A walk down Scrumdidddlyumptious Lane

From the peanut pops in ‘Malgudi Days’ to the burgers in ‘The Wimpy Kid’ — food described in children’s books makes us crave for them, writes Shakti Swaminathan

Step in, it’s time for some time travel. You cross the portal into a windy, beautiful island. It’s Kirrin island from ‘The Famous Five’. Julian, Dick, George, and Anne clamber up the rocks looking at the sea as Timmy prances behind. What do they do next? Stumble on a mystery? Discover a chest of treasure? If your answer was to lay out the picnic basket and start feasting on food, you are a true bibliophile.

Someone wise once said, ‘Food tastes best on someone else’s plate.’ I think food tastes yummiest when described in books. Stories are the inspiration for many of our childhood games such as tea parties with dolls, and midnight feasts.

Haven’t we all dreamt of plunging into the swirling chocolate river from ‘Charlie and Chocolate Factory’ or wished to grab the meatballs from ‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs’? Winnie-The-Pooh loved honey, Peter Rabbit made carrots look delicious, the savoury pies from ‘Masha and the Bear’, cheese fondue from ‘Asterix’, burgers from ‘The Wimpy Kid’, and peanut pops from ‘Malgudi Days’ ... the list goes on.

Food is often celebrated in children’s books in the form of birthdays, feasts, and picnics. So, what about food described in children’s books that makes us crave for them?

Food is nostalgic. A walk down any memory lane conjures memories of meals that were once craved and consumed. Specific food is associated with the warm and reassuring love of home, longing, and particular memories of happiness and sadness. As a kid, you often grow up hearing restrictions on what can and cannot be eaten and thus food also turns aspirational. Gulping down an entire chocolate cake like Bruce Bogtrotter from ‘Matilda’ or living in a house made of candies from ‘Hansel and Gretel’ became the stuff of childhood dreams. Some of the food even had serious powers like the cakes in ‘Alice in Wonderland’ that made one shoot up in size or shrink or were rare.

If Enid Blyton crafted the tale of a wish-granting birthday cake atop ‘The Magic Faraway Tree’, Roald Dahl was inventive in wicked ways. Mr and Mrs Twit enjoyed pigeon pie, replete with a claw sticking out or worms in their spaghetti. Boggis, Bunce and Bean, the farmers from ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’, gorged on doughnuts stuffed with goose liver. In George’s ‘Marvellous Medicine’, George feeds his grandmother a concoction made of a medley of things, including animal pills. The magic potion makes the granny grow beastly and shoot out of the roof of the house. Dahl also cooked up some of the most vivid words describing great food. The meal was not yummy. It was scrumdiddlyumptious!

(Shakti Swaminathan is an independent teacher and writer.)