The Denial of Food

When food is referred to in literature, it is usually - not surprisingly - because characters are eating it.  And when characters don't eat, it is usually because they have been deprived of food or the food is inedible, as is the case with Jane Eyre at boarding school - see http://pagetoplate.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/the-hungry-child.html

However, there are also literary characters who refuse to eat the food that is set before them, deliberately starving themselves and making themselves ill.  In Jane Austen's Emma, Jane Fairfax, orphaned niece of the impoverished Miss Bates, has a poor appetite which Miss Bates comments on at any opportunity:  ‘they had to listen to the description of exactly how little bread and butter [Jane] ate for breakfast, and how small a slice of mutton for dinner’ (ch. 20).

Jane Fairfax at the picnic at Box Hill (from the 2009 BBC dramatization)

A Danish Break

A deviation from my journey through food in English literature, but after a recent short break in Copenhagen I felt inspired to try my hand at a bit of Danish baking, and blog about it.  So this post is more about moving from the pages of the guidebook – rather than those of literary texts – to the plate.
Copenhagen is a very user-friendly capital city.  With a city population of just over 1, 200, 000, and an area in size of 88.5km2 (almost half the size of London), Copenhagen’s main sites are easily accessible by foot if you stay centrally.  Whilst there are a number of sites to see, Copenhagen is also the kind of city that it is nice – and practical – to wander around in, stopping off now and again for a coffee (and a pastry!).

Interesting sites – literary / culturally – inspired include the following:

The Cooking Protagonist

Charlotte Bronte's most famous novel Jane Eyre (published 1847), narrates in the first person the journey of the protagonist Jane Eyre to adulthood.  Following a miserable childhood, the orphaned Jane finds self-worth through her work as a governess, becomes independently wealthy following the death of a relative and finally - after a few obstacles along the way - marries the man she loves, her former employer, Mr Rochester.

Early on in her employment at Thornfield Hall, where she is governess to Mr Rochester's ward, Adele, the daughter of his former mistress, Jane is called on to abandon her teaching duties and help with the cooking.  Mr Rochester has been absent from Thornfield for a while, when news comes that he will be returning in three days with a party of "fine people".  All hands are put to work getting the house ready for this distinguished gathering, and Jane is no exception.  As she notes in chapter 17: "Mrs Fairfax (the housekeeper) had pressed me into her service, and I was all day in the storeroom, helping (or hindering) her and the cook; learning to make custards and cheese-cakes and French pastry, to truss game and garnish dessert-dishes."

Mrs Fairfax and Jane Eyre in the 2011 film version of Bronte's novel

The Hungry Child

As we move into the 19th century, novels begin to take more of an interest in childhood. Whilst Jane Austen touches on the childhood of some of her protagonists (Emma Woodhouse, Catherine Morland and Fanny Price), novelists writing slightly later develop the childhood of their protagonists as a key element in their plots. Such writers include Charlotte Bronte in Jane Eyre (1847), and Charles Dickens in Oliver Twist (1837), David Copperfield (1850) and Great Expectations (1860).

Food is a key element in childhood. When we look back on our childhoods we often remember what we ate and we associate events and places with food. We remember the food we loved as a child, and the food we hated but were forced to eat. So it is no surprise that food is a recurring feature in many of these novels about childhood.

The absence of food – and its consequence, hunger – is also a frequent occurrence. Perhaps that is no surprise with Bronte and Dickens whose child protagonists experience abuse and poverty: from Oliver Twist’s plea for more food in the workhouse, to David Copperfield having to sell his clothing in order to buy food, the scarcity of food is only one of many ways in which the children suffer. Critics have also argued that the preoccupation with food and hunger in Victorian novels reflects both contemporary changes in food production and distribution brought about by the Industrial Revolution, and moments of terrible food scarcity, such as the potato famine of the 1840s (http://www.victorianweb.org/science/health/hunger.html). A national obsession with food in the first half of the nineteenth century makes its way into the literature of the period.

Oliver Twist asks for more by George Cruikshank (1846)

What Do Hypochondriacs Eat?

From Mrs Bennet in Pride and Prejudice who complains constantly about her "nerves" and is "taken ill immediately" when she is informed of Lydia's elopement with Mr Wickham, to the never present but much discussed Mrs Churchill in Emma, whose illnesses the narrator notes “never occurred but for her own convenience”, hypochondriacs frequently appear in Jane Austen's novels.

That the illness is imagined, rather than real, is often observed not just by the narrator but also by other characters.  In Persuasion, Charles Musgrove speaks to his sister-in-law, Anne Elliott, the novel's heroine, about his wife's supposed indisposition:  "I wish you could persuade Mary not to be always fancying herself ill."  Anne finds herself in an uncomfortable position, confided in by both parties in the marriage, with her sister subsequently complaining: "I do believe if Charles were to see me dying, he would not think there was anything the matter with me.  I am sure, Anne, if you would, you might persuade him that I really am very ill - a great deal worse than I ever own."