Food in Literature - Emma Donoghue's The Wonder

 

An occasional series on food in literature - I was very struck by this 2016 novel by the Irish writer Emma Donoghue, who wrote the bestseller Room. It's not so much a novel about food but the absence of food.It concerns a young girl in 19th centre Ireland who claims to be able to live without eating. It's a miracle! She becomes the object of pilgrimages for people who think her ability to live on nothing is divinely inspired. An English nurse arrives, practical and atheistic, who job it is to monitor the child day and night to prove that she is not secretly being fed. The nurse is convinced some sleight of hand is going on but she can't figure out how the child is surviving on nothing. But - once the nurse's vigil starts, the girl begins to starve. Evidently her food source has been cut off - but who is responsible? Darn, I've nearly told you the whole story. But there's such wonders to behold in the writing, and lots about the Irish famine, manna from heaven, local food and much else. Well worth reading.

Old Sarum Jams

On a recent visit to the English Heritage site of Old Sarum, near Salisbury we discovered that the gift shop has a rather good selection of preserves. We arrived late after doing a long walk and they kindly kept the shop open for us; they were just about to close, and so we were admitted up the ramp and across the bridge for a private viewing while the masked vendor waited patiently, though I didn't feel I could linger as long as I would have liked to otherwise. But I was very happy with these purchases - never come across the combination of fig and raspberry before, and black fig at that. Tried it just now on toast - very nice, gives a sort of depth and tang to the raspberries, their sweetness breaking through the dark sombre almost treacly tones of the black fig. The blood orange marmalade was very good as well, might be a suitable substitute for the RNLI marmalade we bought in Weston a few weeks ago, and which we thought might have no peer. Label recommends the marmalade goes well with (or should that be in?) Cheslea Buns, while the fig and raspberry goes well in a Bakewell tart.   

 SAUSAGE ODYSSEY

You might know what has happened to supermarket sausages recently - they have all become gluten free - wherever you go - Sainsbury's, Morrisons, Asda, Tesco, everything is gluten free which means they are basically horrible, the texture of rice flour in the fillings and the seaweed casings means they don't taste like proper sausages at all - I have been waiting for the public uprising, for the riots in the streets, but apparently the British public have either not noticed or are ok with blanket gluten free in the supermarket sausage departments. It looks like the proper sausage has gone from supermarket shelves for good.

The plus side of this is that I have been forced back to visiting butchers' shops to procure my sausages. They are far better, but the quality does vary. So I will be doing a survey of sausages in my local area and will embark on a quest for the perfect local sausage. You'll have noticed I've avoided using the term 'banger' in this post, such a cliche. 

So much food wise has been transformed by the pandemic, we have hardly eaten out since 2019, but the saddest thing is the closure of pubs - so I will also be surveying and documenting the closure of pubs in the area - have seen so many beloved hostelries go to the wall since the pandemic, and I should really start visiting them again. So, watch this space for future posts regarding sausages and pubs.