So as you might have noticed this blog has been on hiatus for a while. I've been really very ill and have actually not been able to complete the university module this blog was created for. But I have really enjoyed doing it so will be back. Sometime over the summer. With a slightly new concept i've been working on. So come back soon! 

Chocolate

“‘The waterfall is most important!’ Mr Wonka went on. ‘It mixes the chocolate! It churns it up! It pounds it and beats it! It makes it light and frothy! No other factory in the world mixes its chocolate by waterfall! But it is the only way to do it properly! The only way! And do you like my trees?’ he cried, pointing with his stick. ‘And my lovely bushes? Don’t you think they look pretty? I told you I hated ugliness! And of course they are all  eatable! All made of something different and delicious! And do you like my meadows? Do you like my grass and my buttercups? The grass you are standing on, my dear little ones, is made of a new kind of soft, minty sugar that I’ve just invented! I call it swudge! Try a blade! Please do! It’s delectable!’”

There is something inherently evocative about chocolate. Simultaneously sweet, exciting and seductive, chocolate is an obsession that follows most of us throughout our lives and this is reflected in our literature. Said to induce the same endorphin rush as falling in love, chocolate finds a delicious home in both children’s and adult literature. From Roald Dahl’s Charlie and The Chocolate Factory to Joanne Harris’ Chocolat, chocolate denotes a thrilling return to the time when the sweetshop was your own personal wonderland. 

Charlie and The Chocolate Factory is one of those ubiquitous children’s books that positions itself firmly in the libraries of children and adults alike. In the novel however, Roald Dahl does something quite strange, managing to create a world that revolves around chocolate, (the people that occupy the town of Charlie Bucket are obsessed with chocolate and the products of Willy Wonka), and also creating the most amazing chocolate factory ever to exist in the realms of imagination however the two heroes of the story, Charlie Bucket and Willy Wonka himself have a special kind of reverence for chocolate. In both of these characters Roald Dahl has created characters that not only reject eating chocolate solely for pleasure, but bestow it with an almost religious importance, something that needs to be studied in order to provide others with pleasure. 

“How I love my chocolate factory,’ said Mr Wonka, gazing down. Then he paused, and he turned around and looked at Charlie with a most serious expression on his face. ‘Do you love it too, Charlie?’ he asked.

‘Oh, yes,’ cried Charlie, ‘I think it’s the most wonderful place in the whole world!’ 

‘I am very pleased to hear you say that,’ said Mr Wonka, looking more serious than ever.’ He went on staring at Charlie. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I am very pleased indeed to hear you say that.’” 

In order to fully explore my idea, that this idea of wonderment and excitement could be extrapolated to work within the confines of an adult environment, I decided to team up with my housemates an host a chocolate party. My first hurdle was trying to get people to actually turn up, although my house is very useful in terms of proximity to university, it is nothing if not way out in the sticks. I needn’t have worried. Turns out, if you circulate the words “chocolate” and “party” people will make the journey. Even if that journey takes two hours, people will make the journey. I also learned that when chocolate is involved, any form of budget gets lost somewhere along the way...

My next hurdle was what to serve and how to serve it. What is so remarkable about Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory was not just the incredible sweets that barely toe the line between magic and possibility, but it was also the amazing way in which these sweets were served; chocolate mixed by waterfall, television chocolate, Mr Wonka’s private yacht made out of a giant, hollowed out boiled sweet. With this philosophy in mind I threaded cotton through flying saucers and strung them from the ceiling, attached Hershey’s Kisses to the banister and hid Fererro Roche around the house. Lollipops dangled from every light fitting. There were sweets and chocolates hanging from the ceiling, the lights, going up the stairs and attached to the 

walls. 

Then I turned my attention to the food. I wanted food that would be recognizable as food but still appropriate to be found in a 21st century Willy Wonka Factory. A bowl of toffee became “Stickjaw for talkative parents” Skittles became “Rainbow Drops, (Suck them and you can spit in six different colours)” A chocolate fountain became a chocolate waterfall, 

marshmallows were now “Eatable Marshmallow Pillows”

and a selection of sweets stuck to the wall (Mint Jujubes for the boy next door, they’ll give him green teeth for a month, Cavity Filling Caramels, no more dentists, and Magic Hand Fudge, hold it in your hand and you can taste it in your mouth) all mixed together to form “Lickable Wallpaper, for nurseries.” 

We also had a plate of “invisible chocolate bars for eating in class” which for some strange reason we never seemed to run out of... 

