every food in: The Story Girl by Lucy Maud Montgomery
The Story Girl by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Originally published 1911
I hadn’t read this one since I was a kid, and it was both lovely to revisit and a little bit, uh….childhood-ruining. It’s very, very judgemental tonally, though it’s often hard to tell whether the narrator approves of the other children’s behavior or not.
On the bright side, this book is absolutely incredible with worldbuilding and food descriptions. It’s whatever the 1900s equivalent of food porn is, essentially. The kids are constantly eating tarts, and cookies, and cakes. Or they’re trying to alter their dreams by eating weirder and weirder foods to the point of getting food poisoning. One of the children eats a massive amount of cucumbers and milk before bed, and gets poisoned somehow, and becomes quite sick, so the others have to fetch a doctor. (There’s, to my knowledge, actually nothing wrong with eating cucumbers and milk together. See: the existence of raita.) They’re on their own a shockingly large amount, even for the time period - the adults in the book are uncomfortable with it, but admit that urgent family matters have created a situation where it’s unavoidable.
Each of the children have a “birthday tree” that bears unique apples, which they are always eating throughout the book. I haven’t really figured out a way to include passages like this, without just listing it as “apples”, but it’s worth mentioning because they’re such a large part of the food and character descriptions in the book.
This is a long one, so it’s under a cut - when succinct/convenient, I’ve left in the adjectives describing the foods from the original passages.
Chapter 1
Hams and flinches of bacon
Chapter 4
Jam turnovers
Chapter 8
Rhubarb tarts
Chapter 10
Fruit cake
Chapter 11
Mexican tea
Raisin pies
Cherries from the orchard
Chapter 12
Turnips
Potatoes
Peas
Roly poly jam pudding
Chapter 13
Ruined bread
Biscuits, cookies, cakes and pies
Cherries
Chapter 14
Mince pie, cold fried ham, fruit cake
Rev Scott’s yellow plums
Blueberry wine
Chapter 15
Jam turnovers
Chapter 16
Plum cake
Raspberries
Raspberry pie
Jelly cookies
Raspberries and cream
Chapter 17
Cornmeal pudding
Chapter 21
Plums
Chapter 23
Mince pies, pickles, two grape jelly tarts
A large cucumber and a glass of milk
A hunk of fat pork and a slab of cold plum pudding
Chapter 24
Plum cake
Peppermint candy
Cherry preserves
Chapter 27
Apple tarts and cream
Chapter 28
Russet apples
Chapter 31
Plum cake with pink candies spelling welcome back
Chapter 32
Taffy
