Sweet-n-Sour Potatoes With Some Hot Fruit
“A cook in a jacket, a short petticoat and sabots, brought my supper: to wit—some meat, nature unknown, served in an odd and acid, but pleasant sauce; some chopped potatoes, made savoury with, I know not what: vinegar and sugar, I think: a tartine, or slice of bread and butter, and a baked pear.”
Compulsory Fruit Plate
“That intolerably keen instinct of his seemed to have anticipated my scheme: he met me at the threshold, hurried me into the room, and fixed me in a minute in my former seat. Taking the plate of fruit from my hand, he divided the portion intended only for himself, and ordered me to eat my share. I complied with no good grace, and vexed, I suppose, by my reluctance, he opened a masked and dangerous battery. All he had yet said, I could count as mere sound and fury, signifying nothing: not so of the present attack.”
I Had Herbal Tea Once And That Was More Than Enough
“Oh! all that is very conceivable,” said I. “Goton could do nothing for me but bring me a little tisane and a crust of bread, and I had rejected both so often during the past week, that the good woman got tired of useless journeys from the dwelling-house kitchen to the school-dormitory, and only came once a day at noon to make my bed.”
Part of A Croissant Shared With A Child
“His simple lunch consisted frequently of a “brioche,” which, as often as not, he shared with some child of the third division.”
Coffee and Undermining
“She did not like the morning cup of coffee; its school brewage not being strong or sweet enough to suit her palate; and she had an excellent appetite, like any other healthy school-girl, for the morning pistolets or rolls, which were new-baked and very good, and of which a certain allowance was served to each. This allowance being more than I needed, I gave half to Ginevra; never varying in my preference, though many others used to covet the superfluity; and she in return would sometimes give me a portion of her coffee. This morning I was glad of the draught; hunger I had none, and with thirst I was parched. I don’t know why I chose to give my bread rather to Ginevra than to another; nor why, if two had to share the convenience of one drinking-vessel, as sometimes happened—for instance, when we took a long walk into the country, and halted for refreshment at a farm—I always contrived that she should be my convive, and rather liked to let her take the lion’s share, whether of the white beer, the sweet wine, or the new milk: so it was, however, and she knew it; and, therefore, while we wrangled daily, we were never alienated.”
Deception Bread
“On descending, I found Paulina (the child called herself Polly, but her full name was Paulina Mary) seated at the breakfast-table, by Mrs. Bretton’s side; a mug of milk stood before her, a morsel of bread filled her hand, which lay passive on the table-cloth: she was not eating.
‘How we shall conciliate this little creature,’ said Mrs. Bretton to me, ‘I don’t know: she tastes nothing, and by her looks, she has not slept.’”
It’s Been About Three Years Since I Was Hungry So I Guess I’ll Eat Some Peas And Beef, If You Insist
“Faint, at last, and hungry (it was years since I had felt such healthy hunger), I returned, about two o’clock, to my dark, old, and quiet inn. I dined on two dishes—a plain joint and vegetables; both seemed excellent: how much better than the small, dainty messes Miss Marchmont’s cook used to send up to my kind, dead mistress and me, and to the discussion of which we could not bring half an appetite between us! Delightfully tired, I lay down, on three chairs for an hour (the room did not boast a sofa). I slept, then I woke and thought for two hours.”
Exhaustion Broth
“Notwithstanding all I had undergone—the bodily fatigue, the perturbation of spirits, the exposure to weather—it seemed that I was better: the fever, the real malady which had oppressed my frame, was abating; for, whereas during the last nine days I had taken no solid food, and suffered from continual thirst, this morning, on breakfast being offered, I experienced a craving for nourishment: an inward faintness which caused me eagerly to taste the tea this lady offered, and to eat the morsel of dry toast she allowed in accompaniment. It was only a morsel, but it sufficed; keeping up my strength till some two or three hours afterwards, when the bonne brought me a little cup of broth and a biscuit.”
Shyness-Induced Dinner Apathy
“He declined dinner, for he was a man always somewhat shy at meeting the advances of the wealthy: there was a strength of sturdy independence in the stringing of his sinews—not obtrusive, but pleasant enough to discover as one advanced in knowledge of his character; he promised, however, to step in with his friend, M. A——, a French Academician, in the course of the evening.”
Sobbing
“Tears are given them here for meat and drink—bread of affliction and waters of affliction—their recompence comes hereafter.”
Thinking About Cake
“In this exercise the afternoon passed: day began to glide into evening; and I, who had eaten nothing since breakfast, grew excessively hungry. Now I thought of the collation, which doubtless they were just then devouring in the garden far below. (I had seen in the vestibule a basketful of small pâtés à la crême, than which nothing in the whole range of cookery seemed to me better). A pâté, or a square of cake, it seemed to me would come very àpropos; and as my relish for those dainties increased, it began to appear somewhat hard that I should pass my holiday, fasting and in prison. Remote as was the attic from the street-door and vestibule, yet the ever-tinkling bell was faintly audible here; and also the ceaseless roll of wheels, on the tormented pavement.”
