(side note: in light of yesterday’s comments, i WILL be writing an entry about “love, actually” in the near future. if my public demands it, then it shall be so)
the other night, my friend erin gave me a great blog idea. she said, “you should totally write an entry about illustrated food.”
folks, that’s all the inspiration i need.
the moment the words came out of her mouth, every single one of my favorite childhood books flashed before my eyes. you know why? cos they are ALL ABOUT FOOD.
i don’t remember when i had this epiphany, but i think it was maybe in high school. i was sorting through my book collection when i glanced over at the “childhood books to keep” pile and realized that every single one featured some sort of food theme and/or picture.
now i realize that food is a pretty common topic, especially for kids. but when i considered how much food outweighed, say, princesses or fancy dresses or swashbuckling adventures or cute puppies in my collection, i realized i was kind of a food-obsessed child. ahh, how things haven’t changed.
my earliest memory of illustrated food comes from my first EVER favorite book, “pancakes for breakfast” by tommy depaola.
OMG DON’T THOSE PANCAKES LOOK ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS?!!! this is a picture book (no words) about a lady who decides that she wants to make pancakes from scratch, so she gets the eggs from the hen house and milks the cow and churns the butter and gathers syrup from the tree and basically forces you to salivate on every single freaking page. for me, i think it’s all about how the butter was drawn, and the syrup, which looked so smooth and thick and sugary. at the end of the book, she comes home from running her *last errand* only to discover that the cat and dog have eaten everything she prepared. if this book doesn’t promote animal abuse, i don’t know what does. fortunately, she smells pancakes from her neighbor’s house and invites herself over.
important food lesson: why cook when you can just mooch off of yr friends? holla!
the next book i remember looooooving was, of course, “the very hungry caterpillar.”
i couldn’t find any pictures online of the actual food in the book, so i thought you guys would instead appreciate this highly artistic interpretation, “createb bynichole.”
this book traces the journey of a caterpillar through about a billion different foods. which is actually really gross when you think about it. but whatevs, it’s fun to poke yr finger through an apple and some cheese and some ice cream!!! and then, since it’s just a book, yr finger is still clean (which was v. v. vital to me as a child).
important food lesson: it is a far, far better thing to have as wide of a selection of food as possible. this is why i have always loved luby’s.
of course i have to mention winnie the pooh, because he set me up for a life-long disappointment in honey.
i mean, just LOOK at how amazingly scrumptious that honey, i mean, hunny, looks. it’s thick and golden and creamy and MWWAAAHHMMM. i used to read my winnie the pooh book and then ask my mom if i could have some honey on a spoon. but then she would give it to me (thanks, mom!), and it would look sort of thin and clear, and yeah, it was sweet, but WHERE WAS THE SATISFACTION? it was like swallowing air– utterly disappointing and rather pointless.
important food lesson: sometimes, people exaggerate food when they write/illustrate books. and this is a sin for which they shall burn.
next on the list we have, of course, “blueberries for sal.”
this book chronicles a day in the life of sal, who goes blueberry picking with her mom and ends up befriending a baby bear. and then the bear’s mom shows up and violently mauls poor little sal. ha ha, just kidding, that’s only what would happen in real life.
even though this book is simply illustrated in dark blue (black?) ink, the piles and piles of blueberries look super tasty. i think that’s definitely a testament to the artist, cos usually illustrated food gathers most of its allure from color. plus, sal made it look so fun to eat fresh berries!
yay! nom nom nom!
when i was doing a search for images from this book, two funny things happened.
first, i found this cake:
which, you know, is weird. why does sal look like the pervy offspring of an elf and a hobbit in “lord of the rings”? plus, her hand is basically the same size as a blueberry.
anyway, on the second page of the image search, i saw a picture that looked familiar… and discovered that it was a link to my blog about little naomi’s birthday party, when i gave her a copy of this book.
second page of google image search?! you guys, this is what they call the Big Leagues.
important food lesson: don’t eat in areas with bears. that is all.
as a kid, i was also obsessed with a book called “pickle chiffon pie.” for obvious reasons.
the entire book is about the amazingness of pickle chiffon pie and how everyone in this magical kingdom wants to eat it. now, did i ever stop to imagine the actual taste of a pickle and chiffon combination? no, i did not. the illustration ALONE was enough to make me drool… thick, creamy, green pie!!!
important food lesson: it’s good to try new types of food, even though they might sound weird. like, say, a deep fried oreo or a PBJ sandwich with nacho cheese doritos inside. unless it involves onions. one should never, ever try onions.
like most children, i was also a huge fan of the berenstain bears books. and no, not because they taught me important life lessons about sharing or cleaning my room. it was cos they were always eating delicious honeycomb and porridge and all types of tasty items!
seriously, did the honeycomb in those books look amazing or what? they usually ate yellow, gloopy pieces of it on sticks, and WHY DOES HONEYCOMB NOT LOOK LIKE THAT IN REAL LIFE?
important food lesson: well, maybe it’s ok to eat with bears.
with all of that said, the mother of all children’s food books is, of course, “cloudy with a chance of meatballs.”
sweet LORD i love this book (yes, i still read it occasionally). in case you’ve never read it (um, wha?), it’s a story about chewandswallow, a town where FOOD FALLS FROM THE SKY. i am not kidding. people go outside three times a day and hold out their plate or bowl and then get to eat whatever they can collect. when i was a little, i wanted to move there IMMEDIATELY.
never mind the fact that the weather starts getting cray and pea soup fogs roll in and hamburger storms damage the city and people are forced to leave their homes and search for a new place to live. i mean, are those people idiots? a GIANT PANCAKE lands on yr school and you think that’s a bad thing?!!!!!
to prove my point, another artistic rendering:
you know, i could do without the peas, to be honest. but flying pizza? awesome.
even though i’m no longer technically a child (”technically”), i still dream of a world with thick creamy honey and mountains of pancakes and food-related weather reports. maybe one day, i’ll look outside, and it will be raining cupcakes.
and then i’ll get frosting in my hair, which is gross. but it would still be the best day ever.
LINKS
to complement today’s blog theme, here’s a site all about edible books.
please do yrself a favor and read this HI-larious entry on jezebel about the doctor foster and smith catalog, which sells pet items. i laughed so hard i got coffee up my nose. which actually hurts, btw. but the value added to my life by this post outweighed all of the pain.
thomas friedman talks about iran’s probable view of the u.s. and makes me feel v. v. depressed. dude, we suck.
here’s a clip from “my so-called life,” just cos angela’s voice-overs were so awesome.
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