I’ve recently come across some silly descriptions of foods in books that I have been reading. For example:
Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen- the MC loves potato chip sandwiches. In the book it’s described as two pieces of bread with chips squished in between.
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath-Avocado with Garnet Sauce. The garnet sauce is French dressing and grape jelly boiled together in a sauce consistency. Then placed into the hole where the pit was in the Avocado.
What are some silly foods you have come across while reading? Did you try them for yourself? Do these authors even eat food? It’s giving r/badfoodanatomy.
by Darth_Lugia
10 Comments
Sylvia Plath’s garnet sauce sounds exactly like the kind of food they ate in her day. Look up Perfection salad or ambrosia salad to be amazed by what our forebears consumed in the United States.
Sarah Addison Allen writes a lot about North Carolina, and having live there I can testify that people in the south eat some of the most amazing crap on earth. I absolutely believe this is a thing. These people also boil peanuts. Did you ever think peanuts would be even better if they were hot, soggy and moist? No?
The weirdest thing I ever read about was deep-fried snickers bars in a crime novel set in Glasgow, but apparently that’s a thing in Scotland.
I was one of the many kids who grew up reading the Chronicles of Narnia and then, much later, was betrayed by tasting actual Turkish Delight. It’s like a big slab of jelly bean insides.
I usually have other things in the sandwich other than just chips, but chips on a sandwich is good! A turkey and cheese sandwich with classic potato chips, delicious! Especially when they’re kettle cooked chips, so you get the extra crunch! I also like chips on burgers!
Potato chip sandwiches are definitely a thing. It also makes sense as a variation of french fries on sandwiches.
I remember being thrown off by the eponymous cake of “The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake” by Aimee Bender – a lemon cake with chocolate frosting. I’m not quite sure why that combination bothers me but it does.
Crisp sandwiches are the best! Not a silly food – pretty much a staple food of a north east England childhood !
i distinctly recall that in HARRIET THE SPY, she pretty much only ate tomato sandwiches. which are utterly delicious! but it was a *lot* of tomato sandwiches.
Crisp sandwiches are well known and I gather often eaten in the UK and they’re hardly unknown in Ireland, where they’re Tayto sandwiches. Properly made–‘properly’ in me eye–with white bread slices very liberally spread with butter.
The other sounds disgusting, like a topping you might find on a deep-fried hot dog at a state fair. Fair dos to Plath for her fertile imagination because she might well be the only person in history who thought of boiling vinaigrette with Welch’s jam.
I got pulled right out of the story every time GRR Martin described jellied eel and roast peacock in the GoT books. I mean, we get it some people were decadent while others went hungry.
Lots of Australian kids grew up eating chip sandwiches and also Twisty rolls (that’s another story). It’s definitely not ‘silly food’. I remember in both primary and high school kids buying a buttered roll and a bag of chips from the tuck shop and squishing the chips into the roll – crunch crunch. It’s also good apres pub food apparently.
Not a silly food, more like some poor cooking, but in ‘You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty’ girly cooks caramelized onions supposedly by following a recipe but adds sugar to them. If a recipe tells you to add sugar to caramelize your onions that’s a good sign not to trust the recipe.