A Round-Up of Literary Lunches
Posted by the Bookshop
This Thursday, we'll be welcoming Deborah Moggach and Louis de Bernières to the shop to discuss Literary Lunch, an enticing collection of food-inflected writing from some of Vintage's most acclaimed writers. Over on the Bookshop tumblr, we've spent the week building up our appetites with tasters from some of our favourite meals in literature. And now, perhaps unwisely, we've collected them all here, as the literary lunch to end all literary lunches.
*[Amuse-bouche][5]*, selected by [Rachael][6] '[the nearest thing the French have to HP sauce][7]', [aïoli][8], from John Lanchester's *[The Debt to Pleasure][9]*
First Course, selected by Charlie
a funereal banquet, including 'turtle soup, Russian rye bread, ripe olives from Turkey, caviare, mullet botargo, black puddings from Frankfurt, game served in sauces the colour of liquorice and boot-polish, truffle jellies, chocolate creams', from Joris-Karl Huysmans's Against Nature
*[Second Course][14]*, selected by [Gayle][15] a [country house spread][16], including 'a Madeira cake, three dozen damson tartlets, two pints of egg custard, two rice puddings, two pints of bread sauce, a prune mould' and some marrows of outlandish proportions, from Elizabeth Jane Howard's *[The Light Years][17]*
Entremet, selected by Gayle
a single green olive, from Mary MacLane's I Await the Devil's Coming
*[Third Course][21]*, selected by [David][22] [beef and amorous warfare][23], from Henry Fielding's *[The History of Tom Jones][24]*
Fourth Course, selected by Natalia
a simple lunch, including lentil soup, chipolatas, dried apricots and a light Beaujolais, from Iris Murdoch's The Sea, The Sea
*[Dessert][29]*, selected by [John][30] a '[starry bun][31]', from J.H. Prynne's *[Poems][32]*
Phew. We promise the event will be a lighter affair all round.
Book tickets for Literary Lunch: Deborah Moggach and Louis de Bernières on Thursday 29 October here.
