Fictitious Feasts
August 20, 2016 2:05 AM Subscribe
A series of pictures of food as eaten in world famous scenes in literature. Charles Roux creates these fictitious meals, photographs them and then eats them. His goal is to collect the photographs in a book, putting the meals back on paper, where they belong.
Hey, don't knock it, hippybear - blogs and online articles that go viral (and links on Metafilter) are how I find a lot of clients for my literary agency...
posted by twsf at 3:03 AM on August 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by twsf at 3:03 AM on August 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
I thought this was going to nice but ultimately unsatisfying, like reading a description of a good meal, but instead this was completely wonderful. The only unsatisfying thing is that no one's publishing this as a book yet and about half the people on my Christmas gift list would love this.
posted by Kattullus at 3:06 AM on August 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Kattullus at 3:06 AM on August 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
There's something for everyone in here. I was particularly delighted to see the chowder from Moby-Dick and to spot Constance's bowl in We Have Always Lived in the Castle.
posted by thetortoise at 3:09 AM on August 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by thetortoise at 3:09 AM on August 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
Hm. Old lit major here. I found these a charming idea, but the execution was just a little too luxe, too deliberately staged, too drenched in perfect lighting for the images to actually work for me as representative of novels. So, Ishmael frequented hipster bistros? Who knew?
posted by kinnakeet at 3:32 AM on August 20, 2016 [12 favorites]
posted by kinnakeet at 3:32 AM on August 20, 2016 [12 favorites]
Oh but the Virginia Woolf is perfect.
Was hoping for Danny, Champion of the World.
posted by travertina at 3:43 AM on August 20, 2016
Was hoping for Danny, Champion of the World.
posted by travertina at 3:43 AM on August 20, 2016
Not gonna lie that grilled cheese/raclette thing from Heidi looks pretty good.
posted by juv3nal at 3:49 AM on August 20, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by juv3nal at 3:49 AM on August 20, 2016 [5 favorites]
I wish these were captioned with the text from the work, describing the meal. Even with the ones I've read, I don't really remember the description of the meal that clearly, apart from Ulysses because I remember it as a whole chapter about kidneys tasting of piss and offering your wife toast.
posted by howfar at 4:07 AM on August 20, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by howfar at 4:07 AM on August 20, 2016 [4 favorites]
I just stuck a piece of toasted seed bread and pepper jack under the broiler. I may do it again.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 4:29 AM on August 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 4:29 AM on August 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
I'd love a science fiction / fantasy version.
First suggestion: Miles Vorkosigan's dinner party from A Civil Campaign.
Others?
posted by Major Clanger at 5:01 AM on August 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
First suggestion: Miles Vorkosigan's dinner party from A Civil Campaign.
Others?
posted by Major Clanger at 5:01 AM on August 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
PHUI! Where's Nero Wolfe's fresh roasted corn?
posted by Smart Dalek at 5:01 AM on August 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Smart Dalek at 5:01 AM on August 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
The bread's surely wrong for Ulysses. Sliced loaves like that weren't around in 1918.
I don't really understand Goldilocks, either. Those look like bowls of uncooked oats?
posted by Segundus at 5:05 AM on August 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
I don't really understand Goldilocks, either. Those look like bowls of uncooked oats?
posted by Segundus at 5:05 AM on August 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
Others?
Could do lots from Tolkien, but how about the meal in the ruins of Isengard, from 'Flotsam and Jetsam'. Bacon sandwiches, beer and honey on toast, I think, followed by smoking.
posted by howfar at 5:11 AM on August 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
Could do lots from Tolkien, but how about the meal in the ruins of Isengard, from 'Flotsam and Jetsam'. Bacon sandwiches, beer and honey on toast, I think, followed by smoking.
posted by howfar at 5:11 AM on August 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
I was hoping for "Silence of The Lambs".
posted by HuronBob at 5:24 AM on August 20, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by HuronBob at 5:24 AM on August 20, 2016 [4 favorites]
See also the very similar project (and already a book!) Fictitious Dishes by Dinah Fried
posted by wemayfreeze at 5:45 AM on August 20, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by wemayfreeze at 5:45 AM on August 20, 2016 [5 favorites]
Was hoping to see Babette's Feast.
posted by vrakatar at 5:57 AM on August 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by vrakatar at 5:57 AM on August 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
Ivan day of Food History Jottings seems to have stopped at the end of last year. He has recreated such gems as Samuel Pepy's Best Ever Dinner
posted by adamvasco at 6:28 AM on August 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by adamvasco at 6:28 AM on August 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
Love this, thanks for posting. The images were rich and looked to me like paintings, making them perfect companions to the books they represent - old school art hanging out together.
