“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!
