunch. Yes.
@Twinkle Little Bat I wanted the chowder Nora feeds Pete!
@whimseywisp Did you know that the guy who played Kenickie in Grease was in that movie?
@Twinkle Little Bat I exploded an apple in the microwave trying to make those.
Pop biscuits, from Enid Blyton's The Magic Faraway Tree! They're cake on the outside, with honey and sherbet on the inside. Sounds amaaaaazing. (Though now I've checked apparently I've conflated pop biscuits which just have honey inside and google buns, which are full of
search resultssherbet)@glitterary Ah that's what I was trying to think of upthread! Pop biscuits YES
THERE IS AN ANNE OF GREEN GABLES COOKBOOK?
Also, any of the "Eat Me" cakes/cookeis from any version of Alice in Wonderland. And yeah I'll take some of that mushroom too thanks.
@kayjay Or, cookies, even.
@kayjay I think the "Drink Me!" bottles might be single-handedly responsible for the enter antique tincture bottle industry.
@kayjay Is it weird that I always want to eat the bread-and-butterflies (from the animated Disney version)? They just look so delicious!
On Toot Sweets, in the UK we had Whistle Pops when I was in high school. Toot they may, but they were a nightmare to eat. Explanatory link: http://www.skooldays.com/blog/whistle-pop-candy/
I am also standing up for Bubble and Squeak. Yummers. It's the refrying that counts.
The little cakes in Alice in Wonderland. 'Eat me'…don't mind if I do!
Definitely in agreement with everyone drooling over the snacks of Wilders: Gene and Laura Ingalls. Also a member of the "American kid who was confused by Turkish Delight" demographic.
Obviously, one day I will eat a pastry while looking into the windows at Tiffany's. Like, that's obviously some bucket list level shit. Wait, can you still even do that???
I want to bust into Claudia's secret junk food stash.
Garfield's lasagna. also, not really from a book: but wedding cakes in my mom's cookbooks always looked AMAZING. I used to have dreams of eating wedding cakes.I always imagined their icing to taste kind of like really soft, really delicate meringue.
then I actually had some wedding cake one time, and.. meh.
i had butterbeer a few weeks ago when i visited stratford-upon-avon in england. i was a bit disappointed; this version seemed to have no alcohol and was very…effervescent. i bet the version in disneyworld is a lot different.
OBVIOUSLY BUTTERBEER!!!!!!!!!!! I hear they have it at the Harry Potter theme park in Orlando. There are also some horrifying recipes online involving egg whites and stuff (????).
Agree that Turkish Delights are nasty.
Ok and yeah, what is with the Little House on the Prairie and them being able to make any food sound delicious???? Like Laura would be like "then Ma made a special treat – bread soaked in lard. Yum!" and I'd be like–yeah, I want to try that, this margarine stuff is bullshit.
@Rosemary what do you do when dickhole blackbirds eat your crop? make pies out them bitches. ma = OG
@Rosemary If it is a cocktail recipe, the egg white would make sense! When shaken, it gives cocktails a lovely frothy texture!
Hasn't anyone else ever wanted to.have a Thanksgiving dinner exactly like the "Peanuts" kids did? Popcorn and toast and jellybeans?
@MoonBat Those are all things to be extremely thankful for.
@MoonBat ahhh, Wikipedia, you're absolutely right, I forgot the pretzel sticks. How could I.forget the pretzel sticks?
@MoonBat http://thehairpin.com/2011/08/ill-have-what-that-characters-having-foods-we-want-to-try#comment-81999
PG Wodehouse novels made me want steak-and-kidney pie and kippers; Nero Wolfe novels made me want shad roe. Man, I tried SO hard to like roe, on the off-chance that my #1 imaginary boyfriend, Archie Goodwin, would come to life and be impressed by me: none of those things happened. And steak-and-kidney pie tastes like…kidney. I am still disappointed.
Oh! But those endless Civil War books make me crave cornbread and bacon. Which, I am led to believe, taste different when you make them in your kitchen than when you are being starved with the other Yankees in an open-air Confederate prison.
@BadWolf Oh Boy are you in for a treat because there is a Nero Wolf Cookbook that is practically my favorite cookbook and Rex Stout really wrote it and it is SO amazing, like having all the amazing meals in the books, plus INSTRUCTIONS (and YES it has shad roe, which I don't like either but also all this other amazing, amazing stuff that is delicious!!!)
