{"id":1513,"date":"2021-10-04T04:16:03","date_gmt":"2021-10-04T12:16:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/?p=1513"},"modified":"2021-10-04T04:16:03","modified_gmt":"2021-10-04T12:16:03","slug":"food-in-fantasy-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/2021\/10\/04\/food-in-fantasy-fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Food in Fantasy Fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the abbreviated version of a talk I gave in Ireland over the weekend for Octocon, the Irish National Science Fiction Convention, when I was at my desk on the other side of the world. I thought it might be a pleasant interlude in a difficult year. Even abbreviated it is not that short.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve kept the beginning, but taken out much detail. If you want to see what the writers actually say (and I chose seven novels because they are so good, and the eighth because I had something very particular to say, so it\u2019s worth chasing all but one novel and looking at those first pages) scroll down to the end, where I\u2019ve given a list of the books I talk about (with links). One day I need to do a presentation somewhere on food in the openings of US fantasy novels. That would be a great deal of fun.<\/span><\/p>\n

The talk alone meant I spent much of Monday cooking.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I told folks that my new research <\/span>is partly o<\/span>n food and foodways in fantasy, many people nodded sagely and said, \u201cAh, stew. <\/span>So often when we talk about food in fantasy, we begin with Diana Wynne Jones and <\/span>The Tough Guide to Fantasyland<\/i><\/span>. Diana Wynne Jones pointed out the elephant in the room when she said that \u201cStew is what you will be served to eat every single time\u201d in Fantasyland. <\/span>\u201d The vision of stew and arguments about stew <\/span>are wonderful and often funny, but they obscure what writers <\/span>actually <\/span>do with food in fiction. That\u2019s what I\u2019ll explore today. <\/span><\/p>\n

Food is not just something we <\/span>eat<\/span> because we kinda like living, it\u2019s also critical to <\/span>how we shape and explain our lives and even to<\/span> helping us trust the stories we <\/span>read and the stories we <\/span>tell. Today I shall take <\/span>eight<\/span> writers, <\/span>four<\/span> Irish and <\/span>four<\/span> Australian, and I shall look at <\/span>eight<\/span> novels. <\/span>I shall specifically look at the opening of each novel, for the beginning is a very fine place to start to <\/span>learn<\/span> about food in fantasy. <\/span><\/p>\n

One of the things that got me interested in food and foodways was how food was displayed at the Museum of <\/span>Melbourne <\/span>some years ago<\/span>.<\/span> The <\/span>food <\/span>narrative for most of Australia <\/span>in the museum <\/span>was school lunchboxes or Charlene\u2019s wedding cake from <\/span>Neighbours<\/i><\/span>. Food was <\/span>pr<\/span>e<\/span>sented<\/span> as a developed part of identity and story. <\/span>And then\u2026 t<\/span>here was a special room for <\/span>the <\/span>food and foodways of Indigenous Australians. <\/span>I<\/span>t consisted of a garden. <\/span><\/p>\n

The very first novel I chose to look at was by <\/span>Lisa <\/span>Fuller <\/span>because she <\/span>challenges the Museum of Melbourne\u2019s depiction of <\/span>Indigenous Australian <\/span>foodways <\/span>in <\/span>Ghost Bird<\/i><\/span>. <\/span> Fuller presents<\/span> one family and their foodways <\/span>in detail and with much cleverness<\/span>.<\/span> W<\/span>hen you reach <\/span>the<\/span> end <\/span>of <\/span>Ghost Bird<\/i><\/span>, <\/span>it\u2019s possible to<\/span> cook at least some of the family dishes. Not because there are recipes (there are no recipes) but because the descriptions of f<\/span>ood and food<\/span>ways are so very evocative <\/span>and sophisticated<\/span>. <\/span>Food and foodways are a profound part of this novel. They don\u2019t just explain the relationship of the <\/span>Indigenous Australian <\/span>family with White Australia and with modern science, however, <\/span>foodways<\/span> explain the relationships between people. <\/span>They elegantly refute that garden in the Museum of Melbourne by showing us that ingredients in nature are only one <\/span>small part<\/span> of <\/span>real <\/span>foodways. <\/span><\/p>\n

What about <\/span>Sarah Maria Griffin\u2019<\/span>s<\/span> Other Word<\/i><\/span>s<\/i><\/span> for Smoke<\/i><\/span>? <\/span>Like <\/span>Ghost Bird,<\/i><\/span> i<\/span>t<\/span>\u2019s about family and loss and <\/span>tension. Looking at the food in <\/span>the early part of<\/span> Other Words for Smoke,<\/i><\/span> however,<\/span> i<\/span>nstantly demonstrates their differences. <\/span><\/p>\n

