Taking a leaf out of Roald Dahl’s books, who was a sucker for sweets himself, we too believe desserts, especially chocolate should be savored not guzzled like a pig with its feed. Dahl lived this out not only in his books but also in his own life, where he loved keeping a bunch of sweets to enjoy now and then. From Roald Dahl and Lewis Carroll to Enid Blyton, we take a fictional leap down the rabbit hole to some famous books by reputed kids’ authors to find the bizarre and fictional and some real sweet treats that exist in their world.
She has several titles to her name, with a mix of unique desserts that exist in the real world and some that are simply nonsense but somehow still make you salivate. Pick the Midnight Feasts at “Malory Towers”, for example, which showcased treats such as Carrot And Orange Muffins, Dreamy Hot Chocolate, Marvelous Melon Boats, Melty Swirly-Whirls, Peppermint Creams, and Upside-Down Cherry Loaf. There’s also “The Magic Faraway Tree” series, which mentions Mother's Macaroons, Toffee, Clementine Treacle Tart, Raspberry & Vanilla Water-Ice, Pop Cakes, and Google Buns. Imagine biting into these and being in the company of beloved friends.
The maestro of rhythmic nonsensical wordplay, Roald Dahl loved to mention sweet treats in his books, enter “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, with its many magical candies and chocolate desserts. Take the Wonka bars that get the ball rolling from the highly class-conscious Everlastic Gobstopper, Mint Sugar Grass, Lickable Wallper to the Whipple Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight. There’s also the gluttony punishment of a poor boy forced to eat a whole chocolate cake in “Matilda”. There are also a handful of sweets from “Boy: Tales of Childhood”, with a sweet shop selling Lemon Drops, Old-Fashioned Humbugs to Liquorice Bootlaces.
Known for his most famous book “Alice in Wonderland”, its world showcased quite some fictitious food that all of us wanted a taste of despite what we saw Alice go through. She starts her doom by drinking from a bottle that reads “Drink Me”, which she thought tasted like a cherry tart. As she keeps drinking and shrinking, the flavors keep changing much like Wonka’s full-course bubblegum chewed by Violet who turned blue. She then proceeded to eat cookies with frosting that coaxed her to take a bite, making her shoot up in size. As she scrambles to find something to eat, she also takes several bites of a mushroom then comes the Mad Hatter's tea party, where she is served tea with a pink frosted cake called the Unbirthday cake.
His most revered “The Chronicles of Narnia” had plenty of food in it with a smattering of desserts the best of which was Turkish delight also known as Lokum. Edmund Pevensie, the third oldest among four siblings went nuts over them when the White Witch served him some and trapped him. In other notable and unique desserts, there was sugar-topped cake served to Lucy Pevensie by Mr Tumnus, then marmalade roll served by Mrs Beaver to the Pevensie kids. There were also various books eaten by different characters from apples, peaches to nectarines and more. Celebratory feasts also featured sweet and simple cakes made with simple ingredients.
One would need to present a thesis to present all the sweet treats in the imaginative worlds created by J.K Rowling, so we are going to stick to Harry Potter and try not to get carried away. The numero uno is the elusive chocolate frog, imagine you’re new to magic and stare in dismay as your chocolate simply just runs away! The Harry Potter universe had more horrendous food than good so we’ll pick Harry’s Birthday Cake gifted by Hagrid, as silly and ramshackle as it looked, it suited fetus-faced Harry quite well and we would love a slice of that, his other unique desserts… leaves much to be desired. Lest we forget imagine living in Honeydukes’ sweets? If one has a sweet tooth insanity and gluttony will follow suit in there. And hey, a wizard with the horrors that persist, one needs the extra calories.
Speaking of horrors that persist, we’ll end with Neil Gaiman’s “Coraline”, which begins with the iconic Welcome Home cake. There were also the exotic cocoa beetles from Zanzibar, and as Coraline discovers the door to another alternate world, called the Other World, a series of unique desserts await her prepared by the Other Mother. There are boxes of chocolates, cakes in different flavors, ice creams and toffee too. Not exactly a spread of fancy desserts but the way they were presented tempts one to take a bite./p>