@barnhouse !!! Oh, my stars, I am ordering this RIGHT NOW. Are there instructions for the alleged Perfect Scrambled Eggs that somehow take 40 minutes? SO EXCITED!
@BadWolf YES yes there are!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@BadWolf
Not only does the Nero Wolfe Cookbook exist, it has the recipe for SAUCISSE MINUIT!!!
Have any of you ever read the Elizabeth Enright novels about the Melendy family? The Saturdays, The Four-Story Mistake, And Then There Were Five & Spiderweb for Two: A Melendy Maze? BEST BOOKS EVER. I still go back to them every year and they are my comfort, much like Anne of Green Gables and The Parent Trap (original). If you have read the Melendy books, you have probably craved petit fours, as I did, when Randy goes to tea with Mrs. Olyphant. Seriously, everyone, go and read those books. Then come talk to me about them.
@vanillawaif yes! i love those books! the Saturdays also makes me crave a trip to the seaside
@smidge There are so many great things about those books that it's hard to know where to start. I had a huge crush on Rush, by the way. Cuffy was always making something awesome to eat, and they were forever putting on shows. There was the bake sale they had where Mrs. Wheelwright made jelly donuts and Mr. Titus made some layer cakes, too. Sigh.
@vanillawaif I LOVE the Melendy books! I always wanted petit fours as well, and thought Randy was nicer than I would have been for bringing some home.
@vanillawaif Aww! I loved those books! My mom is a children's librarian, so clearly I grew up reading every quality youth fiction series known to mankind… wow, I haven't thought about the Melendys in years.
@vanillawaif I only read the Saturdays, I didn't know she wrote more! That book makes you crave a lot of things, not just food. Like a room with an old piano, an overstuffed sofa, and gymnastics equipment (if i'm remembering right). And getting kidnapped by gypsies. And the feeling of independence that you are always crazing as a little kid.
I know what I'm going to look for next time I take a trip to the library . . . .
@oeditrix You are going to read the other three books and then wish that there were four more to read after that, I bet. You are remembering the trapeze in The Office (for the uninitiated, I don't mean the television show — The Office was the Melendy playroom)! Happy reading to you!
@DandelionTacy My mom and I tried to make them but we hadn't mastered the art of the crumb-coat, and who wants to eat an imperfect petit four? They are still on my list of things to eat in this lifetime.
@emilylouise Really, treat yourself to a re-reading of them. Your mom has the greatest job in the world!
@vanillawaif I just created an account solely to say…the f'ing Melendys! YES. they almost got me with the My Side of the Mtn pancakes, but you, my friend, won me over.
@EmmyPo Hahaha! I love it.
The pies from Pushing Daisies. ALL OF THE PIES. The scenes where they actually sit around eating them? SLAY ME. And yes, I'm aware that they are all pies I could make myself, but I want Piehole pies made with Alive Again Fruit with honey from Alive Again Bees baked into the crust. You KNOW it tastes so much better than any pie you'd make at home.
Blue soup.
@Maria I'll eat it as long as Colin Firth will make me an omelette.
Sack posset.
TREACLE TART.
Did anyone else ever read the Brambly Hedge books by Jill Barklem about the mice who lived in hedges in England? She didn't talk about the food a lot, but boy did she ever create some delicious illustrations. It made me want to move into a giant tree stump filled with cheese and apples.
@smidge Yeaaahh! I grew up reading those! The food always looked so impossibly delicious.
@smidge No, but they sound so charming. Due to some books I can't really remember the names of, I always wanted to be a little wood-sprite and take shelter under a toadstool.
Everything Sunshine makes in Sunshine. Especially Bitter Chocolate Death.
@angelan Yess! I was just saying this too. And Sunshine's Eschatology, and that Death of Marat thing, and that Zebra dessert that sounds like classy Little Debbie cakes.
@angelan Just so you know, Tartine Bakery in San Francisco makes Sunshine's morning buns.
@Yatima I live in Scotland!! D: D: D:
How about books that DIDN'T make you want to eat what the characters were eating? Namely, Little Miss Muffet and her curds & whey. Or a pie filled with four-and-twenty blackbirds!? No, thanks.
@vanillawaif Curds and whey sound terrible. The roots and mammoth innards that the tribe in Clan of the Cave Bear ate always made me retch too!
I really wanted to try, or at least see, the lunches Calvin described to Susie in Calvin and Hobbes.
petit fours from the Samantha American Girl books!
The giant oatmeal cream cookie in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Grass, dirt, mammoth ant, and all.
