Thursday, August 1, 2013

Food, glorious food.

Cook With Food - Frans Snyders

I asked two of my friends what I should write about for my blog, one said I should talk about writing prompts and the other said I should write about food. So here I am ... writing about food. Because food is tasty and scrumptious. We're going to go mostly into describing food. I thought about touching on the topics of Gluttony and Starvation, but those are really more complicated topics that I will tackle at a different point.

So how does one write about food? Well first, describe it! I have never known readers to complain about too many descriptions of food. They want to know what the characters are eating. This is because if a meal is described, but the food isn't, the reader's first thought it 'yes but what did they eat?'. The reader's stomach's want to know what their characters are eating! Perhaps they want to make some of it for themselves after they put the book down.

But doesn't it distract from the story? This is a valid point and sometimes its right. Sometimes you don't want to describe food because there's something else going on that you don't want to distract from. However this is rarely the case because food is generally not being served at a time when there's a lot of action going on. Usually it's devoured during a time where the character is trying to recuperate and relax.

Also describing food can help accent the nature of the situation. Look to the Chronicles of Narnia. The White Witch gives Edmund Turkish Delights, the lavish, over-saccharine nature of the dish helps capture the sweet, stylish, but unhealthy nature of sinful temptation, this is contrasted by the food of the Beavers, which is simple, plain and healthy.

Remember food can be used to communicate meaning and atmosphere, a grilled cheese sandwich brings to mind such concepts as snacks, the middle class and America. By contrast caviar tends to immediately bring wealth to mind. If you put your character in a dungeon, describing their moldy bread and tepid water helps the reader to understand the filthiness of the character's position.

So those are my thoughts on food ... hmm ... I'm getting hungry...

2 comments:

  1. And if you put enough food in, eventually you can come out with an Eldoth cookbook...

    ReplyDelete