Culture & Entertainment
Fictitious dishes: Literary meals brought to life
Culture & Entertainment
Fictitious dishes: Literary meals brought to life
It's always funny what aspects of a book stick with you
—the characters, a certain landmark in a fictional city, a specific outfit, the food. The food especially sticks with me. Whenever I see strawberries, I think of
Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Ingeniously, Dinah Fried has brought some of the most memorable literary meals to life, in a new book called
Fictitious Dishes: An Album of Literature's Most Memorable Meals. Dinah recreated some of the most wonderful food moments from beloved books, like the jelly in
Little Women and the raspberry cordial in
Anne of Green Gables. And of course, the Mad Hatter's
tea party from
Alice in Wonderland, pictured above.
Dinah started the book as a school project while she was at the Rhode Island School of Design. She jokes in the book that she had a camera, a Whole Foods gift card and a bunch of mismatched dishes
—which is exactly what you need to create a book like this. But her school assignment quickly turned into something more and she kept making more and more literary meals, which eventually turned into this amazing book. I understand completely why she became obsessed with this project, I've spent hours devouring this book. It's hard to resist the beautiful photos. But along with each photo is the book excerpt that inspired it. You can't help but compare the picture with the text, marveling at all the small details that Dinah manages to get into each picture. Like the
monogrammed napkin in the picture above, which is one of the decadent buffets from
The Great Gatsby.
The book is also full of fun details about the food, like how you make a raspberry cordial. Or the difference between New England
clam chowder and Manhattan clam chowder. In
Moby-Dick; or the Whale, they eat New England clam chowder, pictured above. You'll need to pick up this book yourself so you can see all the amazing photos. I can't pick a favourite photo, but I adore the meals from
The Tale of Peter Rabbit and
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. When you get the book, you'll have to let me know which one you love.
Photos by Dinah Fried
Fictitious Dishes: An Album of Literature's Most Memorable Meals, published by HarperCollins, is now available for purchase.
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