@Allied Biscuit Oooo yeah! Because 'member when they scoop out the frosting in ginormous handfulls
?!
Fizzing Whizbees.
Also the pasta from Strega Nona's magic pasta pot.
@Xanthophyllippa Strega Nona!
@Xanthophyllippa @wee_ramekin YESSS STREGA NONA
I have always wanted to try that ugly grey mush that Aunt Beast serves to the Murry family in A Wrinkle in Time that is supposed to taste magical and amazing. mmmmmm, salivating just thinking of it.
@Palmetto ME TOO. I was reading this whole thread, and was thinking "what about the grey stuff that Aunt Beast made?" It sounds so wonderful.
@Palmetto This is also what I thought of first.
@vanillawaif I LOVE the Melendy books! I always wanted petit fours as well, and thought Randy was nicer than I would have been for bringing some home.
@charmcity Butterbeans were one of my favorite foods as a kid (I know, WEIRD KID!) so I never thought of them as literary!
For me it was always Klah and bubbly pie from the Pern books. I even made the recipes for them in the Pern companion book, but they did NOT come out as described in the books!
I also always wanted all the food the boxcar children ate. MMM.
Oh, ALSO I recently read the clan of the cave bear books, and now I want to eat ALL THE THINGS that Ayla made, especially mammoth and their magical drinks.
@lovelettersinhell haha, I just replied saying how much I hated that stuff! Maybe a tender baby mammoth would be ok, but… mammoth innards/hoof stew? i'll pass.
These oversized pieces of bread and jelly from the camping episode of the little rascals. I hate white bread, but black and white food has never looked more appetizing to me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OozaF1WtdcM
Ever since I was little, I wanted to try making Everything Pudding from Betsy-Tacy and Tib… the idea of mixing EVERYTHING in the pantry into a goopy mess dazzled my little mind. It's hideous to read now, but man, that was the ultimate badassery when I was a kid.
The blue milk from Star Wars Ep. IV?
@Colin Gelinas@facebook YES. good one.
Visual rather than descriptive, but Obelix eating entire wild boars in one go in the Asterix and Obelix books always made me drool
@skyandgorse I had wild boar in Poland. BEST MEAL EVER.
People keep mentioning Turkish delight from the Narnia books, but there's a WHOLE lot of exciting food in those books:
1) Apples roasted in bear meat over an open fire
2) Freshly caught fish at the beaver's house
3) The fruit of the toffy tree in The Magician's Nephew
4) LOAM! When the trees come to life and eat all those different kinds of dirt
I could go on.
Reading Heidi made me really, really, really want a huge slab of cheese toasted over a fire, eaten with a huge slab of bread. I never got how the cheese didn't just melt. That book is full of awesome-sounding cheese.
ALSO: Hot buttered toast with jam in 101 Dalmations (the book by Dodie Smith). The dogs are really really hungry and the hot buttered toast comes just when they're about to give up.
ALSO: The hot cross buns in A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett that she buys when she's so hungry, and then she gives a bunch of them away. I WOULD NOT DO THAT.
In general, any time a character is insanely hungry and they get some food, that food sounds amazing and I want it no matter how boring it is.
@oeditrix Omg A Little Princess hot cross buns. The description of them! That book.
This might be a little too new-age for this post, but ever since seeing Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mister Fox, I cry a little every time a little puppet voraciously digs into one of Mrs. Bean’s famous nutmeg ginger apple snaps.
Has anyone mentioned "Ratatouille"? Obvious, but come on, YUM. (Even if they are made by a rodent, I want to try all those dishes.)
@Ingie YES! I want everything in Ratatouille, especially that first soup Remy makes. It must be magic. It starts as a thin tomato-based soup, then Linguini messes it all up with red wine and junk, then Remy fixes it and it's a creamy white soup! Magic.
The Hunger Games made me really hungry for rabbit. Similarly, I read the book The Namesake and craved samosas for like a week.
Also, Frobscottle
this is the best article ever!
1) Witch from Blackbird Pond (a Salem Witch trials book)- cornbread/cake with blueberries. Resulted in many purchases of cornmeal muffins so I could replicate the taste…
2) Frobscottle from the BFG- but I had an obsession with odd-but-tasty/restorative beverages
@harumph AHHHH! Witch of Blackbird Pond!!!! I still to this very day have an enormous crush on Nat Eaton. Hubbah hubbah.
@harumph I love Nat so much. Especially when he brings Prudence to testify and saves the day. *swoon*
Butterbeer was never what I found most tempting about Harry Potter. Sugar quills, the ones that look just like pens so you can suck on them in class and look like you're thinking hard? Those sounded great.
