andquot;Our desire to observe others eating, from the inside, is a large part of the appeal of reading about food in literature, as I was reminded by a splendid new collection edited by Christina Hardyment, Pleasures of the Table: A Literary Anthology, illustrated with vivid historic images from the collection of the British Library. . . . The collection as a whole reads like a fresh treat, thanks to Hardymentandrsquo;s keen eye for pleasures of many kinds. She allows us to stare, unobserved, at many an intimate breakfast and ad-hoc luncheon.andquot;
Food may not rank with white whales or the family as the most important literary subject, but in fact, major writers past and present have had plenty to say about it. This delightful divertissement brings together a tasty menu of literary gems about food. Anthony Trollope discusses cake while Paul Auster laments the bitter breaking of two eggs. Other scrumptious entries riff on American and foreign cuisine, restaurants, cooking, table manners, Dickens' famous Christmas pudding, Proust's Madeleine, and Solzhenitsyn's challenging cabbage.
Introdctuction
1. The Art of Hospitality
Epicrurusandrsquo;s Very Son ~ Geoffrey Chaucer
Good Cheer ~ Thomas Tusser
Inviting a Friend to Supper ~ Ben Jonson
I Find My new Table Very Proper ~ Samuel Pepys
Bountiful Breakfasts ~ Sir Walter Scott
One of our Small Eggs will Not Hurt You ~ Jane Austen
The Ideal Dining Room ~ Thomas Walker
A Wery Good Notion of a Lunch ~ Charles Dickens
No Dust on the Mind ~ George Eliot
The Mere Chink of Cups ~ George Gissing
Not So Wild Wales ~ George Borrow
Mrs Hudson Rises to the Occasion ~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Real Ally Daly ~ James Joyce
The Ultimate in Thoughtfulness ~ Richard Jefferies
A Party Round a Table ~ Virginia Woolf
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2. Dazzling All Beholders
Make the Ladies to Skip and Shriek ~ Robert May
The Epicure ~ Ben Jonson
The Company of the Saucepan ~ Giorgio Vasari
Toasts on the Nail ~ Thomas Wright
Sancho Panzaandrsquo;s Skimmings ~ Miguel de Cervantes
If I Were a Rich Manandhellip; ~ Joseph Berchoux
All Mingled Higgledy-Piggledy ~ Washington Irving
Quails Decked in their Plumage ~ Gustave Flaubert
Our Arabian Nights Plates ~ Marcel Proust
Men and Girls Came and Went Like Moths ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
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3. Love Bites
Flaunting It ~ Pliny the Elder
Feasting on Your Sight ~ William Shakespeare
An Hellespont of Cream ~ John Davies
A Volley of Small Charms ~ Henry Fielding
The Diamond of the Kitchen ~ Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
Lucent Syrops, Tinct with Cinnamon ~ John Keats
A Sybariteandrsquo;s Most Pamperandrsquo;d Wishes ~ Lord Byron
Sirens of Spring ~ Mortimer Collins
Too Much Fuss and Bustle ~ Leo Tolstoy
Wineskins of Brown Morbidity ~ D.H. Lawrence
Plans for Domestic Delights ~ Rainer Maria Rilke
Daisies of the Deep ~ Richard Le Gallienne
Venus in the Kitchen ~ Normal Douglas
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4. Childish Things
A Call to Breakfast ~ Lydia Sigourney
Lines from Ache-Inside ~ Henry Sambrooke Leigh
Snapdragon ~ Robert Chambers
The Flying Egg ~ Carlo Collodi
Taste Them and Try ~ Christina Rossetti
Toasted Cheese and Milk~ Johanna Spyri
Breakfast on the Plunderer and Robber Tea ~ John Masefield
Two Picnics with Ratty ~ Kenneth Grahame
The Island Camp ~ Arthur Ransome
Turkish Delight ~ C.S. Lewis
Food Tastes So Much Nicer Out of Doors ~ Enid Blyton
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5. Cooks and Kitchens
On Thyself Thy Genius Must Depend ~ Athenaeus
The Master Cook ~ Ben Jonson
The Choice of a Cook ~ Joseph Berchoux
A Cook to the Centre of Her Soul ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe
Professors of Cookery? ~ Alexis Soyer
Energy and Bustle Personified ~ Frank Schloesser
A Perfect Model of Gastronomy ~ Alexander Dumas
A House Spun to Her Clamour ~ Rudyard Kipling
A World of Frenzied Industry ~ Arnold Bennett
One Vast Prey to Raging Dyspepsia ~ Joseph Conrad
and#160;
6. Distant Times and Places
The Ancient of Days ~ Teleclides
Seethed Tortoise ~ Zhao Hun
A Zodialcal Dinner ~ Petronius
Gorging at Pleasure ~ Gustave Flaubert
Gulliver eats a Laputian Feast ~ Jonathan Swift
All the Refinements of Cookery ~ James Justinian Morier
The Rule Against Grog was Rescinded ~ Sir John Ross
A Succulent Dish of Fried Seal Liver ~ Captain Robert Falcon Scott
Heart-Warming Food ~ Dr. David Livingstone
Chowder at the Try Pots Inn ~ Herman Melville
A Dash of the Epicure ~ Robert Louis Stevenson
and#160;
7. Simple Pleasures
Exceedingly Graceful ~ Charles Lamb
Only the Spiritual Parts of the Tea ~ Sir Kenelm Digby
Nectareous Tides of Milk and Cream ~ Tobias Smollett
Incomparably Good Toast ~ Karl Philipp Moritz
The Smell Simply Talked to Toad ~ Kenneth Grahame
A Radish and an Egg ~ William Cowper
Let Onion Atoms Lurk ~ Sydney Smith
To Raise a Salad in Two Hours ~ Hannah Glasse
Smoking and Tender and Juicy ~ William Thackeray
Tea on the River ~ Jerome K. Jerome
The Altruism of Oysters ~ Saki
A Shudder Ran Through My Whole Body ~ Marcel Proust
Thank God for My Good Dinner ~ Flora Thomspon
The Spiritual Home of the Tea-Pot ~ Agnes Jekyll
Subtle and Voluptuous ~ M.F.K. Fisher
and#160;
8. Literary Recipes
Classical Cabbages ~ Georges Ellwanger
Unctuous Parsnips ~ Sir Kenelm Digby
The Diarist as Cook ~ John Evelyn
How to Dress a Trout and Grayling ~ Izaak Walton
Oh, the Charming White and Red ~ Jonathan Swift
Elegiac Mutton Sauces ~ Thomas Gray
An Omelette for Madame de Randeacute;camier ~ Isabelle Beeton
Soup for the Swedish Nightingale ~ Eliza Acton
Herring andagrave; la Rob Roy ~ Alexis Soyer
Balaklava Nectar ~ Alexis Soyer
A Load of Bosh ~ Edward Lear
Alexander Dumasandrsquo; Arab Omelette ~ Alexander Dumas
Gelandeacute;e Crandegrave;me de Menthe ~ Agnes Jekyll
Emily Dickinsonandrsquo;s Gingerbread ~ Emily Dickinson
Omelette Arnold Bennett ~ Theodora FitzGibbon
Orange Soufflandeacute; ~ Katherine Mansfield
An After-Love Drink ~ Normal Douglas
A Nice Cup of Tea ~ George Orwell
Cauliflowers in Dijon ~ M.F.K. Fisher
Clotted Cream ~ Agatha Christie
Avocados Are My Favorite Fruit ~ Sylvia Plath
Scripture Cake
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List of Illustrations
Index of Authors