Most of Enid Blyton's books: particularly the ones in which children are friends with magical people whose sole purpose seems to be providing the children with whatever edible goodness they seem to be craving. Pop biscuits, ginger beer, exploding toffees, my gosh, the Land of Goodies! If your mouth didn't water once whilst reading The Magic Faraway Tree then your imagination must have had a screw loose. I remember once thinking, after reading 'The Children of Cherry-Tree farm', that eating lots of cream was good for you...
'"I wish for cream buns and ginger beer!" said Mollie.
"And I wish for treacle pudding and lemonade!" said Peter. A dish of cream buns and a bottle of fizzy ginger beer appeared in front of Mollie, and a dish with a steaming hot treacle pudding and a jug of lemonade appeared by Peter. It was just like a dream!' - The Adventures of The Wishing Chair
The Chronicles of Narnia
I think I'd let someone tear off one of my toenails (nice imagery, I know) if it meant I could join in on a Narnian feast. The Bacchinalian at the end of Prince Caspian! My mouth is watering. Just think what mealtimes at Cair Paravel must have been like.
'It was a fine meal after the Calormene fashion. I don't know whether you would have liked it or not, but Shasta did. There were lobsters, and salad, and snipe stuffed with almonds and truffles, and a complicated dish made of chicken-livers and rice and raisins and nuts, and there were cool melons and gooseberry fools and mulberry fools and every kind of nice thing that can be made with ice.' - The Horse and His Boy
The Wind in The Willows
I read somewhere that Kenneth Grahame wrote this for his son who was visually impaired: so the book functions on a sort of higher sensory plane than many others do. The animals in Wind in the Willows completely bring you into their world, which is a nice one, if sometimes sad/dangerous. When they eat it's totally an 'English bachelors' (I just realised that this is the only book that I have never even noticed, let alone resented, the lack of female characters.) do - but, as I say, definitely a nice one.'At one end of it, where an armchair stood pushed back, were spread the remains of the Badger's plain but ample supper. Rows of spotless plates winked from the shelves of the dresser at the far end of the room, and from the rafters overhead hung hams, bundles of dried herbs, nets of onions, and baskets of eggs.'
'"There's cold chicken..." replied the Rat briefly; "coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrench-rollscresssandwichespottedmeatgingerbeerlemonadesodawater_"'
What Katy Did
This is yet another of those books that defined my childhood... yet I have never met anyone else who has read it. Gets annoying towards the end because of the constant moralising, but all in all a
book I'd recommend to future generations. A large rambly family (not quite orphans, but the mother's dead) whose Anne-of-Green-Gablesish adventures vary from ridiculous pranks to serious accidents and saintly invalids. Check this for a long, mouth-watering passage solely about food:
'First came a great many ginger cakes. These were carefully laid on the grass to keep 'til wanted; buttered biscuit came next - three apiece, with slices of cold lamb laid in between; and last of all were a dozen hard-boiled eggs, and a layer of thick bread and butter sandwiched with corned beef... Oh, how good everything tasted in that bower, with the fresh wind rustling in the poplar leaves, sunshine and sweet wood-smells about them, and birds singing overhead! No grown-up dinner party ever had half so much fun. Each mouthful was a pleasure; and when the last crumb had vanished, Katy produced the second basket, and there - oh delightful surprise! - were seven little pies - molasses pies, baked in saucers - each with a brown top and crisp, candified edge, which tasted like toffee and lemon-peel, and all sorts of good things mixed up together.'
Unfortunately for me at this juncture, my fridge is empty...
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