But mainly, I just want a REAL bag of Every Flavor Beans. I tried the Jelly Belly promotional kind once, but it failed by far at the scale and variety promised by the books. And half of the "gross" beans were perfectly innocuous tastes like black pepper.
@MissMushkila Oh God, and I almost forgot – whatever the candies were in Harry Potter that could make you freaking LEVITATE. Those please.
@MissMushkila I think Jelly Belly came out with a second version that had better "gross" flavors. Dirt, vomit and sardines were all very, very terrible. I loved it.
The tuna pancakes that Rosamond the Strange makes for her cats in Nate the Great. Is that gross? That's probably gross. BUT I WANT THEM.
The cheese and sausage from the Very Hungry Caterpillar still get me every time.
Also, the ersatz witches' brew from The Wednesday Witch, which I think included orange juice and toothpaste. Just to see, you know. Just to try it out.
@PékinPie In girl scouts, we once cut a hole in an orange and stuck a peppermint stick in, and sucked up the orange juice through the peppermint. It was surprisingly good. So, toothpaste + orange juice might be tasty!
@rocknrollunicorn Oh man, worst flavor combo ever. Brush your teeth, then take a swig and wait for your skin to crawl. It's rancid.
I am totally an adventurous eater because of books. Many folks have mentioned my faves – and rosewater, lemon or lime FRESH Turkish Delight is a revelation (we are lucky to have a place that makes it fresh in Seattle).
However, my all-time favorite book for wanting to try foods is the Phantom Tollbooth. C'mon, all the letters of the alphabet have different tastes! You EAT YOUR WORDS!
I know this isn't strictly 'eating', but I wanted some of those dreams in jars (not the nightmares, obviously) from the BFG.
That and frobscottle.
The roast boar from the Asterix books. I can taste it now.
I always wanted to poke the Pillsbury Dough Boy in the stomach!!! I don't think they do that any more in the commercials; too molesty, I guess?
@wee_ramekin I had that same desire, but only felt the urge to punch the Snuggle bear in the face. Normal?
@vanillawaif Totally normal. That bear is the dictionary definition of insipid. Ugh.
Christ, after reading My Life in France it was all I could do not to move to France and eat ALL the sole meuniere.
Katie: I think you've got your French crullers (cruel-er) confused with my New England (and I guess Kansas?) crullers (krull-er).
The one is a puffy tractor wheel sort-of and it's all sweet and light, and the other is a heavy old fashioned donut stick, and it's sort of supposed to scratch your tongue when you eat it. I like them best when they're at least a day old, so they're really starting to get crunchy on the outside, not that you can buy them anywhere any more.
@Ten Thousand Buckets
Are you churros about that?
The dessert tray presented to Scarlett O'Hara in New Orleans in the GWTW movie!
Homer Price and the donut machine.
@Casanova Frankenstein Dough dough de-dough, there's dough, you know, there's not no nuts in you-know-whats…
There are some good food descriptions in The Secret Garden – they talk about roasting eggs and potatoes in the forest and eating them with fresh from the cow milk and a little salt. I think they pick fruit from trees in the garden also. Plus this is the book that made me try oatmeal porridge with cream and brown sugar. I didn't like it, but maybe I'll try again this winter.
@anotherkate
DIDN'T LIKE IT?
DIDN'T LIKE IT.
DIDN'T LIKE IT?!!!
@anotherkate Holy crap, I was just talking about how as a child I insisted on eating boiled eggs and microwaved baked potatoes for a week because I thought it was what British people ate. Totally Secret Garden inspired. I thought it had something to do with that book, but wasn't sure.
Oatmeal is a lot better if you cook it with milk instead of water and then putting milk/cream on top. Same with the brown sugar. I don't bother topping my oatmeal with anything any more – I just bung everything in the pot when I start cooking.
@Ten Thousand Buckets I had a sudden vision of topping it with Qream. *Shudder*
@atipofthehat maybe you can share a recipe? I always ended up with a strange chewy/mushy mess.
oh my goodness I love this thread! I always wanted to go to the banquet in the Phantom Tollbooth where you have to eat your words–mmmm my speech would be: "bruschetta, iceberg wedge salad with blue cheese, pinot noir, spaghetti puttanesca, pecan pie a la mode."
