Your newest problem was to supply a passage about meals written within the model of a widely known creator. One in all my favorite literary meals
Your newest problem was to supply a passage about meals written within the model of a widely known creator.
One in all my favorite literary meals is in John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces. Right here is the novel’s protagonist, the Falstaffian Ignatius J. Reilly, sizing up a mid-afternoon snack: ‘Within the boiling water the new canine swished and lashed like artificially colored and magnified paramecia. Ignatius crammed his lungs with the pungent, bitter aroma. “I shall faux that I’m in a sensible restaurant and that that is the lobster pond.”’
In a big and wide-ranging entry, Douglas G. Brown’s ‘Remark on a Vegetable That Was Most likely Unknown to Ogden Nash’ struck a chord: ‘Kale consumed uncooked/ Will get caught in a single’s craw;/ However kale, marinated,/ Continues to be overrated’. Nick Syrett and Martyn Hurst additionally stood out, as did Nick MacKinnon’s Shelley on molecular gastronomy — ‘My title is Heston Blumenthal, chef of cooks./ Look on my pud, ye hungry, and despair!’ — and Katie Mallett’s updating of Betjeman’s ‘Vers de Sociéte’. They had been solely narrowly outflanked by the winners, printed beneath, who every snaffle £25.
W.J. Webster/Henry James
‘A peach simply fantastically is!’ she cried, with startling vehemence.
‘Ah, that.’ Maunder’s spoon hovered over his île flottante. He was now sharply conscious that far an excessive amount of of his dialog had involved the sequence of dishes that had been set earlier than them. He had grandly taken her, in a phrase as banal because it was unavoidable, ‘below his wing’. He had promoted the bisque – past its deserves because it turned out; had expatiated on the constituents and processes required for a real Béarnaise sauce, and had then acclaimed the chef-patron’s model in a way that on reflection might need appeared overweening. Not till the selection of dessert had he stood accommodatingly again. If solely, he thought wryly, she had damaged out earlier! He had mistaken a kindly tolerance for shyness. The query now was whether or not the error was irrecoverable. It doesn’t matter what was to comply with.
George Simmers/Jonathan Swift
Essentially the most eminent pure philosophers of Laputa (together with a remarkably fierce-looking woman of 16) having prophesied irrefutably that the world would finish in fireplace and horror if residents continued to eat meat and greens and such, Laputans of any decency all desired fervently to be seen avoiding such wickedness. I used to be invited to a big celebration on the home of an eminent actress, with the peace of mind of dietary righteousness. Company had been handed giant bowls. To my untutored eye these appeared merely unfilled, however our sort hostess assured us that the air inside them was nutritious in addition to righteous. Via a number of programs, she expatiated fluently and certainly poetically upon the refined variations between her gaseous choices, whereas my fellow-guests and I reverently spooned air into our mouths as if savouring essentially the most delicate consommés. But I feel I used to be not alone in promising myself extra strong nourishment on returning residence.
Frank McDonald/Wordsworth
My coronary heart leaps up after I behold
A Melton Mowbray pie;
So was it after I was a boy
And will likely be until I die.
What artwork is in that crafted crust,
A phantom of pleasure;
’Twas very heaven crammed my soul
When first I took a chunk.
Earth has not something to match
Its tasty, meaty core
And after I eat the ultimate crumb
My coronary heart calls out for extra.
And oft when I’m wandering
Beside the streams of Dove
They flash upon my inward eye,
The luscious treats I really like.
Paul A. Freeman/Chaucer
We Pilgrims came across the Bulldog Inn,
an oak-beamed English tavern, and inside
the owner, Nigel, ventured to recommend:
‘Our British fare’s the best to ingest,
and hungriness is written in your eyes.
I’ve sausage rolls, Welsh rarebit and pork pies,
roast beef and Yorkshire puds to fill your face,
or Cornish pasties, chips with cod or plaice.
For afters, rhubarb crumble, noticed dick,
sufficient to make a gormandiser sick.
I’ll serve your grub on plates from Stoke-on-Trent,
with knives and forks and spoons that by no means dent,
solid within the North, from sturdy Sheffield metal;
so let me take the order on your meal.’
‘Alas!’ quod we. ‘The hour is early nonetheless —
a continental breakfast, if you’ll.’
Basil Ransome-Davies/Raymond Chandler
She walked in sashaying like an eel and sporting the ruby earrings that had been our agreed recognition sign. I stood up whereas the maitre d’ supplied her a chair, managing to maintain his fingers to himself. The temperature had zoomed up. Mist rose from the ice buckets.
Earlier than I may pour on the appeal she grabbed a menu, saying, ‘Let’s see what we bought right here, Phil honey’.
That was all she mentioned until she’d dedicated mayhem on a dozen oysters Rockefeller, an Alaskan King Crab Cocktail, a Cotoletta alla Milanese with a facet of rosemary potatoes, a bombe shock and a half-bottle of Krug Grande Cuvée whereas I nursed a burger truffé the dimensions of a dime. Then she belched.
It couldn’t final. I excused myself and slipped…