A couple of winters back I read Unauthorized Bread, a novella by Cory Doctorow. In that story, a set of cardamom buns makes an appearance, twice.
The description of the buns was too tantalizing. And I was on winter break with time on my hands. So I made a batch of vegan cardamom buns (from this recipe: https://myveganminimalist.com/vegan-orange-cardamom-buns/).
They were quite good! They were also a lot of work and I’m not often game for involved cooking projects so I haven’t made them again.
The most recent book I finished, Automatic Noodle, also found me reading mouthwatering descriptions of a food I’d never tried. The two books have a lot in common: near-future sci-fi set on Earth, anarchist vibes – even the titles are similar. (Side note: I liked Automatic Noodle but didn’t love it. I am realizing that “cozy” books, with their low-stakes plots and pleasant vibes, aren’t my thing.)
In this story, four sentient robots team up and open a noodle shop that serves biang biang, a certain style of Chinese hand-pulled noodle served with chili oil. I read the book in bed and kept thinking night after night, “I need to make these noodles.”
My kids and I finally did it! We were all pulling noodles and slapping them on the counter, wha-bam, and having a jolly good time. Some were thick, some were thin, some were very long. I stretched and slapped the noodles to my full extended wingspan and still they did not break.
I’m not sure we cooked them exactly right. We used this recipe but loaded into my recipe manager which doesn’t show all the pictures… looking at it now, and reading about how some biang biang is as thick as a belt, ours were too thin.
I would love to try an authentic version. That said, we were all thrilled with how they turned out and wished we’d made more.
Going farther back: the book Little House in the Big Woods enticed me to make maple syrup candy by pouring syrup on fresh snow.
It’s a testament to the authors’ evocative descriptions that each of these stories compelled me to cook.
What food from fiction have you brought to life?
3 replies on “Words Good Enough to Eat”
@admin have you been to Lan City Noodles yet?! They do hand pulled noodles and they’re so good
@csalzman @admin Lan City is so good
Do you think of Julia Child as fiction? Cassoulet, and croissants
When I was a little girl, I ate Pepperidge Farm white bread with butter (probably margarine) and brown sugar a few times after school, from Little House.
Can’t watch The Godfather without cannoli and lasagna.
And a memoir called Miriam’s Kitchen, referring to the author’s mother in law, and each chapter has a recipe. But that Miriam is somebody who puts sugar in gefilte fish.