Ah, the bread twists; little cakes all honey, nuts and cream; coffee with featherbeds of cream that "cost the earth." I like little glimpses into the foreign cuisine, such as Apfeltorte and raclette, but the girls seem to subsist on sugar and carbohydrates. The breakfasts of milky coffee with toast and jam wouldn't suit me at all, and the bread from heaven even less.Katharine wrote:I'm currently reading the Chalet School books and food is mentioned in those quite a bit, but I feel it's in a very boring way compared to Enid's books. Mostly it's just a brief statement along the lines that they had coffee and cakes, or soup and bread. Occasionally it will be a little more descriptive and mention that the cakes had apples on top or honey or cream, but the food seems very 'samey' to me. Also, it sounds incredibly unhealthy, they've had apples once, and there was mention of soup which I think was vegetable, but the rest of the time it seems to be cakes and creamy milk. I thought Enid Blyton's characters had a rather rich diet with all their macaroons and ice creams, but at least they had protein in the form of eggs and ham, and eat plums, lettuce, tomatoes and radishes on occasions.
There is however a very heavy amount of religious content, so I'm left with the impression that the author was more interested in bread from heaven than physical food on earth.
Meals in Enid Blyton's books sound much heartier -- hams, cream cheeses, mounds of potatoes, hunks of bread and cheese, gingerbread cake, sausage rolls, piles of tomatoes. I especially love the descriptions of farm meals, where Blyton goes into detail and there is always a spread.
I read the Redwall books when I was a child, and Brian Jacques always went into details about the food -- the product of daydreaming about delicacies while growing up during the blitz.
