Jane Austen and FoodWhat was the significance of the pyramid of fruit which confronted Elizabeth Bennet at Pemberley? Or of the cold beef eaten by Willoughby on his journey of repentance to see Marianne? Why is it so appropriate that the scene of Emma's disgrace should be a picnic, and how do the different styles of housekeeping in Mansfield Park engage with the social issues of the day? While Jane Austen does not luxuriate in cataloguing meals in the way of Victorian novelists, food in fact plays a vital part in her novels. Her plots, being domestic, are deeply imbued with the rituals of giving and sharing meals. The attitudes of her characters to eating, to housekeeping and to hospitality are important indicators of their moral worth. In a practice both economical and poetic, Jane Austen sometimes uses specific foodstuffs to symbolise certain qualities at heightened moments in the text. This culminates in the artistic triumph of Emma, in which repeated references to food not only contribute to the solidity of her imagined world, but provide an extended metaphor for the interdependence of a community. In this original, lively and well-researched book, Maggie Lane not only offers a fresh perspective on the novels, but illuminates a fascinating period of food history, as England stood on the brink of urbanisation, middle-class luxury, and change in the role of women. Ranging over topics from greed and gender to mealtimes and manners, and drawing on the novels, letters and Austen family papers, she also discusses Jane Austen's own ambivalent attitude to the provision and enjoyment of food. |
Contents
Domestic Economy in Jane Austens Life | 1 |
Mealtimes Menus Manners | 25 |
From White Soup to Whipt Syllabub | 55 |
Copyright | |
7 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Abbey apple Bath Bennet Bingley boiled bread breakfast butter Cassandra Catherine certainly character Charlotte Chawton cold comfort cook cookery Cottage course Darcy Dashwood daughters Delaford dine dinner dishes domestic Donwell Dr Grant drink eaten Edmund Edward eighteenth century elegant Elinor Elizabeth Elton Emma Emma's Fanny Fanny's fruit garden give Godmersham goose guests Hannah Glasse Harriet Hartfield Henry heroines Highbury hospitality hour household housekeeping income Jane Austen Jane Grigson Jane's Jennings Knightley Lady Bertram letters live London Longbourn Mansfield Park Mansfield Parsonage Marianne Martha Lloyd Mary Crawford meal meat Miss Bates Morland mother Musgrove mutton neighbours never Norris Northanger Northanger Abbey novel occasion Parson Woodforde Pemberley Pride and Prejudice pudding recipe Sanditon Sense and Sensibility servants sister social Sotherton soup spruce beer Steventon supper syllabub Tilney Uppercross wine women Woodhouse wrote young