I like the performance aspect as well - the lived art piece of eating the meal after. Reminds me somehow of Sophie Calle's Chromatic Diet.
posted by hilaryjade at 6:50 AM on August 20, 2016
I like the performance aspect as well - the lived art piece of eating the meal after. Reminds me somehow of Sophie Calle's Chromatic Diet.
posted by hilaryjade at 6:50 AM on August 20, 2016
Really lovely. I love the staging and all the intricate, loving detail.
Apparently, no one in great literature drinks soda. (Or to reframe it, literature ended decades ago).
posted by gt2 at 6:58 AM on August 20, 2016
Apparently, no one in great literature drinks soda. (Or to reframe it, literature ended decades ago).
posted by gt2 at 6:58 AM on August 20, 2016
Worthless without Redwall represented.
posted by prefpara at 7:48 AM on August 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by prefpara at 7:48 AM on August 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
Anatole's meal from The Code of the Woosters.
Waugh has any number of meals in various books. Most notable perhaps is the shipboard dinner served in the un-airconditioned tropical heat of a 1930's ship in Scoop:
"It was a great white fish, cold and garnished; the childnre had rejected it with cries of distress; it lay on a charger of imitation silver; the two brown thumbs of the colored steward lay just within the circle of mayonnaise; lozenges and roundels of colored vegetable spread symmetrically about its glazed back. William looked sadly at this fish. “It is very dangerous," said the administrator. "In the tropics one easily contracts disease of the skin....”
And while we're talking funny, how about the granddaddy of them all, Trimalchio's Feast?
posted by BWA at 7:50 AM on August 20, 2016
Waugh has any number of meals in various books. Most notable perhaps is the shipboard dinner served in the un-airconditioned tropical heat of a 1930's ship in Scoop:
"It was a great white fish, cold and garnished; the childnre had rejected it with cries of distress; it lay on a charger of imitation silver; the two brown thumbs of the colored steward lay just within the circle of mayonnaise; lozenges and roundels of colored vegetable spread symmetrically about its glazed back. William looked sadly at this fish. “It is very dangerous," said the administrator. "In the tropics one easily contracts disease of the skin....”
And while we're talking funny, how about the granddaddy of them all, Trimalchio's Feast?
posted by BWA at 7:50 AM on August 20, 2016
Oh man, this idea was out there to be done. For years I wanted to do this as a blog. I was going to start with one of the fried trout campfire suppers from Hemingway's Nick Adams stories.
They do feel a little over-styled and staged, lacking the naturalness of the fictional scenes they represent. But props for food history. I especially like Sylvia Plath's avocado salad and the scraggly icing on Pippi's cookies.
posted by Miko at 7:58 AM on August 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
They do feel a little over-styled and staged, lacking the naturalness of the fictional scenes they represent. But props for food history. I especially like Sylvia Plath's avocado salad and the scraggly icing on Pippi's cookies.
posted by Miko at 7:58 AM on August 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
Wow, to me these gorgeously staged and rendered meals are quite startlingly unappetising. I think....the author fears and distrusts the visceral and evocative earthy pleasures of the table.
posted by glasseyes at 7:59 AM on August 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by glasseyes at 7:59 AM on August 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
I was hoping for "Silence of The Lambs".
I think there's a very Hannibalesque vibe to all of them. Food as a trap for the unwary. Interesting comparison to the photographs of James Bond meals some months ago which were all pretty danged mouthwatering. (As was the writing. Almost made me forgive the way Fleming wrote about sex.)
posted by glasseyes at 8:05 AM on August 20, 2016
I think there's a very Hannibalesque vibe to all of them. Food as a trap for the unwary. Interesting comparison to the photographs of James Bond meals some months ago which were all pretty danged mouthwatering. (As was the writing. Almost made me forgive the way Fleming wrote about sex.)
posted by glasseyes at 8:05 AM on August 20, 2016
Those vegetables dumped on a sheet of newspaper made me sad for poor Gregor Samsa all over again.
posted by corey flood at 9:07 AM on August 20, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by corey flood at 9:07 AM on August 20, 2016 [6 favorites]
These feel a little samey to me - like Goldilocks and Moby Dick are chapters from a Pottery Barn catalogue.
posted by betweenthebars at 9:10 AM on August 20, 2016
posted by betweenthebars at 9:10 AM on August 20, 2016
No orangutans? No fruitbats?