As well as the “chocolate waterfall” there was also a “white chocolate pond” which was a white chocolate fondue and strawberries covered in chocolate which became “chocstraws, imported direct from loompaland” (granted the food was meant to be awful in loompaland but I was running out of ideas) 

Along with this my housemate and I made chocolate flapjacks, chocolate truffles and an entire brownie mountain. And, of course, we also had many “fizzy lifting drinks.” 

“Mr Willy Wonka can make marshmallows that taste of violets, and rich caramels that change colour every ten seconds as you suck them, and little feathery sweets that melt away deliciously the moment you put them between your lips. He can make chewing-gum that never loses its taste, and sugar balloons that you can blow up to enormous sizes before you pop them with a pin and gobble them up. And, by a most secret method, he can make lovely blue birds’ eggs with black spots on them, and when you put one of these in your mouth, it gradually gets smaller and smaller until suddenly there is nothing left except a tiny little pink sugary baby bird sitting on the tip of your tongue.” 

Part of the appeal of Wonka’s chocolate is it’s element of magic. Subtle magic that just pushes what’s possible in reality. Wish fulfillment, sweets+. It’s this extra something within the sweets that fuels the imagination. What Roald Dahl does is tap into the dreams inherent in every bite, each bubblegum bubble blown is an attempt to blow the biggest bubble, and I know that I at least, have imagined what would hatch from a chocolate egg each time easter rolled around. 

I had no such magic at my disposal. What I did have however, was alcohol, and an incredibly creative housemate who was able to come up with recipes that matched Dahl’s creations: 

Chocolate Milk from Chocolate Cows

1 shot Thornton’s CHOCOLATE LIQUEUR

1/2 shot Smirnoff VODKA

CHOCOLATE MILKSHAKE to taste

Pour in Chocolate Milk and Liqueur

Shake

Add shot of vodka

Serve with whipped cream

Hot Ice-Cream for a Cold Day

1 shot Baileys IRISH CREAM 

1 scoop VANILLA ICE CREAM

Whip Vanilla Ice-Cream till smooth

Pour into a glass

Mix one shot of Baileys

Enjoy!

The party ended up being ridiculously fun, everyone eating and drinking and laughing and having fun. Pulling food from the walls and ceiling and almost every surface in our house. What I loved about it is the way that all our guests bought into the premise, and how they could, as adults, still enjoy the themes and motifs that come from a book that they last read in childhood. That we still remember these characters and situations years after we have not only read the book, but left childhood behind us. 

All quotes are taken directly from “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” By Roald Dahl. 

Feasts

“Albus Dumbledore had got to his feet. He was beaming at the students his arms opened wide, as if nothing could have pleased him more than to see them all there.

‘Welcome!’ he said. ‘Welcome to your new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!

‘Thank you!’

He sat back down. Everybody clapped and cheered. Harry didn't know whether to laugh or not.

‘Is he - a bit mad?’ he asked Percy uncertainly.

‘Mad?’ said Percy airily. ‘He’s a genius! Best wizard in the world! But he is a bit mad, yes. Potatoes, Harry?’

Harry’s mouth fell open. The dishes in front of him were now piled with food. He had never seen so many things he liked to eat on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, chips, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup and, for some strange reason, mint humbugs....

When everyone had eaten as much as they could, the remains of the food faded from the plates, leaving them sparkling clean as before. A moment later the puddings appeared. Blocks of ice-cream in every flavor you could think of, apple pies, treacle tarts, chocolate eclairs and jam doughnuts, trifle, strawberries, jelly, rice pudding...” 

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone J.K Rowling

This famous feast in the great hall of Hogwarts, underneath an enchanted ceiling of starlight is a proud example for the incredible effect feasting has on Children’s Literature.  For children reading this passage the overall sense is one of wonder, delight, excitement and acceptance. No “children’s menu” for the students of Hogwarts, they are free to delight in the abundance of flavors and colours, all tantalizingly delicious, as are their intended child readers.  The feast is a sheer delight for the senses, the food bordering the barrier between the known and unknown, the domestic and magic. Both instantly recognizable and inherently strange; a feast of contradictions. This feast marks the beginning of Harry’s journey into the Magic, the haul of sweets on the train only a glimpse of the culinary delights that await him at his new school. Hogwarts has many secrets for harry and his readers, but I would argue, the most exciting, the most visceral, are the descriptions of the food. 

Another genre of feast to invade the realm of Children’s literature is one I remember fondly from nights spent ruining my eyesight trying to read “just one more chapter” of Enid Blyton by the light left on in the hallway outside my bedroom; the ubiquitous midnight feast.  The Secret Seven, The Famous Five, The Twins at St Claire's, all had their own version of this clandestine meal, but none took it quite so to heart as the girls of Malory Towers. 

