Tuesday, March 20, 2018

From Food in Fiction to Food as Fiction

Food spices literature. This was its traditional place in writings. However, today, there are whole novels where food is more important than the protagonist. 

The importance of the theme/genre is evident from the act of categorizing that is rapidly infusing food fiction:


Some of the books have movie versions. 





Naturally, these lists often overlap in their offerings. Nevertheless, each list is from a different angle and such efforts require our appreciation. 





A movie of the book exists


Things to eat or drink, in stories, take on added charm. It really does not matter if one has not tasted the specific morsel or beverage mentioned. The reader can even relish foods which might be forbidden in their culture. 

10 Great Novels for Food Lovers
An excellent write up with 'tasty excerpts'



Food fiction, like crime and romance, lends itself with ease to movie versions 




But what can we say after scanning these lists: is food fiction a genre or a theme? I would tend to surmise that, once upon a time it was a theme - the addition of a food scene or two would certainly be an ace up a writer's sleeve, given that food is a major preoccupation for most of us. However, with time, and given the demand created by the peculiar constraints of content writing, there have emerged novels where food is the centrepiece.


An article on kitchn.com provides a nice taste of who's who and what's what in this exploration 

 .. there are also shelves of crime fiction that often incorporate food-related puns (Crime BrûléeDevil's Food Cake MurderBeef Stolen-Off) and chick-lit titles whose protagonist usually owns a bakery/cupcake shop/catering company but still has time to look gorgeous and meet cute (but difficult and elusive) men.
... There are also novels where the protagonist is a chef, novels about Chinese food, and novels where the heroine goes to Paris and eats a lot of delicious-sounding things.

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