Harry Potter and the Fabulous Food

Lately, whenever I read a book, I have a tendency to pay very close attention to any and every mention of food...then philosophize about it. Since food is such an important part of my life, I can't help but assume that it's just as important symbolically and socially and aesthetically in everyone else's lives - especially when "everyone else" means the authors of books I read.

I also happen to be a big Harry Potter geek. Not to the same degree as some people out there - I don't spend my days on HP message boards - but I am firmly in the segment of the adult population that believes JK Rowling is an amazing storyteller and that HP books are so complex and fascinating that they're worthy of high-level analysis.

So, I was very excited this morning to run across this page cataloging food mentions in the Harry Potter books, and this essay (old though it may be) on food and drink in Harry Potter.

Between communal meals at Hogwarts, trips to the pub in Hogsmeade, meals at the Weasleys, the lunch cart on the Hogswart Express and - of course - the impressive role of potions in magic, JK Rowling has devoted many lines to items her characters ingest and has imbued those items with layers of significance. I know this, instinctively, just from a cursory reading of the books.

Unfortunately, while the catalog and essay I've linked above are interesting to read, both serve more as lists of foods that appear in the books, and the contexts in which they appear. And both ignore potions altogether, though I'd certainly classify them as "drinks"...since that's how they're administered.

I can't be too critical, of course, because I certainly don't have the energy to comb through all six HP books, identifying the foods and analyzing their thematic purposes. But I wish somebody would. Here's a start: it seems to me that food and drink in the Harry Potter books serve at least one of five primary purposes:

1. To create a social situation, allowing something else to happen (information to be shared, characters to develop, relationships to broaden, etc.). Highly functional, highly logical. Mealtimes, social times in the pub, tea at Hagrid's -these settings are more about the socialization involved than the food itself, but they point to one important role food plays in our lives. It brings us together.

2. To help readers forge a connection with wizards. Food plays too large a role in all cultures to be ignored entirely, and in creating these situations, Rowling places her wizards in a familiar human situation. Even little kids reading the books can identify with her characters when they sit down to a special dinner. Food helps us connect.

3. To set a scene. Many of the traditionally human foods included in the book are heavy, old school and undeniably British. I believe Rowling does this on purpose to help set the scene. Even before the movies, readers of the books could imagine Hogwarts' looming grey building, it's fog, it's overbearing traditionalism. The food served at the school helps build this imagery.

4. To show the lighter side of the wizarding world. The lunch cart on the Hogwarts Express is full of the types of candy that little kids covet - chocolate frogs that really jump, jelly beans in mysterious and sometimes gross flavors, all kinds of treats that sound both delicious and slightly off. These ridiculous concoctions are funny to read, and I imagine that for the younger readers of the books, they offer something to daydream about. This type of food makes the reader laugh, and adds a little much-needed levity, reminding us that the wizarding world isn't all scary prophecies and dark lords.

And finally, probably most importantly...

5. To be functionally magic. Potions are an important part of magic (at the very least, we know they are because Snape teaches the class). And they are a type of food - created using a recipe, administered by drinking. Of course, because I am such a big believer in the underlying importance of food in human lives, I see the key role of potions in the wizarding world as further proof that food is so much more than mere sustenance.

Maybe one day I'll get it together and reread all the HP books with an eye on the food. In the meantime, though, I'll just be on the lookout for someone else to do that work for me.

Eras End, Food Remains

It's been a big week so far. Apparently, every single American with a blog watches The Sopranos. And every single one of them also has an opinion on the finale. As for me, I am in the minority that liked the ending immediately. I thought it was perfectly appropriate and fascinating. I'm also in the "Tony didn't die, but it doesn't matter because he lives in a hell of his own creation" camp. But that is not what this post is about.

For the past month and a half, as I've watched Tony Soprano and Family/family complete their journey (ha - Journey - get it? Don't Stop?), I've also been preparing for the end of another saga: I've been rereading the Harry Potter books. I started my reread about the time that this final season of the Sopranos debuted and, as a result, I've been uber-conscious of the similarities between the two entities ever since.

[As an aside, I'm a little sad. Tony and Harry have helped define the first part of my adult life - they both came on the scene just after I graduated from college and have been with me as I started my career, met Cooper and got married, started my own company, had a baby. Their departure is bittersweet for me, and not just because I'll miss the stories. At some point, I'm going to have to accept that I'm a grownup.]

When I started really thinking about this post three weeks ago, there was only one article out there comparing the two. In the past few days, however, a bunch have sprung up - clearly I'm not the only one obsessing about this stuff. This Newsweek article sums up a lot of the similarities that I see between the books and the show, though I'd add a few things:

- Interestingly, since both the books and the show are set in a world that is blatantly outside the mainstream, they are both ultimately about how the struggle of good vs. evil plays out in real life. The eternal struggle is set within less grandly dramatic, though equally interesting, story arcs. Tony Soprano's famous draw is that, though he is a mildly conflicted gangster, viewers can connect with him through his role as father, husband and son. His is the great story of the American family. From the first Harry Potter book, we have known that Harry is not all good and pure on the inside - he fears his own internal Slytherin tendencies. Despite how removed HP readers are from Harry's magical world, we identify with the stops and starts of his adolescence, with his self-doubt and his growth. His is a coming of age tale.

