STEW

I have just finished reading (in small doses) Dianna Wynne Jones's -Tough Guide to Fantasyland- which should probably be required for anyone who wishes to set a book there. A lot of it made me smile but one thing that made me LOL nearly every time was her frequent references to STEW (always in small caps, but I'll spare you from here on). I can't actually remember anything that people in the Sun books ate, except for the fishes Mucor charms up, but I suppose there are the usual numbers of hapless small animals spitted over campfires. And I really don't want to go back to check. Has anyone been obsesssive enough to remember meals? (To amuse you from DWJ: "The thoughtful Tourist might like to pause here and consider, since Animals are so rare, what exactly is the meat that the Management puts in its Stew.") -alga

As I recall, Severian goes hungry quite a lot, a small touch I found quite impressive. Don

Ahem. In Long Sun I remember the fried green tomatoes (Silk salivating over) and watercress sandwiches (that Hyacinth would never eat, remembering the drudgery of harvesting watercress). In New Sun, which I happen to be reading now, there is the feast of Saint Katharine (big list of showy foodstuffs); the leeks, lentils, and bread given to Thecla; the seasonal mutton; the fish Severian demands at the inn on his first night out; the meal ordered at Inn of Lost Loves (roast fowl); pomegranate, grapes, apple, etc., at Ctesiphon's Cross; Saltus breakfast (warm bread, fresh butter, pickled duck's eggs, peppered chocalate beaten to a froth); Vodalarii lunch (thrushes); antechamber meals (coffee and pastries, twice a day); Casdoe's meal (boiled vegetables without salt or butter, coarse bread, a little meat); strips of dried meat on the trail; snow on Mount Typhon; fresh fish, water fowl, wild rice, honey, new bread, butter, vegetables, salad (Severian orders of the hetman); duck (quartered and grilled),fish, fried cakes (clams and cattail flour), baked potatoes, salad of mushrooms and greens (what he gets); cooked fish and root vegetables among the lake people . . . I will note, however, that the word "stew" is used in URTH (ch. 30, "Ceryx") as the common term for a public bath house. =mantis=

Well, there ARE a few important details about food in New Sun. The pomegranate that drips from the eater's mouth, and Dr. Talos' lack of apetite, etc. Meals are important in Wolfe, but what they eat is not necessarily emphasized EXCEPT in Long Sun for those stupid tomatoes that Silk and Maytera Rose have a disgusting battle of wills over. I've always thought that that scene was far more important than I understood ... why else would we talk about slices of food forever? Also, it is important that Silk from Book of the Short Sun never eats and gets sick in winter. So, yes, I think it is worthwhile to pay attention to the meals in Wolfe books, but I spend countless pages skimming over the banquet scenes in other fantasy books. Who cares what they ate if I can't learn anything from it? (Unless it's weird, orginal food, like in Jack Vance's "The Face") Can Severian use the Claw to eliminate his excrement if someone is following him? Are fantasy people immune from parasites when they pee in a stream? Does Robinson Crusoe have any sexual urges while he's trapped on the island? Some things are better left unexplored in a fantasy world ... I think. Marc Aramini

Does mate' qualify as a stew?

We must be satisfied with the soup that is set before us, and not desire to see the bones of the ox out of which it has been boiled. G.W. Dasent, Popular Tales from the Norse

<<<Well, there ARE a few important details about food in New Sun. The pomegranate that drips from the eater's mouth, and Dr. Talos' lack of apetite, etc. Meals are important in Wolfe, but what they eat is not necessarily emphasized EXCEPT in Long Sun for those stupid tomatoes that Silk and Maytera Rose have a disgusting battle of wills over. I've always thought that that scene was far more important than I understood ... why else would we talk about slices of food forever?>>> This isn't specifically in response to Marc's email but is on the "meals that were eaten in BOTNS/LS/SS" theme. I don't think anyone mentioned this meal yet (I didn't see it in Mantis' list), but of course one of the most important meals is when Sev eats Thecla (and his predecessor Autarch). Also (although this is stretching it a touch) when the alzabo eats little Sev's father.

Haven't lookt back at it, but remember thinking of tomatolike apple (identified in folklore only, of course) of the Garden of Eden, esp. since this happens early in the narrative, linked to garden, women eating first, etc. Nutricious

Highly amused by replies. Mantis, you are obsessive! Of course so is Nutricious. And how could I have forgotten, for even one moment, of Roast Thecla. -alga

No, no -- I forgot to mention the corn meal gruel at the shepherd's shelter between Mount Typhon and Lake Diuturna. Now I'm obsessive. =mantis=

Tisk, tisk. You're letting your pet theories ride roughshod over what the text actually says--or, sometimes, doesn't say--again. Of course Silk eats in SS. To wit: "'I had resolved to eat very little tonight, and look at this.' While we had been talking, I had practically cleaned my plate." (IGJ, 71) That quote is from the first story-telling dinner at Inclito's; it was the first example to come to mind. True, Silk isn't a big eater in SS, but neither was he in LS. The point is, he does eat in SS. As for the Silk/Rose fried-tomato scene, the context of the above quote may shed some light. Silk had just declaimed against "strong emotions of any kind", among them "greed", which he specifically links with food. When he selfishly declined to share his tomatoes with Rose, he felt a great deal of guilt over it afterward, even though food is a necessary condition of life. His experience with the inhumi, to that point, had taught him that their quest for food--for blood--went beyond what was strictly necessary to maintain life: they wanted human blood, to become like men. The irony is that, to become like men, to acquire the blood, they must kill (unless they take extraordinary care) what they most love. Their animal nature overrides their borrowed humanity. Remember those clogged sewers on Green. Should an inhumi have the misfortune to acquire a "conscience" (if such a thing is possible), its position becomes untenable. Silk has a conscience, therefore can take no joy in eating, an activity he must condemn in the inhumi. -Roy

From Middle English, stewen; to bathe in a steam bath. Hence informal modern usage; to suffer with oppressive heat. Thence also possibly to worry, be agitated. By Early Modern English (c1400) stew as in bath-house had become synonymous with brothel, especially in the plural. Also by derivation a prostitutue. Even when not directly meant the term suggested squalour, poverty and crime as in London's c16 theatres being in the stews of Southwark and Shorditch. Matthew

I think that this misses a very important point. It's not that the inhumi's "animal nature" overrides their humanity - it's that the "humanity" they're acquiring is not quite so humane as we'd hope for. Silkhorn says repeatedly that if we could get our own act together, we'd have nothing to fear from the inhumi. The clogged sewers of Green are merely the reflection of what people on Blue were doing to each other. Without going too much into my personal interpretation of SS, it always seemed to me that Silkhorn's restraint w.r.t. his appetite was meant to be... well, I guess the best way to say it is "an example". And that he believed, at least, that it would result in one or more inhumi learning to control their own appetites. He may actually take this lesson a bit too far in a frenzy of guilt, but I think this is the principle he's trying to go by. Civet Roy said:

Again, thanks all for being so amusing and/or obsesssive! There's a waggish term paper for someone in this somewhere I'm sure. I blush, Pippen (shouldn't that be Pippin--but no, aren't you a guy?- you're not supposed to be veggie), not to have immediately remembered the coffee and pastries an the anteroom, for I have always thought that was a brilliant touch, well beyond the imagination of most writers. -alga