Heidi

Heidi is a children's novel written by Swiss author, Johanna Spyri and was published in 1880. I hadn't read Heidi before deciding to use it on my blog but I have to say it was an easy, enjoyable read. Heidi is a very lovable character as she is so sweet, thoughtful and charming so I automatically warmed to her. Saying it was an easy read in terms of the physical book would be a bit hypocritical as it was possibly the oldest book I have taken out of the library, and I was terrified at each turn of the page one might fall out.

 Up in the Swiss Alps I followed little Heidi's life as she grew up in the mountains, getting used to the air, the food and the ways people live. The book is full of positive connotations, Heidi loves the views, the simple, fresh food and all the people that surround her. 

The food Heidi eats in the mountain couldn't really be called treats or sweets but nevertheless she enjoys what she is given as though it was treats.

The language used to describe the bread and cheese makes quite a simplistic meal seem as though the most extravagant, delicious meal in the world. (In Heidi's opinion anyway.) The simile of the cheese 'as soft as butter' creates imagery of buttery, melted cheese, positively personifying the texture and taste of the food. Heidi's contentment and love of the food is evident not only through the literary devices used to portray the food, but also through the description of herself. "...the child looked the picture of content as she sat eating..." This obviously shows Heidi's delight and enjoyment of the food.

As I mentioned earlier although bread and cheese would not be considered a treat for many children it is for some, especially Peter. Peter lives on the mountain not too far from Heidi and he befriends her. He is a lot less fortunate than Heidi and as much as Heidi enjoys the meal of bread and cheese she is not as grateful as Peter is when she offers him some.

Peter is clearly ecstatic at the prospect of the bread. The verb 'seized' shows his desperation and desire for the bread. Bread is clearly a very extravagant and rare meal for Peter showing how usually eats poorly. Peter's response to the bread is similar to those of the orphans in Oliver Twist. Having bread on the occasion in the work house was considered to be a tremendous treat! Imagine that! Now don't get me wrong, I love a cheese toasty but when it comes to chocolate cake, spaghetti bolognese or a roast dinner I know what wins!

I watched the film version of Heidi and I cried many times throughout. It was a very emotional but enthralling adaptation of the book. Heidi's grandfather is a lot harsher and mean than he appears is in the book and her love for the food he provides is not particularly evident until towards the end of the film. Certain events are altered in the film but overall I think it captured the characters personas really well and the settings were beautiful. At around 6 minutes into this clip is where Heidi's love and longing for her Grandfathers food is apparent.

Evidently, The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland displays a very different perception of food to Oliver Twist and Heidi, Oliver Twist and Heidi have very real life conceptions of food and display the basic foods such as bread, cheese and not to mention gruel. The food represented in Alice in Wonderland is less realistic, cake that makes you shrink and grow dramatically. In Alice in Wonderland food is presented as an element of fantasy and enhances the vivid imagination of both character and author. 

However the character's relationship with food in Alice and Wonderland and Heidi is similar. Both Heidi and Alice speak and describe the foods they eat positively. Oliver in Oliver Twist does not find the food appealing and his relationship with it is very evidently not a fruitful one!

The next book I will be exploring is Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, written by Lewis Carroll in 1865. There is quite a difference in the description of food in this book compared to Oliver Twist as the food in Alice in Wonderland is supposed to be magical and unordinary, well that's how I imagined it anyway. The whole book is based around weird and wonderful things and the first weird but I guess wonderful event with food happens when Alice finds herself at the bottom of a hole in the ground.

When I was growing up I was taught never to eat things that looked suspicious or if I didn't know what it was. Alice is evidently cautious about drinking the unknown substance but as it is not marked 'POISON' she deems it safe to try, this shows her naivety and lack of regard to negative consequence.

She also finds the liquid to taste quite nice and like most children anything that tastes nice they are sure to consume as much as they can of it. The syndetic listing of the flavours is very similar to the song the orphans sing in Oliver Twist, the foods they long for. The juxtaposing foods almost make it difficult to imagine what the liquid would look like. Would it look like custard or gravy?

As a child I would probably too have eaten the cake, who wouldn't? From this description I imagined it to be small and pretty looking, possibly a bright colour which would be sure to attract a little me. Unlike the gruel in Oliver Twist, the drink Alice drinks is full of flavour and the cake is delicious looking. 


I found a clip of the film and from that I decided to try and make my own version of the cake. Wish me luck! I always imagined the cake to look like a fondant fancy as they are cute, small and if I saw one I would definitely want to eat it.