First, <\/span>f<\/span>ood is not the factor that brings the <\/span>initial <\/span>narrative together.<\/span><\/p>\n

When does food first appear, then? And what form does it take? <\/span>It appears when the novel proper begins, and f<\/span>ood is <\/span>a critical<\/span> trigger for thought <\/span>at that point. It s<\/span>hows us a lot about the character, what they see, what aspects of what they see need interpretation. It is also, just as in Fuller\u2019s novel, a critical component of culture. As I read out the quote, it hurt my ears. Food delineate<\/span>s<\/span> cultural differences so precisely <\/span>in <\/span>Other Words for Smoke<\/i><\/span> <\/i>that I can hear <\/span>how <\/span>wrong my accent is for this novel<\/span> wrong.<\/span> The novel itself feeds on a very precise, <\/span>even mimetic<\/span> everyday<\/span>. Everything that pushes us away from th<\/span>at<\/span> everyday is going to hurt.<\/span><\/p>\n

Food is no less importa<\/span>nt in <\/span>Sam Hawke\u2019s <\/span>City of Lies<\/i><\/span> t<\/span>han in the previous two works. <\/span>City of Lies <\/i><\/span>is an adventure fantasy <\/span>set in a secondary world<\/span>, full of politics and intrigue and danger. <\/span>Food is twisted in<\/span>to<\/span> it, right from the beginning. The very first page of the novel itself links food with poison intimately and those links last throughout the novel. We know foodways through <\/span>the <\/span>politics <\/span>of poison<\/span>. <\/span><\/p>\n

In one way, Hawke\u2019s depiction of food and foodways is as complex as Fuller\u2019s. It\u2019s a whole cuisine. Like both Fuller\u2019s and Griffin\u2019s, it\u2019s closely connected to the plot. There is one big difference. <\/span>T<\/span>he food is in a secondary world, <\/span>which means that <\/span>Hawke describes it in a lot more detail. The trick of secondary worlds is that, if you want to read one that is quite, quite different to our <\/span>own<\/span>, the world building <\/span>is often detailed<\/span>. <\/span>Hawke takes an almost anthropological approach to describing food, while using<\/span> the<\/span> type of <\/span>descriptive prose <\/span>that is the hallmark of many secondary world novels. <\/span><\/p>\n

Why do I not instantly want to cook the delectable dishes Hawke describe<\/span>s<\/span>? First, <\/span>t<\/span>hey\u2019re not written to tempt cooks. <\/span>The palate touches on taste (but not in detail) but it\u2019s also strongly visua<\/span>l. <\/span><\/p>\n

More importantly, <\/span>Hawke undermines her own description<\/span>s of food by pointing out their relationship with poison. Food and foodways are<\/span> vehicle<\/span>s<\/span> for delivering poison and plotpoints in an alternate world.<\/span><\/p>\n

Celine Kiernan\u2019s <\/span>The Poison Throne<\/i><\/span> is also a secondary world fantasy, but the only mention of food in the first two pages is grass and water for a hungry horse. How much need for food is there in adventure fantasy? It depends on the adventure fantasy. It also depends on the fashion in publishing, which possibly brings us back to stew, which once was most definitely <\/span>a <\/span>fashion food <\/span>for fantasy<\/span>. <\/span>T<\/span>he lack of food in the opening of <\/span>The Poison Throne<\/i><\/span>, then, signal<\/span>s<\/span> to the reader <\/span>its sub-genre<\/span>. Kiernan is not the only fantasy writer who uses signals in this way and, notably, uses <\/span>lack of <\/span>food in this way. <\/span>The critical insight here is that no matter how much we all need food in our everyday, we don\u2019t all need food in all our novels.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ruth Frances Long\u2019s <\/span>A Crack in Everything<\/i><\/span> presents<\/span> food from the very first line <\/span>where a<\/span> toaster explodes. After the toaster dies, Izzy\u2019s mother finishes the coffee. <\/span>The toaster and the coffee give us f<\/span>ood and foodways, both. <\/span><\/p>\n

There are many ways of interpreting this. What I\u2019d like to focus on <\/span>now<\/span> is how mundane the scene is and yet how it sets up the construct that is critical for the story: two worlds meeting. The family bonds through food and through the destruction of the toaster, which is also important, for it announces that this is not a novel about an impossibly dysfunctional family. <\/span><\/p>\n

