Today’s list is all about food. Think about what you really like to eat. What would be your ideal banquet? What food do you choose when you can? What food have you never eaten but would like to try? What food have you eaten in different places that you would like to be able to eat now? Are there dishes that someone in your family prepares ‘just right’? I might list Joseph’s fried egg sandwiches and Alice’s Miso soup for my feast.
Mark Twain was an American writer who wrote all kinds of stories and essays, including Tom Sawyerand Huckleberry Finn. In the late nineteenth century he toured Europe and missed the food of his home. In fact, he said that he never had a ‘sustaining meal’ for the whole time he was in Europe. So he wrote what he called ‘a little bill of fare’. He also decided he would send the list home ahead of him, asking for it to be prepared and ready for him to eat all on his own. There were sixty-two items. That is some feast!
Here are a few items from the list:
Radishes. Baked apples, with cream.
Fried oysters. Stewed oysters. Frogs.
American coffee with real cream.
American butter.
Fried chicken, Southern style.
Porter-house steak.
Saratoga potatoes.
Broiled chicken, American style.
Hot biscuits, Southern style.
American toast. Clear maple syrup.
fromShaun Usher (2014) Lists of NoteLondon: Canongate & Unbound
Write your own ‘bill of fare’. What would you like to eat? Would you eat it all alone? Who would you like to share it with?
Writing Box 