So this is my attempt (let me heavily emphasize that word) at making my version of fondant fancies. My boyfriend's mum  assisted me with the baking, so luckily I didn't burn anything! This was the Mary Berry recipe I followed:

Right! Here we go!

First things first I got all the ingredients together, grabbed a large mixing bowl and very carefully measured and whisked the mix together.

So far so good! The mixture didn't go lumpy like it usually does for me and in the end we got a smooth consistency that was ready to be spooned out and put in the oven, brilliant!

This is the cake glazed with apricot jam and then with a thin layer of marzipan placed on top. Yes, I did have help with the marzipan, there's no way I would have got it looking as neat as that!

I then sliced the sponge into 25 hopefully even looking squares and then squeezed out blobs of butter cream on top.

(Still so far so good!)

However, after I took these photos things you could say took a turn for the worst. I sadly don't have any photos of my disaster as things were getting very hot and stressed in the kitchen and photos were the last thing on my mind.

So we attempted to make the icing to cover the cakes, but as much as we tried, the consistency was never right and just ran off the cake, then to make matters worse a cake 'fell' on the floor. So as you can imagine, I was sticky, stressed and it was verging on midnight at this point so I just wanted to get to bed and be done with it!

I persevered and the next morning I woke up to these:

So some were slightly wobbly but I was really happy with this one. So all the stress and hard work paid off to get one practically perfect one... Here you have it my own imagined Alice in Wonderland 'Eat Me' cake.

Oliver Twist

Oliver Twist is the first novel I look at, where the food the children are made to eat isn't particularly pleasant. (To say the least!) It was published in 1838 and is the earliest children's novel I will be looking at.

Just a quick synopsis of Oliver Twist in case you've never heard of it (I'd be surprised if you hadn't though)It is a novel about an orphan who grows up in a workhouse with only the option of gruel to eat. He nearly gets sent off to work as a chimney sweeper for a horrid man when he asks for more gruel! Oliver flies into a rage when the a boy named Noah insults Oliver's biological mother. Oliver runs away to London where he meets the Artful Dodger who picks pockets under the watchful eye of Fagin. Oliver gets into all sorts of trouble hanging around with Fagin and the rest of his crew. In the end Mr Brownlow a kind gentleman that Oliver attempts to pick pocket takes Oliver under his wing and decides to take care of him.

The orphans had to eat gruel day in day out, only on special occasions they were allowed it with a bit of bread. When researching what gruel actually consisted of I found that the ingredients were pretty simple and a lot of people actually enjoyed eating it! I still believe however if a bowl of gruel was given to a child today in the UK they would most likely not come away with a smile on their face.

The way it is described does not make it appear to be the most appetizing of dishes (a dish mainly made up of water... YUCK) and looking at the film adaptation of the book, the appearance of gruel looks pretty dire and the song the orphans sing show their distaste for it. They long for “Hot sausage and mustard!”

Hi everyone!

This is my blog on exploring the ways food is presented in Children's literature starting from way back where they had to eat yucky foods such as gruel to present day where kids today can stuff their faces with all sorts of delights. I'm going to try and make it as interesting as possible, supplying you with film clips and videos/pictures of my terrible cooking! Hope you enjoy!

So I've decided to explore the ways in which food is described and what images these descriptions provoke in children’s books. From the crazy chocolate river and edible grass in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to the stodgy, gruesome gruel in Oliver. Through my exploration I will be observing how food is described in children’s novels from the period 1800 to modern day, comparing the differences and similarities from book to book. AND just to make things more interesting I will also look at the film versions to see how the films compare to the books.

Children love food, especially chocolate, sweets and ice cream! Anything that looks good and is full of sugar will sure to be an instant hit with them. There is a constant battle between parents and children about what children want to eat and what their parents want them to eat. Appetizing adverts and specific sayings are ways of encouraging children to eat foods that may not particularly appeal to them.

A lot of children believe having to eat these things is a form of punishment and vegetables or anything green is despised. Don’t even mention brussel sprouts!

These are the research questions I aim to answer:

1.  What difference's/similarities  are there in the descriptions of food in children's novels from 1800 - present day?

2. What is the purpose of food in children’s literature?

3. What foods are considered treats and what ones are not?

4. What images can be created in the imagination through the descriptions of food in children's literature?

5. What is the relationship like between the child (character) and food in children's literature?

6. How well does the food in the film adaptation of the novel match up to the actual description in the novel?

Hope you enjoy reading my blog!