Long use<\/span>s<\/span> the small to foreshadow the big, <\/span>just like Fuller,<\/span> and prepare<\/span>s<\/span> readers for what will come. <\/span>The world of the novel will change and, in a mere two pages, Long has given us <\/span>both <\/span>the familiar world and a stake in it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Garth Nix\u2019s <\/span>The Left Handed Booksellers of London<\/i><\/span> is another novel I get to dip into twice, for it has a prologue and an opening. This is another novel in which food plays a minimalist role. There is no food in either <\/span>the prologue nor the opening proper<\/span>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Unlike Kiernan\u2019s book, <\/span>The Left Handed Booksellers of London<\/i><\/span> is not a secondary world fantasy. It\u2019s set in a world much like ours, but with magic. When food finally appears, it\u2019s the kind of food that one would buy for quick sustenance <\/span>travelling<\/span> through the UK. <\/span><\/p>\n

This means<\/span> of depicting culture depends very much on readers already having some cultural knowledge about the setting. <\/span>I<\/span>t works <\/span>in <\/span>The Left Handed Booksellers of London<\/i><\/span> because so much of world culture <\/span>in this novel <\/span>revolves around a popular knowledge of U<\/span>K<\/span> culture. <\/span>R<\/span>eal culture is a lot more complex and dynamic than the stuff we think we know about a place or a time: <\/span>the<\/span> novel is a popular, simplified depiction. <\/span>Nix\u2019s novel is for the international market, and the way Nix uses food in it tells us this, very clearly.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dierdre Sullivan\u2019<\/span>s<\/span> Perfectly Preventable Deaths<\/i><\/span> is <\/span>the<\/span> polar opposite even though the technique in the first pages has something critical in common with <\/span>both <\/span>The Left-Handed Booksellers of London <\/i><\/span>and<\/span> <\/i>Sam Hawke\u2019s <\/span>City of Lies<\/i><\/span>. <\/span>I<\/span>t shares <\/span>with Nix\u2019s novel <\/span>the absence of food<\/span> in the first two pages. <\/span><\/p>\n

Foodways are implied, however, as part of a particular focus on the material world that <\/span>binds<\/span> the novel tightly together. <\/span><\/p>\n

I<\/span>t shares des<\/span>criptions of<\/i><\/span> plants with Hawke\u2019s <\/span>City of Lies.<\/i><\/span> The uses of plants reflect the cultural use of a plant, just as Hawke\u2019s did, but the plants are plants we know and the uses are <\/span>more varied<\/span>. <\/span><\/p>\n

The cultural elements in <\/span>Perfectly Preventable Deaths<\/i><\/span> come<\/span> from a quite different direction to those in <\/span>The <\/i><\/span>Left-handed<\/i><\/span> Booksellers of London <\/i><\/span>or<\/span> City of Lies<\/i><\/span>. They are carefully crafted to draw us into a complex and perilous world. <\/span>This is<\/span> a very different kind of fantasy <\/span>to Nix\u2019s<\/span>. <\/span>The novel depicts a strong local culture. Food and foodways are an inherent part of the culture and appear in this way throughout the <\/span>story<\/span>. They are not strong in the opening because the opening sets up the protagonist\u2019s view of this culture and all the cultures that impinge upon it during the <\/span>tale<\/span>. <\/span><\/p>\n

The <\/span>last<\/span> book is by me. <\/span>M<\/span>y fiction is <\/span>not <\/span>particularly special, <\/span>but there<\/span>\u2019s one element that I know for certain <\/span>about<\/span> my <\/span>own<\/span> work <\/span>and that I need to address<\/span>. That element is authorial intent. <\/span><\/p>\n

A<\/span>sk me and I\u2019ll write about authorial intent and its relationship to world building and to prejudice and to all kinds of wonderful things. Here, today, I want to talk about what the author actually intends when they write. When we try to work out what the author intends in the book we\u2019re reading, there\u2019s a certain amount of guesswork. When the writer claims something about their work (as I am doing here) it\u2019s important to test their claims. <\/span><\/p>\n

I have a cookbook and <\/span>bits in<\/span> other books that show clearly my relationship to food. I was a professional blogger on food history for three years and have given academic papers on it. I ran banquets for Conflux, the Canberra science fiction convention. There is an enormous amount of data on my responses to food and foodways. You don\u2019t have to trust what I say here \u2013 you can test every single claim <\/span>I make<\/span>. <\/span>Let <\/span>me<\/span> do some claiming, then.<\/span><\/p>\n

