Childhood Three Ways: Constructions of Childhood Through Food in Children’s Literature

A discussion of how there are close associations between how contemporary chefs choose, use and prepare food and the ways in which authors construct and portray childhood employing food as a mode of representing philosophical perspectives, and notions of class and gender. The talk is divided into three sections: Hearty Meals To Build A Nation: Of Bygone Dishes and Quirky Recipes: De-constructed Banoffee Pie.
Hearty Meals To Build A Nation: a discussion of Bessie Marchant’s Waifs of Woollamoo (1938). The values of the domestic community centred on the farm with the children representing the positive attributes of colonial settlers who will make a successful life in the new land. The text represents the essentials of domestic stability and reliability symbolised in the emphasis given to food.
‘Of Bygone Dishes’: a discussion of food as a subject in historical fiction in Kevin Crossley-Holland’s The Seeing Stone (2000).
‘Quirky Recipes’: a discussion of the food knowledge the reader requires for appreciation of Peter Bentley and Chris Harrison’s Monster Chef (2012) and Chef Shocker (2006) by Sue Mongredien and Teresa Murfin.
‘De-constructed Banoffee Pie’: conclusion. The relationship between the fine dining penchant for deconstructed dishes, reading and literary criticism.