Also, WHAT ABOUT THE COOKING LESSONS THAT JO MARCH GIVES DAISY IN LITTLE MEN? Anyone? Miniatures. Food. Miniature Food. I think I convulsed into a coma of joy every time I re-read that chapter. And I am pretty sure the main reason I read (and cough reread) the Boxcar Children, was for the description of their brown bread and milk.
@EmmyPo I am ASHAMED of myself that I forgot about this. It combines basically all of my loves: Jo March, minis, food, cooking lessons, and descriptions of all these things.
@EmmyPo I am commenting really late but THE BOXCAR CHILDREN! I owned almost all of those books when I was little. I think I remember them eating blueberries and cream and potatoes as well, when they were stuck on an island?
The butterbeer at the Harry Potter theme park is delicious if you ever get the chance to try it! Go for the frozen stuff though, way better than just the "cold" stuff.
ALL SYRUP SUPER SQUISHEE!!
Also, a corn chip fresh off the line a la Lucky in King of the Hill.
I cannot even believe this thread is happening. The Hairpin Hivemind is so attuned to my needs that I swear this website is something I wrote in my sleep without my conscious knowledge. ARE YOU MY FIGHT CLUB.
Also when I was growing up my best friend was named Anne and mine is (obviously) Diana, I was obsessed with Anne of Green Gables and I grew up into a semi-functioning alcoholic, but I've never tried raspberry cordial. But between myself, Diana Barry, and Diana Vilibert's chocolate bramble, I'm beginning to feel like I've stumbled upon my birthrite.
Other literary delights of note:
- Nobody mentioned the letters from the Phantom Tollbooth!!!!!
- all the delicious apples consumed by Black Beauty
- Hagrid's treacle tart
I can't believe I can't think of more right now, a conversation about delicious literary foods feels like the event for which my entire life has been spent preparing.
1. The bread Abu and Aladdin steal and share with that street kid
2. All the food from The Boxcar children. They are so self-sufficient!
@cassandra.sandra.dee Word on Boxcar Children. Ice cold milk. That's what I remember – kept by the creek. Wowzers
@workerbee Tiny vegetables made into stew. Blueberries and cream like Peter Rabbit. Violet's super-delicious EVERYTHING (i.e. pie, which is apparently an appropriate evening meal). Bread and milk for dinner. The secret recipe for Benny's Buns.
But more than anything, Turkish Delight. That shit haunted my candy-coated dreams.
What about those sandwiches on 30 Rock that only the teamsters knew where to get them?
@kitten_witawip "I wolfed my teamster sub for you!"
"Is that…a thing?"
Pickles from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
JERRY:
What is WITH you guys? I've got a sandwich in
here and I want all those bags opened – we're
looking 'til we find it.
The Bellhops hop to it; all the bags are opened. Jerry tosses clothes around the
room until he finds a baguette with brie wrapped in white paper.
JERRY (CONTINUED)
Brother Ben, this is the best damn sandwich I
ever ate, it's a baguette, with brie and butter, had
four of these damn things every day I was there.
(he reaches in and finds another one)
Got a couple left – here, try one.
–Twin Peaks
Popplers from Futurama!
Spaghetti from Lady and the Tramp… big ole plates of it.
I didn't necessarily want to eat it, but I always wondered what root vegetable makes Scarlett puke just before intermission in GWTW. I know now it wasn't so much the vegetable as the starvation, but I always tried it at dinner. "Mom, are you sure that's not the stuff that made Scarlett throw up?"
@Delighted by User In the book it was a radish and she puked it up because she had a wicked hangover from drinking Pa's homebrew.
I'm so glad you referenced the Anne of Green Gables Cookbook! I have it at home and have made the ginger snaps with very little success.
Let's see, Slurm and Bachelor Chow, of course. Lembas. The random foods the Charlie Brown gang puts together on the Thanksgiving Special. Frances' and her friend's lunchbox contents in "Bread and Jam for Frances." ALL of the giant foods in the original "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" book. And I must say, a nice hot Adrilankhan klava would hit the spot too.
Am I the only one fascinated with the cheese from Heidi? Not fictional, but it sounds so good.
"The kettle soon began to boil, and meanwhile the old man held a large piece of cheese on a long iron fork over the fire, turning it round and round till it was toasted a nice golden yellow color on each side."
@fareby_galore I would like to amend this comment, as @Katie Walsh has already said it.
The Pollyanna Cake and Watermelon!
-Ralphie's "dinner" in A Christmas Story. Yes, the one he "eats like a piggy, oink, oink" – Mashed potatoes, meat loaf – oh boy!!
