What if?
For some reason today I keep thinking about writers and their food. I know this is because the whole authentic banquet for science-fiction convention thing began as a writers and their food thing. More and more of my speculative fiction writer friends became enthusiastic about the history side of things and it was totally inevitable that we would try for a Medieval feast. When that was a huge success, we had to try a Regency Gothic banquet. When that was also a raging success, we decided on this year’s theme. But it all started with foodie writers of fiction.
Speculative fiction is often described as ‘what if?’ fiction. “What if Celtic skins were green?” (in a book by Peter Dickinson). “What if mirrors were magic?” (All too many books, including one of my own which is slowly advancing in the queue towards publication.) “What if the world came to an end?” “What if teleportation was everyday?” I could line all the questions up and classify books according to their ‘what if’ and the books would probably line up vertically to reach the Moon. That particular ‘What if” hasn’t been done with ideas, as far as I can remember, but it has certainly been done with other things.
There are so many what ifs. I guess it was inevitable that a bunch of writers who enjoyed their food and were curious about the past would say “What if we actually knew what these things tasted like?” And it was equally inevitable that I said “But we do” and proceeded to prove it.
The thing is that we’re not the first group of writers to become fascinated with food. I might have to teach a course on writers and their food, one day. It would be great fun.
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