Mint juleps and Google buns: food in literature After violent emotion most people and all boys demand food. Rudyard Kipling, Captain Courageous I will marry you if you promise not to make me eat eggplant. Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera 'The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday - but never jam today.' 'It must come sometime to jam today,' Alice objected. 'No it can't' said the Queen. 'It's jam every other day. Today isn't any other day, you know.' Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland "Eat!" she shouted, banging her thigh with the riding-crop. If I tell you to eat, you will eat! You wanted cake! You stole cake! And now you've got cake! What's more, you're going to eat it! You do not leave this platform and nobody leaves this hall until you have eaten the entire cake that is sitting there in front of you! Do I make myself clear, Bogtrotter? Do you get my meaning? Roald Dahl, Matilda On Saturday, he ate through one piece of chocolate cake, one ice cream cone, one pickle, one slice of Swiss cheese, one slice of salami, one lollipop, one piece of cherry pie, one sausage, one cupcake, and one slice of watermelon. That night he had a stomach ache. Eric Carle, The Very Hungry Caterpillar 'There is no such passion in human nature as the passion for gravy among business men. It's nothing to say a joint won't yield - a whole animal wouldn't yield - the amount of gravy they expect each day at dinner. And what I have undergone in consequence,' cried Mrs Todgers, raising her eyes and shaking her head, 'no one would believe!' Charles Dickens, The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit "Well, come back and have tea with us," said Moon-Face. Silky's got some Pop Biscuits - and I've made some Google Buns. I don't often make them - and I tell you they're a treat! Enid Blyton, The Enchanted Wood And once I had recognised the taste of the crumb of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-flowers which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like the scenery of a theatre to attach itself to the little pavilion, opening on to the garden, which had been built out behind it for my parents. Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past: Swann's Way But when that smoking chowder came in, the mystery was delightfully explained. Oh! sweet friends, hearken to me. It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuits and salted pork cut up into little flakes! The whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt ... we dispatched it with great expedition Herman Melville, Moby Dick 'Do I understand that he asked for more, after he had eaten the supper allotted by the dietary?' 'He did, sir,' replied Bumble. 'That boy will be hung,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. 'I know that boy will be hung.' Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist "Give Miss Sharp some curry, my dear," said Mr. Sedley, laughing. Rebecca had never tasted the dish before. "Do you find it as good as everything else from India?" said Mr. Sedley. "Oh, excellent!" said Rebecca, who was suffering tortures with the cayenne pepper. "Try a chili with it, Miss Sharp," said Joseph, really interested. "A chili," said Rebecca, gasping. Oh yes! She thought a chili was something cool, as its name imported, and was served with some. "How fresh and green they look," she said, and put one into her mouth. It was hotter than the curry; flesh and blood could bear it no longer. She laid down her fork. "Water, for Heaven's sake, water!" she cried. William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair 'Is that vodka?' Margarita asked weakly. The cat jumped up from its chair in indignation. 'Excuse me, your majesty,' he squeaked, 'do you think I would give vodka to a lady? That is pure spirit!' Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita But the peach ... ah, yes ... the peach was a soft, stealthy traveller, making no noise at all as it floated along. Roald Dahl, James and the Giant Peach "Creamy chunks of nougat, shimmering pink squares of coconut ice, fat, honey-coloured toffees; hundreds of different kinds of chocolate in neat rows; there was a large barrel of Every Flavour Beans, and another of Fizzing Whizzbees, the levitating sherbet balls that Ron had mentioned; along yet another wall were "Special Effects" sweets: Drooble's Best Blowing Gum (which filled a room with bluebell-coloured bubbles that refused to pop for days), the strange, splintery Toothflossing Stringmints, tiny black Pepper Imps ("breathe fire for your friends!"), Ice Mice ("hear your teeth chatter and squeak!"), peppermint creams shaped like toads ("hop realistically in the stomach!"), fragile sugar-spun quills and exploding bonbons." J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Open the whisky, Tom,' she ordered, 'and I'll make you a mint julep. Then you won't seem so stupid to yourself ... Look at the mint! F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby "Bond insisted ordering Leiter's Haig-and-Haig "on the rocks" and then he looked carefully at the barman. "A Dry Martini," he said. One. In a deep champagne goblet." "Oui, monsieur." Just a moment. Three measures of Gordons, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemonpeel. Got it?" "Certainly, monsieur." The barman seemed pleased with the idea. Ian Fleming, Casino Royale I realise it has become too easy to find a diet to fit in with whatever you happen to feel like eating and that diets are not there to be picked and mixed but picked and stuck to, which is exactly what I shall begin to do once I've eaten this chocolate croissant. Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones's Diary