Archives
Categories:
- Business announcements
- Ask the Editors
- Best First Line Contest
- Books/Reading
- Contests
- Editing
- New Releases/Excerpts
- FAQs
- Life
- Miscellaneous
- Round Robin
- TV/Movies
- Writing
Recent Comments
- Kate Sterling (Where Do You Get Your Ideas?)
- Bree (Where Do You Get Your Ideas?)
- Moira Reid (Where Do You Get Your Ideas?)
- Sharon (Where Do You Get Your Ideas?)
- Kara Critzer (Pitching Dos & Don'ts)
- Bree (Where Do You Get Your Ideas?)
- Imogen Howson (Hazards of working from home)
- Tina (Hazards of working from home)
- Imogen Howson (Hazards of working from home)
- Eve Langlais (Hazards of working from home)
Food For Thought
For Friday’s post, I thought I’d talk about food in the novels we read. It’s an odd topic, but one that struck me since we don’t often talk about it. I mean, how many times have you read about the hero that eats a sandwich and then kisses the heroine? Is she tasting mustard, and if so, excuse me, but how sexy is that?
Normally, when I think erotic romance, I think of strawberries dipped in chocolate, whipped cream, honey drizzled over some body part needing to be licked clean, yum, or edible panties. Then we have oysters and the like, the ocean’s aphrodisiac. Or the hero who wines and dines the heroine on a lobster dinner with an expensive bottle of something (sorry, not a wine connoisseur) before taking her home to make sweet, sexy love to her?
Okay, obviously I’m in la-la, fantasy land. But we are talking fiction. That said, as writers, we weave worlds around reality. Our characters breathe, work, play… and eat. So when a character goes a week without eating, even if the plot’s stellar, I can’t wrap my mind around the fact that he or she must be starving. The same goes if the heroine is on a fixed budget but is living on filet mignons every night.
Food can tell the reader a lot about a character, as much as the setting or background can. For instance, when the heroine is eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, or hot dogs and Oodles of Noodles every night, she might be on a fixed budget. Or if she has a hankering for pickles and ice cream, and feels ill at the smell of anchovies, maybe she’s pregnant. Or how about that hero who can’t stop his craving for bloody rare steaks, or better yet, just blood? A werewolf or vampire, perhaps?
Food can be a wonderful way to expand on a character. And it’s all about the details. Let’s face it, being on a diet sucks. So if you want some easy conflict, put your heroine on a diet and have her fall in love with a hero who’s a pastry chef. Remember, food is just one hunger that can easily be replaced by another. Sex and love feeding body and soul.
Food for thought, and happy Friday! And if you’d like the recipe for the chocolate trifle in the picture, click here.
Marie
www.marieharte.com
So true! I don’t usually think about it too much, but in one series I have a cook as a secondary character. She LOVES to cook. So when she prepares a meal for the family, I have to show her off a little, so there’s more description of the meal. Not just dinner, but filet mignon, green beans almondine, garlic mashed potatoes, fresh baked bread and Baked Alaska for dessert.
Breakfast isn’t cold cereal, no way, but warm, just from the oven scones (the story takes place in England) or muffins made that very morning, with honey butter to spread on top. (A far cry from the Chinese takeout they MC’s eating in the beginning of the book!)
Food can say a lot about a character – are they vegan, or do they just hate liver? It’s a fascinating thing to think about.
I sometimes like to play with the “sandwich” factor, talking about the taste of garlic or morning breath instead of trying to deny it exists. It can become something humorous and human for the couple to laugh over and to bring them into the realm of reality instead of the world of vanilla scented flesh and sweet, musky vaginas. Pwah! Unlikely!
Wonderful post! Food can add so much texture to a book and characters, whether it’s exotic or just plain peanut butter. :-)
I resisted the recipe because I’m trying to cut back. It looks soooooo good!
Well I couldn’t resist the recipe and just put all those fabulous ingredients on my shopping list. Can’t wait to try it.
I’ve never considered it until right this moment, but there’s at least one eating and/or drinking scene in everything I’ve written. People eat, and what and how they choose eat is so telling that it just creeps in without effort.
Thanks from bringing it more to my attention. I can go back and see all the things that have seeped from my subconscious onto the page. :)
~X
I didn’t even click on that recipe – not when my hips seem to be spreading by the day.
My characters tend not to cook that much, at least nothing fancy, probably because I’m so lousy in the kitchen myself (don’t they say write what you know? :))
Yet, funnily enough, I love reading about characters who cook – the fancier, the better.
Great post, Marie, and that recipe looks great. A lot easier than I thought it would be (not that I needed to know!)
And I love the idea of the heroine on a diet dating a pastry chef. Oh, the conflict!
I think I have food/cooking in everything I’ve written. (In my current wip, the heroine can’t cook and always orders in. Her ex did all the cooking.) Everybody eats, so it’s an event that every reader can relate to.
Food gives us insights into the characters, but it also gives them something to do while revealing other things. In a workshop at the Reno RWA nationals, Jennifer Cruise talked about a scene she’d been having trouble with. I believe (and someone correct me if I’m wrong) the way it went was the character needed to go through the thought process and come to some kind of conclusion necessary for the plot. Rather than just have her stand around thinking, JC needed her to DO something. She had the character make brownies while she mulled the situation. Afterward, when a scene needed some kind of action not necessarily related to the plot, she’d refer to it as “needing a brownie”. It wasn’t always a food action, but cooking and eating are great ways to have characters interact and/or give us more of the story.
And having a brownie, real or metaphorical, is always a good thing ;)