The Redwall Gifts

A summer picnic in the orchard

 

The Redwall books give readers so much; marvelously rich characters, grand adventures, battles, expeditions, villains, heroes, warriors, beautiful lands to explore, and.....food. Throughout these books meals, feasts, and snacks are described, and let me tell you, they make you hungry. Truly, they do. Here is sample from one of the books:

Tender freshwater shrimp garnished with cream and rose leaves, devilled barley pearls in acorn puree, apple and carrot chews, marinated cabbage stalks steeped in creamed white turnip with nutmeg… crusty country pasties, and these were being served with melted yellow cheese and rough hazelnut bread.

From the otter’s spicy soup to the deep, earthy Deeper’n’Ever Turnip’n’Tater’n Beetroot pies presented by the moles to the fruit-studded scones and and honey-covered hotcakes and colorful salads, reading about a Redwall meal is like being trapped on the wrong side of a window watching someone else’s feast.  You desperately want to get inside, but can’t figure out how to magically transport yourself into the story so that you can try everything just to see if it can possibly be as good as Jacques made it sound.

In his books Jacques makes a point of describing every feast in detail (and there are feasts in every book) and he makes sure that his characters, when they go on their quests, are provisioned with a good supply of rations that would make most fantasy heroes cry with jealousy.  No hardtack for these furry warriors. It’s oatcakes and honey, scones, and bottles of cordial for the heroes who set out from Redwall.

The meals in these stories aren’t just a way to make readers wish that they were smaller, fuzzier, and wielding swords for the good of all creaturekind.  The feasts are a coming-together, often at the start or the end of an adventure.  Friends and family from all over the Mossflower forest are invited into the abbey.  Stories are told beside roaring fires while the adults sip October Ale and the little ones enjoy cups of strawberry fizz or dandelion cordial.  Long-dead heroes visit young warriors-to-be in their sleep and inspire them to set out at dawn.  And once the questing is through and the heroes return home, a feast will be assembled to welcome them again.  Food, feasting, fellowship: the coming together of characters is significant enough to deserve detail.  Rather than leaving it at “and then they ate together,” Jacques satisfies us with extensive description so that we, too, can attend, at least in part – I have yet to receive a slice of deeper’n’ever pie from an obliging mole.

Here is a marvelous article written by Molly Priddy about Redwall Feasts.  In it she mentions The Redwall Cookbook, which I will review soon.