Food for Thought

Ann Parker, Monday's child for Lady Killers, with a question: Does anyone in this corner of cyberspace associate certain foods with certain books?

Why ask? Well...

I happened to chomp into a piece of beef jerky today (preparing a sack lunch for one of the kids) and was immediately transported back to my 13th or 14th summer... Summer times while I was young were generally spent in an orgy of reading (and, I suppose, snacking). In particular, I associate beef jerky with Mary Stewart's The Ivy Tree. I recall very clearly lying across my bed, consuming nearly a pound of dried meat while devouring (so to speak) that particular book. In a similar vein, the taste of Annabelle's Rocky Road candy bars brings Ayn Rand's Anthem to mind (this must be from a later summer in which I was obsessed with Ayn Rand ...).

Anyone else have book—food connections they care to share?

Comments

[Camille Minichino]

SLUSH! That's what is now called "Italian ice" but to us it was slush and it goes with all the 35-cent Cardinal paperbacks that I used to read. Everything from bad novels to Plato's Dialogues.

And I also went through an Ayn Rand phase -- she deserved it!

[Jayne]

McIntosh's Toffee is firmly associated with Georgette Heyer's Regency novels. My friend's grandmother had the whole collection of novels, and on summer afternoons you might find 3-5 teenage girls in her cool, shady room with novels in their hands and toffee chunks slowly dissolving in their mouths.

[Kay]

I remember one summer my aunt gave me a bag of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and a new Trixie Belden mystery. I read the book and ate the candy and I didn't even remember it until you asked the question. Isn't memory a funny thing? I still have that Trixie Belden book and I kind of overdid it on peanut butter cups. HaVe never liked them much since. Thanks for the question.

[Ann]

Slush, toffee, peanut butter cups... It's fun to see the responses!
And Kay, I also remember feeling like I'd "overdone" the beef jerky for a while (the difference being that I didn't go off it entirely. But I only indulge very occasionally now and certainly not with an entire bag, as in my youth).
Also, I notice that the reports are all "sweet" vs savory. So, no munchers of potato chips or salted nuts or such while reading? I guess reading and snacking is mostly a "sweet combination" for us!