Freezing Cold Water Is Basically Cocktails
“How quickly I dressed in the cold of the raw dawn! How deeply I drank of the ice-cold water in my carafe! This was always my cordial, to which, like other dram-drinkers, I had eager recourse when unsettled by chagrin.”
dram-drinkers
just don’t know what to make of that designation !
I forgot to bring my lunch today. This didn’t help my attitude. Ice-cold carafe water can suck it.
I’m beginning to suspect that the Brontes had a tortured relationship with food (i.e. not enough of it)
tag yourself, I’m “morsel of dry toast “
3rd division of “brioche” here
“the superfluity”
definitely identifying with Exhaustion Broth today
same
I’m “the advances of the wealthy”
bread of affliction, definitely
A plain joint, most certainly.
The double entendre completely escaped me! That’s why I’m glad you’re around, CleverManka.
“I lay down on three chairs for an hour”
(My bed is at the new place and I am at the old place sleeping on sofa cushions.)
Uggghhhh, this is me when I’m working late and need to take a nap. My place of employment is woefully short of nappable couches.
I have a blanket folded in four and draped across the back of my desk chair, just in *case*.
(I also had enough emergency cardigans on it at one point that I could have made a Librarian Nest.)
Hot fruit, for sure.
I’m going to go with “small, dainty mess”
I aspire to “small, dainty mess”
Definitely “always somewhat shy at meeting”
I’m “morsel of dry toast ”
AREN’T WE ALL
Fruit Plate of Ill Grace
I’m “pleasant sauce,” for sure.
The “morsel of ice flavoured with ever so slight a zest of fruit or sugar” described in Chapter XXXII.
I’m meat of an unknown nature in an odd, acid, yet pleasant sauce. Cover up your fundamental unknowability with a wash of a personality the public will approve of, that’s what I say.
“Sobbing”
Dainty messes.
School coffee: never strong or sweet enough.
“a masked and dangerous battery,” yep, checks out
“the raw dawn”
yepp
Why can’t Bronte heroines ever bring themselves to consume an entire piece of bread? It’s bread, not double-chocolate cheesecake, for goodness sake.
Their general agony over life spills over into eating. Although, to be fair, as a Bronte heroine you really only either 1. Get Nice Things just to have them taken away, or 2. Get Nice Things only after a ton of terrible events, so I guess it pays to be cautious.
Seriously though what is it with the Brontes and food? Some puritanical holiness in deprivation?
I have honestly never read a book that treated food with any sense of proportion, except maybe some children’s books kinda? Like writers do not often pay attention to the constant intricacies of food eating and even when they do they’ll cop out for easiness like Tolkien and his magic fully sustaining elf bread.
But in particular rejecting food because you’re too emotionally het up is a long-standing romantic heroine trope and you can still see it all the time in the YA of today. I guess “I’m sad because the man I’m in love with is a dictatorial scumbag so I’m going to eat this entire ham to comfort myself” isn’t pure and delicate and ladylike enough.
Pretty sure I have read speculation regarding the Bronte sisters and eating disorders, but I can’t remember if there was a good argument or if it was speculation for the sake of it. They would have suffered food deprivation though, since the not-quite-an-orphanage bits in Jane Eyre are semi-autobiographical. So rather than a consistent ideology, I’d say it’s standard sustenance screwery with a dash of personal issues. Food is hard.
Ok but brioche is not croissant…is it? Still not something that should be shared, even with a child. Gimme my own damn breadthing.
This has been your regular episode of pastry-trolling with Mallory Ortberg.
Wait, is she saying in the second one that some guy starts beating her because she’s not eating thankfully enough?
No, I think it means he’s like scolding her. I hate that dude.
M. Paul is big into scolding.
YOU CAN’T CURE CHAGRIN WITH WATER, MISSY
In my list of reasons why Villette is better than Jane Eyre, one of them is that the man who locks her in the attic lets her out the same day and gives her cake. Sadly, even in books by Charlotte Brontë, imprisoned white people receive shorter sentences and more lenient treatment than their black or mixed-race counterparts.
related: a baked pear
I initially red Compulsory Fruit Plate as the dude taking HER fruit and divvying it between the two of them and then getting in her face to eat up and I was Just So MAD at him.
And now I feel irked that I was wrong and he was sharing and urgh Now I Must Apologise to a Fictional Male Character when I don’t want to. It’s definitely a mystery meat in sweet and sour sauce day here today.
Uhmmm but she didn’t want any, so he was just favor-sharking. You can still be mad at M. Fictional.
"Sobbing"
I just finished reading Villette for the first time and I have FEELINGS.
But my favorite food scene is missing: the one where Lucy is actually hungry because she’s been locked in the tower rehearsing by herself for hours, and M. Emanuel brings her some food that she actually likes. And I think she gets to eat it too! Though I can’t find the quote.
I have a blanket folded in four and draped across the back of my desk chair, just in *case*.
(I also had enough emergency cardigans on it at one point that I could have made a Librarian Nest.)
I don’t think I realized how hilarious Villette was when I read it. Coffee and Undermining. Exhaustion Broth.
"Ice-cold water," or so I aspire.