- Both stories make me conscious of just how important place can be. Can you imagine Harry without Hogwarts? Or Tony without New Jersey? There's something so perfect and integral about the settings of each story that makes the location almost an additional character.

- Since Sunday night, the Internet has been blazing with messages to David Chase. Some great, many not so great - but a lot of them. Similarly, HP devotees hang on every public word uttered by JK Rowling. Through these series, the creators have revealed things about themselves - about what's important to them and the decisions they choose to make - and their readers have responded. I can't even count how many times I've read "that ending was so David Chase" or "JK Rowling won't kill Harry - it wouldn't be like her."

Now that I've gotten all that rambling off my chest, let me bring this back home to food. Some time ago, I wrote about the role of food in Harry Potter. Upon rereading, I think my analysis holds up. JK Rowling's food is functional as a magical element, a forger of relationships and scene-setter, and as a joke.

The role of food in The Sopranos is so enormous that it's overwhelming. It would take someone with way more patience and time than I have to do a comprehensive analysis of food in the whole series. It's amazing - food is such a core part of being an Italian-American that it couldn't be any other way. But its not all trays of ziti after the funerals - Chase uses food as more than just a scene-setter or a way to flesh out a character. Food is so inherently a part of the characters' lives that it is regularly connected to their unhappiness or frustration. The symbolic nature of food in the series is hotly debated - onion rings as communion wafers, Lincoln Log sandwiches as, well, the obvious. After the episode when AJ almost drowned, a commenter named Erik on Matt Zoller Seitz's amazing blog said:

Note that Tony was eating right as he saw AJ drowning. Also, AJ actually addresses food (and specifically meat) when they are at the dinner table - asking Tony et al. how they can eat food of such disturbing origins. Yet - also note that AJ told Meadow that one of the main reasons he couldn't move out was his mother's cooking. He, like Carmella (and to some extent Tony), is profoundly disturbed by how the proverbial food gets put on the table, yet they are unwilling to go hungry...Remember that Tony and Melfi finally begin to think that the root cause of Tony's panic attacks was the association with food, and the violence he witnessed as a child (his dad maiming the butcher.)

But even more important than the role of food as a root cause or symbol, I think, is the role played by the ritual of the family dinner. Many seasons, including this last, have ended with a family dinner of some sort. The loss of sit-down family dinners in our busy American lives is often lamented. But the Sopranos manage to get to the table. And yet they are, I'd hope, more inherently screwed up than most American families. So will sitting down for onion rings and ice cream help us? If not, what can?

Entertainment like The Sopranos or Harry Potter has amazing power. It infiltrates our culture (how many other books are well-known enough to get a shout-out on The Office?) and it infects our lives. Both the shows and the books will be on my mind for years to come - while I'm on the sofa, at the stove, or - and most likely - at the table.

UPDATE: This kills me - I love it.

Blog Birthday Retrospective

My mom made me this angel food cake for Mother's Day, but
it's the cake I always had for my birthday as a kid. So it seems
fitting for today...even if it's the blog's birthday, not mine.

Happy blog birthday to ME! Today is the 11th anniversary of my first post here on Mango & Ginger.

I will be celebrating this evening with dinner at Parts & Labor and I have spent a little time today reminiscing with myself about everything I've learned and all the opportunities I've had over the past decade-plus-one thanks to this blog.

In case you don't have time to go back and actually read the thousands of posts in the blog, here's a quick recap of some of the highlights of each year. Navel-gazing, yes. But it's my blog birthday - if I can't do this today, when can I do it?

2005: In the last few months of 2005, I wrote a lot. I posted crappy food pictures and basic recipes. Wrote about excursions I took (Paris! NYC!). And babbled about how food fits into our lives. It's two of those posts (one, two), both about fashion and food, that I love most from that year. They're so typical of how I was thinking about food back then. Back then, when I was only 29!! I was a baby!

2006: Less than a year into this blog, my posting fell way, way off. Because I was pregnant...and then because I had a little baby. But looking back, what I did write was pretty interesting (to me, anyway). I got into art and food and Harry Potter and food (way before the books were over!) and the importance of regionalism in food (a subject I've revisited often). Also, apparently 2006 is the year I learned that scrapple is a regional food. I thought that was just something I always knew! Apparently not!

2007: Blogging was light again in 2007, as I juggled work, tiny baby Dixon and a massive home renovation, including a brand new kitchen. But when I did write, I was all kinds of philosophical. This is the year I started getting interested in happiness research and began exploring how happiness relates to food. Nine years on, that's still one of my favorite subjects. It's also when I started getting bored with "foodie" culture, which is also, something that has persisted.