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:16 AM on August 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:16 AM on August 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
Previously on MeFi: Kate Young's lovely Little Library Cafe blog. Young includes a photo of the food, the relevant quote from the piece of literature, and a recipe.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 9:29 AM on August 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 9:29 AM on August 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
No orangutans? No fruitbats?
(Thinking about this scene finally has me realizing, after 49 years, that sloth does NOT rhyme with cloth but with clothe. Jesus.)
posted by maxwelton at 10:21 AM on August 20, 2016
(Thinking about this scene finally has me realizing, after 49 years, that sloth does NOT rhyme with cloth but with clothe. Jesus.)
posted by maxwelton at 10:21 AM on August 20, 2016
Oh the Little Library Cafe — now those are the pictures of food I'm looking for. Also, it's funny to see the Plath salad (a) actually the way it is described and (b) to be reminded it is an object of horror. And how.
posted by dame at 10:39 AM on August 20, 2016
posted by dame at 10:39 AM on August 20, 2016
travertina - the Little Library Cafe has Welsh Cakes from Danny, the Champion of the World.
Thanks, Too-Ticky and hurdy gurdy girl!
posted by kristi at 11:41 AM on August 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
Thanks, Too-Ticky and hurdy gurdy girl!
posted by kristi at 11:41 AM on August 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
maxwelton: (Thinking about this scene finally has me realizing, after 49 years, that sloth does NOT rhyme with cloth but with clothe. Jesus.)
Both are cromulent pronunciations.
posted by Kattullus at 12:03 PM on August 20, 2016
Both are cromulent pronunciations.
posted by Kattullus at 12:03 PM on August 20, 2016
Doesn't it rhyme with either cloth or both? The last syllable is always a voiceless dental fricative, I think.
posted by howfar at 1:08 PM on August 20, 2016
posted by howfar at 1:08 PM on August 20, 2016
made me sad for poor Gregor Samsa all over again
me too. poor cockroach.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 2:02 PM on August 20, 2016
me too. poor cockroach.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 2:02 PM on August 20, 2016
Amongst the things depicted was an actual plate of beans. THANK YOU
posted by queensissy at 4:26 PM on August 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by queensissy at 4:26 PM on August 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
What, no Cena Trimalchionis?
A bit difficult to stage, though, and outside his range of 18th-20th century domesticity (folk tales and Narnia aside).
posted by bad grammar at 4:36 PM on August 20, 2016
A bit difficult to stage, though, and outside his range of 18th-20th century domesticity (folk tales and Narnia aside).
posted by bad grammar at 4:36 PM on August 20, 2016
Whenever I think of Danny, Champion of the World, I think of the meat pie. Dahl's description of it is sumptuous: I haven't read it in years but I remember the waxed paper wrapping, the golden pastry, the hard boiled eggs "buried like treasures." I love that passage.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 4:52 PM on August 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 4:52 PM on August 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
I've no idea what's in those Goldilocks bowls but that's not how you make porridge.
posted by ninazer0 at 5:08 PM on August 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by ninazer0 at 5:08 PM on August 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
Yeah, well, I agree, but since you brought it up I vote you tell the bears that.
posted by howfar at 5:28 PM on August 20, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by howfar at 5:28 PM on August 20, 2016 [5 favorites]
I found a description of the meat pie and a blogger who recreated it!
I liked these photos overall, especially the Narnia one and the Heidi one. Ah memories of childhood favourites!
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 9:21 PM on August 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
I liked these photos overall, especially the Narnia one and the Heidi one. Ah memories of childhood favourites!
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 9:21 PM on August 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
I was rather meh about these until I got to Heidi and I remembered how the descriptions of the cheese roasted on the fire and the milk transported me as a child. They always sounded so wholesome and delicious and like they went perfectly with healthy children with cheeks reddened by an Alpine wind. By god, I wanted to be blonde and own a goat!
posted by Foam Pants at 11:42 PM on August 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Foam Pants at 11:42 PM on August 20, 2016 [3 favorites]
Wish he had done A Farewell to Arms. To this day, I still remember the vivid description of the macaroni and cheese.
posted by chara at 9:58 AM on August 22, 2016
posted by chara at 9:58 AM on August 22, 2016
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