Poverty and gory grub.

Charlie Bucket

Throughout literature we read stories of poor children, starved children, orphaned and malnourished children who have meagre and lacking diets. This often goes hand in hand with portrayals of foods which are mostly sparse, unappetising, unappealing and lacks nourishment and enjoyment. Many well-loved children’s fictional characters are poor or orphaned and so we are drawn to them through sympathy and compassion, because though children may only sometimes be subjected to food that they do not want, they pity the characters who only ever eat horrible unappetising food. Two books and characters I shall explore are Charlie Bucket from Dahls’ Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Oliver Twist from Dickens’ famous eponymous novel set in the Victorian era.



Wonka chocolate bar

Throughout literature we read stories of poor children, starved children, orphaned and malnourished children who have meagre and lacking diets. This often goes hand in hand with portrayals of foods which are mostly sparse, unappetising, unappealing and lacks nourishment and enjoyment. Many well-loved children’s fictional characters are poor or orphaned and so we are drawn to them through sympathy and compassion, because though children may only sometimes be subjected to food that they do not want, they pity the characters who only ever eat horrible unappetising food. Two books and characters I shall explore are Charlie Bucket from Dahls’ Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Oliver Twist from Dickens’ famous eponymous novel set in the Victorian era.



Horrible "watery" cabbage soup.

Chocolate holds a great importance in Charlie’s life. It is symbolic for him and it is all he dreams of eating, it contrasts greatly with the cheap, nutritious and never ending supply of cabbage soup. Chocolate is something one eats for pleasure and not for its nutritional value, it is essentially excess and indulgence, something impoverished Charlie does not have the pleasure or wealth to experience. I have personally never tried dreaded cabbage soup, so I felt that now would be a good time. I followed a recipe from none other than…


Back to Mrs Beeton again! Below is her recipe for cabbage soup, which we can only hope is more palatable than the watery inedible soup Charlie was subjected to…

Cabbage Soup:

118. INGREDIENTS.—1 large cabbage, 3 carrots, 2 onions, 4 or *5 slices of lean bacon*, salt and pepper to taste, 2 quarts of medium stock No. 105.

Mode.—Scald the cabbage, exit it up and drain it. Line the stewpan with the bacon, put in the cabbage, carrots, and onions; moisten with skimmings from the stock, and simmer very gently, till the cabbage is tender; add the stock, stew softly for half an hour, and carefully skim off every particle of fat. Season and serve.
Time.—1-1/2 hour. Average cost, 1s. per quart.
Seasonable in winter.
Sufficient for 8 persons
*I omitted the bacon in my recipe due to religious reasons.

My homemade cabbage soup:

Before- (I had a taste at least!)

After- ....straight in the bin (oops)

The recipe was fairly easy to follow but could certainly have done with a lot more seasoning!
Gory rating :2 out of 5 
☠☠- - -

Comments: No wonder poor Charlie craved chocolate constantly, after living on a diet of this stuff for so long poor thing! I'm off to get myself a chocolate bar, see you later!

Oliver Twist is one of Dickens’ most famous characters, a poor orphan child and who lived in the Victorian times, suffering at the hands of the cruel and labour intensive workhouse. His diet? He was "issued three meals of thin gruel a day, with an onion twice a week and half a roll on Sundays." He his famous for his humble request of:    ---------------> 

 I decided to make my own "Gruel," which is defined as "a thin porridge."  
This recipe is based on the ingredients used in an 18th century workhouse: (http://cookit.e2bn.org/historycookbook/121-gruel.html)


..."Please Sir, can I have some more??"

 Ingredients:
- 3 dessert spoonfuls of oatmeal
- 1 pint of water 
- A pinch of salt
Instructions:                                1. Mix the oatmeal with a little cold water to make a paste
2. Put the rest of the water in a pan                   
3. Add the mixture and boil for 10 minutes 
4. Add the salt
The sheer simplicity of the meal probably indicates how very unappetising it all seems. Just like the cabbage soup it was very easy and quick to make but perfectly horrendous to eat. Poor Oliver! 


Gruel for everyone!

My homemade Gruel:

Comments:
At least the cabbage soup had some sort of flavour- but this gruel was just tasteless, a horrible and gloopy yet watery texture, salty instead of sweet, just a big NO! It all just lacked flavour, and I never ate enough to have that 'full' feeling. At least the bin had two full meals!


LEFT- three simple ingredients of oats, water and salt.                   RIGHT- the miserable gruel which I concocted

....So, what have I learned? Poverty (in literature at least) almost always means miserable and tasteless food, but we must acknowledge that both of the 'poor' protagonists are highly likeable characters; Charlie has experienced true hunger and as such is humble and not demanding and Oliver becomes brave and courageous, choosing to face humiliation from his elders because of being pushed from such extreme hunger.

Charlie, who at some point in the book experiences starvation would no doubt have been glad to survive on a diet of ‘cabbagy’ meals, but a child reader would only sympathise with Charlie, as they are more likely to I child can rea only imagine they can imagine the feeling of eating something highly unpleasant, but not the feeling of starving.  Most children are drawn to these characters and we feel as though we want them to thrive and do well because of the difficulties and starvation they have faced. Most child readers are in a far different situation, they may experience a sense of gratitude and 'read' hunger differently after seeing what little these characters have to eat and so they remain ever popular characters.

I will give this 'meal'  a gory rating of:  4 out of 5 

☠☠☠☠-