Literary Meals

Meals from the page. Requests for certain books or quotes can be submitted.

[literarymeals]

Then the monks brought us wine, cheese, olives, bread, and excellent raisins, and left us to our refreshment. We ate and drank heartily. My master did not share the austere habits of the Benedictines and did not like to eat in silence. For that matter, he spoke always of things so good and wise that it was as if a monk were reading to us the lives of the saints.

Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose tr. William Weaver

[literarymeals]

And as soon as they were comfortable, their hosts brought smooth wooden bowls brimming with milk, which had a faint lemony astringency and was wonderfully refreshing; and small nuts like hazels, but with a richer buttery taste; and salad plucked fresh from the soil, sharp, peppery leaves mingled with soft, thick ones that oozed a creamy sap, and little cherry-sized roots tasting like sweet carrots.

Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

[literarymeals]

They sat upon the bank with the otters around a bright fire, eating thick wedges of carrot and parsley bread, which they dunked in a steaming bowl of river shrimp and bulrush soup, seasoned with fiery ditchnettle pepper. It was delicious, but extremely hot.

Brian Jacques, Mossflower

[literarymeals]

The house had made itself ready for dinner. A thick wooden table sparkled with candles and a neat spread: bread and pickled peppers and smoked fish, dumplings and beets in vinegar and brown kasha, mushrooms and thick beef tongue, and blini topped with little black spoonfuls of caviar and cream. Cold vodka sweated in a crystal decanter. Goose stew boiled over the hearth.

Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

[literarymeals]

For breakfast I eat convenience store bread, for lunch I eat convenience store rice balls with something from the hot-food cabinet, and after work I’m often so tired I just buy something from the store and take it home for dinner. […] When I think that my body is entirely made up of food from this store, I feel like I’m as much a part of the store as the magazine racks or the coffee machine.

Sayaka Murata, Convenience Store Woman tr. Ginny Tapley Takemori

[literarymeals]

“We” did this, “we” did that. They’ll say that all their lives, she thought, and an exquisite scent of olives and oil and juice rose from the great brown dish as Marthe, with a little flourish, took the cover off. The cook had spent three days over that dish. And she must take great care, Mrs. Ramsay thought, diving into the soft mass, to choose a specially tender piece for William Bankes. And she peered into the dish, with its shiny walls and its confusion of savoury brown and yellow meats, and its bay leaves and its wine…

Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

[literarymeals]

I often ended up in Chinatown around lunch. Specifically, the Fujianese side, separated by the Bowery from the tourist-pandering Cantonese part. This part was cheaper, more run-down, less conscious of the Western gaze. You could get a plate of dumplings for two dollars, spiked with black vinegar and julienned ginger on a flimsy, buckling Styrofoam plate.

Ling Ma, Severance

[literarymeals]

Brother Alf remarked that Friar Hugo had excelled himself, as course after course was brought to the table. Tender freshwater shrimp garnished with cream and rose leaves, devilled barley pearls in acorn purée, apple and carrot chews, marinated cabbage stalks steeped in creamed white turnip with nutmeg.

Brian Jacques, Redwall