2. Fictional Food Industry Workers (i.e. chefs, waiters, waitresses, & bakers)
When we began our food fiction unit, I mentioned that what I love about the genre is that literally anything is possible. In
fiction, writers can be as symbolic and imaginative as they would like when it comes to food. Some of you brought this up
already on the discussion board when we were talking about descriptions of food a few weeks back—Oh, how fun the
descriptions of fictional food can be! There are YouTube channels and cookbooks dedicated to attempts at recreating
fictional meals, and then, there are also books like Fictitious Dishes, which explore the joy that is fictional food.
Keeping this in mind, I want to close our discussion of food fiction by talking not about food itself, but the fictional people
(chefs, bakers, waiters/ waitresses) and places (restaurants, candy shops, bakeries, kitchens) in food stories that are just
as important in fictional plots as the food itself. We could of course include gardeners and gardens on this list, but since
we have already explored them a lot in Seedfolks, I want to look at some of the other people and places in food fiction that
we have not seen much of yet.
First up: fictional food industry workers!
Who hasn’t WISHED the chef or baker in novel or film was cooking or baking for them rather than the lucky characters
they're actually making food for in a work of fiction?
•
Fictional chefs: Perhaps the most popular type of fictional food industry worker is the fictional chef. The
reasons for this might be obvious: Fictional chefs are often great symbols of a main idea the writer is trying to
convey. They put their emotions into food preparation, and the food they make represents who they are. In “8
Fictional Chefs Whom We'd Like To Sit Down And Have A Meal With,” Paulina Berkovic notes,
“Remember the last time you were having a totally miserable day, and then suddenly someone offered you a cookie and all of
your troubles melted away (and the crumbs got all over your keyboard)? Even if it was someone in your office whom you
barely knew and almost never spoke to, that person was instantly your best friend... at least until the next person who
brought in treats to share. Whatever. No judgment. There's something about food that makes us instantly love the people who
made it, as if they knew just how much we needed some inspiration at that moment and swooped in to save the day.
There are some amazing foodie writers who make your mouth water as they describe the meals their characters get to enjoy,
and you wish you could transport that food through the pages and into your empty fridge (because who has time for grocery
shopping?). But then there are the fictional cooks behind some of the best meals on the pages... they're really the unsung
heroes (or, well, villains). Cooks drive their respective plots in so many ways, because anyone who makes copious food on a
regular basis must be capable of other amazing things, too.”
Do you agree with Berkovic? Who are some of your favorite fictional chefs?
•
Fictional bakers: Okay, some people consider bakers as chefs, but for the sake of all the other people who think
the two professions are completely different animals (me!), let’s talk specifically about bakers in fiction for a
moment. In his Paste magazine article “Who’s Your Favorite Fictional Baker?” Nicolas Grizzle says, “Bakers
create both bread—the staff of life—and frivolous desserts for celebratory occasions. In fiction, a number of
baker archetypes emerge; some bear unfulfilled longing, while others are totally chill and confident in their own
skin.”
Who are some of your favorite fictional bakers?
•
Fictional waiters / waitresses: Next to chefs, I believe that waiters and waitresses are probably some of the
most common fictional food industry workers to grace pages and screens. In their post “The Greatest Fictional
Waitresses,” Ranker.com state, “A waitress can provide moral support and advice for the other characters, such
as Kiffany in Dead Like Me, or can show the state of the woman in her career path, like Penny from Big Bang
Theory, who is trying to become an [actress].” Furthermore, journalist Rick Wallace has the following to say
about fictional waitresses: “While we often relegate the vocation of a waitress to that of menial and undesired
work, the truth is that being a waiter or waitress is a calling for some and the best of the best are something
spectacular to watch.”
Who are some of your favorite fictional waiters / waitresses?
The food industry workers mentioned above are but a few of the many, many faces in the industry. There are also:
dishwashers, butchers, grocers, fishermen/women, and many, many more!
Check out the slideshow below to see some of the most famous fictional food industry workers of all time!
•
•
•
•
•
•
Remy the Rat, the tiny chef from the film Ratatouille
_____________________________________________________________________
3. Fictional Eateries (i.e. restaurants, bakeries, candy shops, and kitchens)
I would be neglecting a symbolic and powerful component of food fiction if I did not discuss the role that setting plays.
Yes, the food industry workers help drive the plot, but the context in which they do so is also very important. We must at
least briefly discuss the place(s) where the magic happens in food fiction! For, who hasn't read a restaurant scene from a
novel or watched a kitchen scene on TV and wished you were there?
In “25 Fictional Restaurants We Want to Eat At,” Shante Cosme says, “No piece of grub is ever more alluring than the one
between the hands of [an] imaginary person in a restaurant that doesn't exist.” Food Republic’s Jason Kessler gets quite
emotional in discussing the dismay it causes him to consider that some of the best eateries in the world are purely
fictional (but still worth our time!):
When I was little, it took every ounce of willpower in my chubby little body not to eat colorful Play-Doh that I had turned into
food. The Play-Doh hamburger looked JUST LIKE a real burger, so why couldn’t I eat it? The sad answer is one that destroys
childhoods. You know it as well as I do. “It’s not real.” Like the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and hot cheerleaders that like
snarky short guys, you can’t eat Play-Doh food because it’s not real. As an adult, I understand this. As a child, all I understood
was the disappointment that came from wanting to eat something and not being able to.
It’s the same disheartening feeling I still have every time I see some great restaurant on TV or in the movies and realize
that I’ll never be able to eat there because it’s completely fictional. Even though we can’t eat at these establishments, that
doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be celebrated.
What are some fictional eateries that you wish you could eat at? Click through the slideshow below for a look at some
famous fictional eateries!
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Krusty Burger in The Simpsons
_____________________________________________________________________
4. Goodbye, Food Fiction!
Though you will still be working on your own fictional story—your Seedfolks chapter—we will now close our discussion
of food fiction to move into food poetry. But I wanted to leave you with one final thought about the fictional world of food
that we are about to leave behind. In the introduction to the anthology Cooked Up: Food Fiction From Around the
World, editor Elaine Chiew says the following, which I think perfectly sums up the world of food fiction:
“If food embodies an element of the universal, so does storytelling. Much has been written about why we read short stories,
about their vital function of first entertaining then instructing, about narratives grand and minor, about how good fiction—
as Salman Rushdie once said—makes us want to stand up and applaud. Well, food beautifully cooked and presented has the
feel of temporal art and it also makes me want to ‘stand up and applaud.’ It’s in no way reductionist simply to say: these are
my two passions—food and fiction—and linking them together in this anthology seemed like the most natural, inexorable
and organic thing to do…stories can be like a taste of something new—good stories have ‘bite,’ good stories appeal to all our
senses, move us, make us think or live through the eyes of another.”
Hopefully we will soon find that good poetry does all of these things as well!
But before we get to that, you will read one last piece of food fiction this week on the “tasks” page to the left. And, since
this week’s lecture was about how important eateries and food industry workers are in fictional food stories, we will
encounter a Chinese chef at culinary school in Kenya. I hope you will enjoy Mukoma Wa Ngugi’s “Walking the Wok” as our
final piece of food fiction, and think about which of the four kinds of food in fiction it includes!
Purchase answer to see full
attachment