2008: In 2008, I made a commitment to myself to post every weekday. And I did. Sometimes more than once. I wrote a lot. Not always strictly about food - there was a lot of "other stuff I love" that year, mostly about art or design. I wrote a lot that year about pop culture and celebrity chef/TV chef culture (something I am not really interested in at all anymore), but it's also when I really started to think about the food scene here in Baltimore and I started casually reviewing restaurants (here on the blog). Also that year: I started drinking rose, I learned a ton about food and I made less money working than any other year since I started freelancing. I think those things are all related.

2009: In 2009, I was writing for Houzz, so a lot of my posts here ended up being about dining rooms and tables. That year, I also started writing for Deep Glamour, so I was looking at pretty much everything through the lens of glamour, which is really a very interesting way to view the world. But if I had to pick one theme for the blog that year, it would be parties. I wrote so much about parties and drinks and wine. Still, obviously, some of my favorite topics.

2010: Looking back, 2010 was a banner year. Parties, cocktails and decor remained top blog themes, with a splash of fashion thrown in. This was also the year I really started to get into vintage cookbooks, which I still love. Our friends hit a lot of major milestones (Kyle and Mary got married, Mike and Alicia's daughter Maggie was born, Alicia and Dixon collaborated on their first birthday cake, the entire Kelly family threw the first major throwdown.) We started to go to Dogwood wine dinners. It's also the year that I "met," via the old Elizabeth Large blog on the Sun website, the son of my parents' favorite waiter ever. Around that time, I started to really understand my family's food and restaurant culture. When I first started blogging, I didn't think we had one. I was wrong. Very wrong, in fact. We had/have a fairly strong culture, really, all built around the Chesapeake, restaurant dining and casual parties. And I'm pretty lucky for that.

2011: Two big - really big - things happened to our family in 2011. First, we got a smoker. That was a game-changer. And second, I got a phone call from Sam Sessa, asking me to write a "cheap eats" piece for the Sun's Weekend LIVE section. Then I got another call from him asking me to review a restaurant. Next thing you know, I spent the next four years - until last fall - reviewing. Again, big.

2012: My New Year's resolution in 2012 was, "More mascara, more parties." And wow, did I stick to that. I'm happy to report that I'm still in the habit of wearing  mascara when I leave the house (it keeps me from looking like a corpse). But really, it was the party thing that I most successfully fulfilled. We had so many parties that year, I can't even count them all. And when we weren't having parties, I was experimenting with cocktails. I tested a lot of recipes that year, too. And I gave a talk about food and art at the BMA. Also, this is also when we probably reached Peak Southern Cuisine. But really, when I think back on 2012, I think of the parties. Man, that year was fun.

2013: My sister got married in 2013 and we, once again, went to or hosted a ton of parties. That year, we also had a fun wine-tasting trip to Keuka Lake, spent a weekend eating our way through Manhattan, and hosted one of my very favorite Pollard house dinners ever, celebrating Kyle and Mary's third wedding anniversary. I got to write a series about crabs for the Sun and, as a result, I spent a whole lot of time thinking about my personal culinary roots, continuing the train of thought that began in 2010. So we did a lot in 2013 and I was very busy. Maybe that's why the blog doesn't seem to have one overarching theme. I was constantly trying to play catch-up and trying to remember to record the stuff I was doing in my real life.

2014: In 2014, I semi-fixed the "forgetting to post it" problem from 2013, by writing a ton of summary posts rounding up stuff I'd done over the previous week or month. It was a solid year, including a short but killer trip to Paris, our tenth wedding anniversary, our first fundraising Fake St. Patrick's Day party, and an unbelievably wild Mock Thanksgiving party (our 12th). It's also the year I first learned about how Baltimore's chefs work together to raise money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and when I started to get really excited about the way the city's chefs work together and the tight community they've formed. Have I mentioned that I love this city and the food people in it? I really do.

2015: In 2015, Cooper and I turned 40. As did many of our friends. Which means the year was pretty much one long party - there were these fall/winter trips and parties and this party in the snow and this trip to Philly to see Swifty and an Alicia-themed Keuka trip I didn't even blog about and these August parties and this wine tasting excursion and, finally, after everything else, our massive Clementine-catered blowout at Church & Company followed by a good old-fashioned McGarvey's meet-up and bar crawl. It was intense, to say the least.

2016: I started out this year with a desire to shine a light on all the cool things happening in and around Baltimore. Unfortunately, too much regular work has thrown me off my posting schedule and focus. But I have had some great experiences, including a vacation-filled summer that started at Keuka Lake, then took us to Ireland, Scotland, to the Delaware beaches and back to Keuka. (Not that I've written much about any of that!) Even with the travel, my favorite post of this year was something close to home - a roundup of what I learned from the Sun series I wrote about international grocery stores. And the year isn't over yet, of course.

Whew. It's been a good run, so far. In the moment, I always feel so busy, but when I look back, it's clear that though my to-do list might be long, it's stacked with incredible parties, memorable meals and event after event that puts me in contact with some of the greatest people around.

This little trip down memory lane has been a great reminder that I have wonderful friends, both in and out of the food world, and that I am lucky, lucky, lucky to have the opportunity to write about food, especially at this time and in this awesome, dynamic city.