Food History

Today I’ve spent doing background work on a novel. I have characters who are friends partly because of their love of cooking and fine food, so it was important to establish the dishes they would serve each other at a series of dinner parties. I wanted a simple code that everyone could understand to show how different each of them is, but I also want extra information in there for anyone who knows a bit about food history, to alert them that one of the characters might not be what she seems. The extra information won’t change the plot, but it means that readers who share my love of history will know just a little more than those who don’t.

I can’t tell you too much about the character, but I can tell you the sorts of food I have used to give her history just that bit more depth. I have used the cuisine of the hidden Jews of Spain after the 1492 expulsion. One dinner party has green chicken, for instance, and a rather yummy dish of beans. And I have used the cuisine of the Romaniot Jews of Greece.

My character is neither Greek nor Spanish, but she is rather old and she is Jewish. I wanted to indicate that age can mean richness of background. The other thing I wanted to do was remind myself what countries her thoughts are tending towards in the year the novel is set: her memories show in what foods she’s thinking of. It’s like making oxeyes. In winter when I am nostalgic for childhood, I will fry a piece of bread (having cut a whole in its centre) then break an egg into the middle. It was a family breakfast for a cold winter’s morning in Melbourne in the sixties, and every time I eat an oxeye I remember that part of my childhood. I can’t create a whole life for this character, but I can remind herself of the richness of a life and give her some memories that are attached to certain foods.

Over the next few weeks I shall test some of the recipes. After that I’ll be working on the Conflux banquet recipes, which will be neither Hidden Jewish nor Romaniot, it seems. For a while it looked as if we might have a Secret Jewish banquet, so I’m rather glad my character needs these recipes: I so want to know what they’re like!

I’ll be looking for testers for the banquet menu soon, so watch this space.