“Alicia laughed. ‘Take a look at this basket,’ she said. ‘And this bag! Clarissa’s old nanny gave us the whole lot for a midnight feast!’ 

‘Golly!’ said Sally, thrilled. ‘How super! You’d better hide the things somewhere. We don’t want Potty or Mam’zelle finding them.’

‘Where shall we put them?’ wondered Alicia. ‘And where shall we have the feast? It would be better to have it out-of-doors tonight, it’s so hot. I know! Let’s have it down by the pool. We might even have a midnight swim!’

This sounded absolutely grand. ‘You go and tell Darrell we’re safe,’ said Alicia, ‘and we four will slip down to the pool, and hide these things in the cubby-holes there where we keep the life-belts and things.’

Sally sped off, and Gwen, Clarissa, Alicia and Belinda swiftly made their way down to the pool. The tide was out - but at midnight it would be in again, and they could splash about in the pool, and have their feast with the waves running over their toes. The moon was full too- everything was just right!”

Upper Fourth at Malory Towers, Enid Blyton

The excitement in these passages is catching. Everything about the midnight feast is illicit, being up and out of doors after hours, eating food you’ve hidden from teachers and parents at a time when you’re meant to be in bed and asleep. The secret of the feast and the anticipation almost as satisfying as the meal itself. For a reader, especially a young reader these descriptions feed the imagination, the food here is not as important as the way  that Blyton provides her readers with the opportunity to become a part of these feasts, to join in the secret, to live out daring covert antics vicariously through it’s pages. 

Alice Hewitt’s and the Upper Fourth’s Guide to Having the Perfect Midnight Feast:

You will need:

• Blanket
• Jugs of something to drink, preferably lemonade
• Various treats and a cubby hole to hide them in until midnight, examples:
• Tongue Sandwiches with lettuce
• Hard boiled eggs (to eat with bread and butter)
• Great chunks of new-made cream cheese
• Potted meat
• Ripe tomatoes (preferably grown in Mrs. Lucy’s brother’s greenhouse)
• Gingerbread cake (fresh from the oven of course) 
• Shortbread
• A Great Fruit Cake with almonds crowding the top
• Biscuits (all kinds)
• Jam Sandwiches 
• Alarm clock or someone to stay up till midnight.

First you must decide on a location for your feast. Pay close attention to the weather. The forth formers once tried to hold a feast down by the swimming pool in the midst of a thunderstorm and this was, as you can imagine, less than satisfactory. Outdoor midnight feasts are preferable, nothing can beat a feast under the moonlight but rain is not welcome. Always have a back up location that can be switched too at the first hint of thunder.

Then assign everyone jobs. Make sure everyone knows whose job it is to go and fetch the lemonade jugs that the cook has left out in the kitchen, check that the girl who has the key to the cubby hole knows where it is and doesn’t forget it (yes we’re looking at you, Alicia) and make sure that the girl who volunteers to stay up till twelve to wake everyone else up is actually capable of staying up till twelve, otherwise get an alarm clock that is loud enough to wake you but not so loud as to alert various adults to the fact that there are people awake after lights out.

Make sure to be as silent as possible when slipping out of bed and heading to the assigned meeting place. If the feast is to be held in the same building as sleeping adults then the feast must be conducted in whispers, if held out of doors, still try and talk quietly, discovery is the end of any midnight feast. 

Enjoy!

"Cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffy, and hot buttered toast..."

Out of all the books I have read and collected throughout my life, I find that the ones that I am constantly drawn back to, the ones I get most excited about, are all the books I used to read as a child. Books that, when opened, would thrust me into magical worlds full of sorcerers and minotaurs, monsters and fairies, adventures and mischief and much more. These stories thrilled me as a child and continue to delight me now, and a big part of the reason for this continued return to the bookshelves of my ten year old self is, I believe,  the food that these stories entwine within their pages. There is something primal with our relationship with food, something, so inherently basic, that even descriptions of food on the page, can cause us to recreate that food so exactly within our minds that we can taste it. This recreation transforms the act of reading into a physical act, acting on desire, want, inducing hunger, this strengthens our experiance of the story that we are reading, creating memories that will forever be attached to the food described. To this day, I can't walk past Turkish Delight without recalling the hours I spent as a child trying to force my way through the back of my wardrobe. Gingerbread reminds me of breadcrumbs and, to my mind, chocolate is never quite good enough anymore, purely through lack of oompa-loompa involvement. Throughout the course of this blog I want to explore the connection between children's literature and food. Each post will tackle a different topic, magical food, feasts, chocolate etc, and as I try and work my way through the stories that include them, I might even try out a few recipes along the way...