Riot Headline The Best Books of 2024
Humor

The Favorite Foods of Famous Literary Heroines

Elizabeth Bastos

Staff Writer

Elizabeth Bastos has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe, and writes at her blog 19th-Century Lady Naturalist. Follow her on Twitter: @elizabethbastos

scarlett

Cathy Barrow, an avid home cook, home fruit preserver, pickler, butcher, baker and cheesemaker, who writes about home food preservation and other topics for the New York Times, the Washington Post and on her blog, Mrs. Wheelbarrow’s Kitchen and I were discussing on Twitter the favorite snack foods of the famous heroines of literature.

What do you think? Would Anna Karenina harbor a fondness for blinis?

 

 

Hester Prynne: Wild asparagus

Mrs. Murray (of A Wrinkle in Time): Swiss on rye, toasted over a Bunsen burner

Miss Havisham: Cake crumbs, stale

Anne (of Anne of Green Gables): This cordial is alcoholic? Ooops

Juliet (of Romeo and Juliet): Croque madame

Scarlett O’Hara: Baby radishes with sweet butter

Miss Marple: Crumpets, marmalade

Lily Bart: Pheasant under glass

Isabel Archer: Frank’s Red Hot Sauce

Daisy Miller: Fresh figs and proscuitto

Nancy Drew: ‘Nilla Wafers

Little Miss Muffett: Curds and whey (obviously)

Dorothea Brooke: Devonshire cream

Charlotte (of Charlotte’s Web): Flies

Madame Bovary: Ile flottante

Harriet (of Harriet the Spy): Tomato and mayo on white

Pippi Longstocking: Lingonberry jam