The opening of <\/span>Borderlanders<\/i><\/span> is full of food. I <\/span>used food<\/span> to make it clear that the novel was set in contemporary Australia and I to communicate contemporary Australia to those who know it not. I wanted <\/span>the opening to feel<\/span> no<\/span>t-too<\/span>-exotic, <\/span>because magic will intervene in the plot soon enough<\/span>. All those are surface reasons. <\/span>I had a deeper reason:<\/span> I <\/span>set up a character to look as if they are the hero\u2026 and they\u2019re not. From the beginning, <\/span>this novel<\/span> reinterprets<\/span> the hero\u2019s journey. I wanted everyday and very mundane food to give the right reader a sense of ambivalence about her quest.<\/span><\/p>\n

T<\/span>hat\u2019s eight authors and eight reasons for food. Let me recap them.<\/span><\/p>\n

1. In Lisa Fuller\u2019s <\/span>Ghost Bird<\/i><\/span>, f<\/span>ood and foodways present<\/span>ed<\/span> a <\/span>highly-political <\/span>argument in a non-threatening way.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. In <\/span>Sarah Maria Griffin\u2019<\/span>s<\/span> Other Word<\/i><\/span>s<\/i><\/span> for Smoke <\/i><\/span>f<\/span>o<\/span>od <\/span>is <\/span>used to delineate subtle cultural points. <\/span>In doing this, it reminds us <\/span>that fantasy is a variety of literature, <\/span>and <\/span>not a lesser artform.<\/span><\/p>\n

3. <\/span>In <\/span>Sam Hawke\u2019s <\/span>City of Lies<\/i><\/span> f<\/span>ood <\/span>and foodways are<\/span> undermined in order to present another aspect of society <\/span>e<\/span>ntirely.<\/span><\/p>\n

4. In <\/span>Celine Kiernan\u2019s <\/span>The Poison Throne<\/i><\/span>, <\/span>f<\/span>o<\/span>od, or lack thereof, <\/span>is presented <\/span>as a clear signal of sub-genre.<\/span><\/p>\n

5. <\/span>Ruth Frances Long\u2019s <\/span>A Crack in Everything <\/i><\/span>uses f<\/span>ood and foodways as vehicles to prepare for a plot twist and a changed world.<\/span><\/p>\n

6. <\/span>Garth Nix\u2019s <\/span>The Left Handed Booksellers of London <\/i><\/span>uses f<\/span>ood <\/span>as a minor<\/span> part of a culture we think we know, making the novel easier for more readers and more likely to sell in larger numbers across the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

7. <\/span>Dierdre Sullivan\u2019<\/span>s<\/span> Perfectly Preventable Deaths<\/i><\/span> gives us f<\/span>ood as a minor aspect of the depiction of the most important character.<\/span><\/p>\n

8. <\/span>And, <\/span>finally<\/span>, by looking at authorial intent <\/span>in my own <\/span>Borderlanders<\/i><\/span>, I demonstrated that food in fantasy novels may not actually be merely one of these things. It can be several at once.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The List of Books<\/b><\/p>\n

Lisa Fuller <\/span>Ghost Bird<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Sarah Maria Griffin <\/span>Other Word<\/i><\/span>s<\/i><\/span> for Smoke<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Sam Hawke City of Lies<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

Celine Kiernan <\/i><\/span>The Poison Throne<\/i><\/span><\/a> <\/i><\/p>\n

Ruth Frances Long <\/span>A Crack in Everything<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Garth Nix <\/span>The Left Handed Booksellers of London<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Dierdre Sullivan<\/span> Perfectly Preventable Deaths<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Gillian Polack<\/span> Borderlanders<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the abbreviated version of a talk I gave in Ireland over the weekend for Octocon, the Irish National Science Fiction Convention, when I was at my desk on the other side of the world. I thought it might be a pleasant interlude in a difficult year. Even abbreviated it is not that short. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[335,16,8,6,14],"tags":[347,342,343,341,349,26,344,348,346,345],"class_list":["post-1513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-2","category-essays","category-fantasy","category-fiction","category-nonfiction","tag-celine-kiernan","tag-dierdre-sullivan","tag-food-and-foodways","tag-food-in-fantasy","tag-garth-nix","tag-gillian-polack","tag-lisa-fuller","tag-ruth-frances-long","tag-sam-hawke","tag-sarah-maria-griffin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1513"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1514,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1513\/revisions\/1514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}