The hot chocolate and snacks on the train in The Polar Express??
Allll the food in many Studio Ghibli films looks amazing! My favourite is the bacon and eggs that Calcifer makes in Howls' Moving castle!
http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lh6qd6J6dI1qgi26jo1_500.gif
First of all, I just want to say I love all of you. So very much. My waking and sleeping life have been haunted by fictional foods throughout all of my time on this earth. I have craved every item listed above at some point.
And I just want to mention I have BOTH of the Roald Dahl cookbooks, and for the past decade, my sister and I have requested (and received) Bruce Bogtrotter's Cake from my mom for every single birthday of ours. Guys, this cake. GUYS THIS CAKE IS SERIOUS. There's either something wrong with the recipe, my mom, or her oven, because it bakes up as a pile of cake mush every time, but slop that INSANE ganache recipe over it and ohhhhhh MAAAAAAAAAAAN CHOCOLATE BLISS LIKE NOTHING ELSE. Just grab a giant spoon of it (slicing is impossible) and go to town.
AND. The harvest cake from Drag Me To Hell. Every time we watched that movie, my friends and I were like WENEEDTHATCAKEHOWDOWEMAKEIT?! Well! I ended up living right next door to the girl who actually baked it for the movie (WHAT) and she gave us the recipe! But she also said it was really bland and she mostly made it just because it looked really good. Soooooo we ended up using a recipe that looked similar and used lots of canned pumpkin and apples and such…and topping it with a pumpkin cream cheese/vanilla/pecan frosting. Yum.
this may be my fave blog post ever. of all time. i am obsessed with the food in children's books and movies. rrrrrrum punch indeed.
Emily, you literally listed all of the one's I used to salivate over! We are fictional food buddies.
GUYS. Anything Cimorene was making (I had no idea what 'cherries jubilee' was, but it sounded EXCITING) in the Enchanted Forest Chronicles. Buckets of chocolate mousse, because those were dragon-sized portions! But definitely not the desserts from that giantess's cauldron of plenty, or whatever it was properly called.
Also my friends and I — in high school — would buy bottles of shmancy imported limonade from Whole Foods and call it frobscottle. I'm pretty sure this is a normal thing to do?
@;€ Oh yes, yes yes.
I read through all the comments and cannot believe no one has mentioned that there will be a Be Our Guest restaurant at Disney World in the not so distant future. Oh Yes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be_Our_Guest_Restaurant
I really hope they have the grey stuff, and that it is indeed delicious. Also, dancing food.
I love the descriptions of Frances' lunches in Bread and Jam for Frances so much that I'm trying to decide if setting out a doily and a basket of violets when eating lunch at work is too over-the-top.
Pickled limes also sound impossibly delicious. As does literally everything consumed in the All-of-a-Kind Family books. Scrambled eggs with onions? Hot chickpeas from a pushcart? The parfaits that Ella and Jules eat on their first outing to a restaurant, ever? Yes, please!
you really need to try the rose flavored turkish delight…. and from a turkish deli not from a box!!!
Also bubble and squeak is the ultimate comfort food, with a bit of bacon and nappa cabbage?
Turkish delights are pretty tasty. A Turkish co-worker brought them to a work pot-luck…delightful! Also, the food doesn't have a name but if you've seen Spanglish and the egg sandwich that Adam Sandler makes…the yolk drips down the sandwich. Looks so good!
I was doing kitcheny things today and realized two things:
1. I made recipes from childhood things (ginger cookies from the American Girls cookbook, AW YEAH; shrimp and hotroot soup from the Redwall Cookbook, DOUBLE AW YEAH). So yeah, I just wanted to share that because it seemed
2. No rolling pin? Use novelty shotglass. No cookie cutter? Use metal shotglass from Ikea.
I have had the butter beer at Harry Potter Land in Orlando. It was delicious.
Whenever I watch the Wallace and Gromit short, "A Grand Day Out," I really want to have tea with cheese and crackers (what kind of crackers are those that Wallace has? they look so thick and delicious). This would actually be an extremely easy fantasy to make reality. Perhaps I shall do it tomorrow.
@LB Probably Jacob's Cream Crackers, or Nairn's Oatcakes. And the cheese is Wensleydale, which is the best cheese ever.
I can't understand why the post is so disparaging about bubble n squeak. It's delicious! If you have left over cabbage and left over mashed potato after your Sunday roast dinner, mix the potato and cabbage and shape it into little cakes/patties, then shallow fry it. Yum.