culinary exile and fictional food

[rm]

The next piece in the Jack/Ianto thing Kali and I are wroking on will be posted before I leave for Terminus, I think (if not, the first day while I'm there -- we're close to done).

In writing it I've solidified a lurking feeling I've had about my writing recently, which is give me an alternate or non-earth-based world and I'll give you a cuisine. Seriously, this is my weird compulsion as a writer. I always want to know exactly what foods and flavours appeal to people. It's not like "Oh, I bet there's a thing that tastes like this." it's that I have to figure out an entire food logic of a place, and then a character's preference within such a place. I've done it for my novel project, and I've clearly just done it for Jack's past in our fics. If I cared to, and I don't, because I'm fucking lazy and it's weird, I could cook you weeks of menus around these ideas.

It's such a funny compulsion. I wonder if I would have done it pre-celiac disease or if it's a habit that comes out of my own culinary exile.

Perhaps funniest to me is how rarely it syncs with my own food habits and preferences. I suppose it's like that thing when I'm writing Narcissa Malfoy and I have to stop myself from buying peach-colored lingerie.

Regardless. Now I go make dinner.

Comments

[rm.livejournal.com]

I can't tell you how fucking much I miss various iterations of fried dough. Street fairs are just misery for me.

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

That would be the breaking of me.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I feel lucky in that I can eat cheese. About half of people with celiac disease can't digest casein either which means no hard cheeses in most cases as well. So it could be worse, but it still sucks.

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

I was having practically-no-fat for weeks until I could get my gallbladder out, and that left cheese off. Ugh. Now as soon as I heal, I'm having a fucking cheese festival in the house.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Hush puppies were originally wheat and gluten free. Add a pinch of sugar and they rock with honey, or add onion (and perhaps hot peppers) and they are an excellent savory food. This one looks like a good recipe, for sweet, just drop the onion and add 1-2 tsp of sugar. This recipe should also work.