Fairy Tale Feasts, A Literary Cookbook for Young Readers & Eaters

I found Fairy Tale Feasts online a few weeks ago and knew that I had to order it. It is an anthology of Fairy Tale retellings by Jane Yolen taken from many different cultures and countries and with each tale comes a range of recipes by cook, Heidi E. Y. Stemple inspired and developed to accompany each tale. 

“From the earliest days of stories, when hunters came home from the hunt to tell of their exploits around the campfire while gnawing on a leg of beast, to the era of kings in castles listening to the storyteller at the royal dinner feast, to the time of TV dinners when whole families gathered to eat and watch movies together, stories and eating have been close companions.” (p.8) 

The set up of this book is something I found particularly interesting to look at. It works like your typical cookbook with sections for each type of meal. There is breakfast, lunch, soup, dinner and dessert sections in the book. Each section starts with the story and on the sides the writer adds little notes and information about the tales and their origins. After the tale we get the recipe set out in your typical format of ingredients followed by directions. This book also includes a few variations of the recipe for the reader to play with and facts on the sides about the ingredients or particular dish. 

“There is something more-and this is about the powerful ties between stories and recipes. Both are changeable, suiting the need of the maker and the consumer.” (p.8) 

What I like about this book is that it recognises the connection between food and stories, pointing out that the stories that are usually told orally are also often accompanied by good food. Even my own family do this, at dinner we will often sit together and tell the stories of our day or things we have heard or read, each thing we speak about is a story in its own right. 

This book is great for children and their parents to go through together. Majority of the stories have morals that are brought about by the use of food and the books set up means that every reader will experience it differently, whether they read the recipe first or the information on the tales origins.

Over the rest of this week I am going to look directly at a few of the tales in the book and how they use food in their plot and then give some of the accompanying recipes a try. 

See you soon.

Sammy xx