Foods in Literature

[Disir]

The Lane Cake is a Southern tradition in these here United States, especially come Christmastime. The story goes that Emma Rylander Lane, of Clayton, Alabama, won first prize with it at the county fair in Columbus, Georgia. She called it “Prize Cake” when she self-published a cookbook, Some Good Things To Eat, in 1898.

This recipe (below) is by way of Emma Rylander Law, Mrs. Lane’s granddaughter, and was published in an article by Cecily Brownstone for the Associated Press on Dec. 19, 1967.

Lane Cake comes up several times in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Miss Maudie Atkinson — the Finches’ neighbor — is known all over the fictitious town of Maycomb for her famous Lane Cakes. The secret to Miss Maudie’s recipe seems to be the bourbon, probably more than the 1 to 3 cups that Mrs. Lane suggests in her recipe. Just ask Scout Finch: “Miss Maudie Atkinson baked a Lane cake so loaded with shinny it made me tight.”

You know the saying, You can’t keep a good woman down? Well, Miss Maudie is that sort of woman. Even after her house is half-burned down — causing her to take refuge in the home a rival Lane Cake maker — she keeps on baking: “Mr. Avery will be in bed for a week — he’s right stove up. He’s too old to do things like that and I told him so. Soon as I can get my hands clean and when Stephanie Crawford’s not looking, I’ll make him a Lane cake. That Stephanie’s been after my recipe for thirty years, and if she thinks I’ll give it to her just because I’m staying with her she’s got another think coming.”

LANE CAKE RECIPE
Harper Lee | The Cake That Made Maycomb Famous: The Lane Cake | American Masters | PBS

What do you have?

 

[Mindful]

Moby Dick — in fact, he devotes a whole chapter of his epic novel to it.

“But when that smoking chowder came in, the mystery was delightfully explained. Oh! sweet friends, hearken to me. It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuits and salted pork cut up into little flakes! the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt…..we dispatched it with great expedition.”

 

[Inmar]

I like to eat food in real life, but not in literature. By the way, I adore the Jewish "farshmak"