A taste for literature
FOOD WRITER KATE YOUNG IS LITERALLY COOKING THE BOOKS, ELLA WALKER FINDS OUT MORE
KATE YOUNG’S food writing career began with an innocuous slice of treacle tart (Harry Potter’s fave), a side order of homesickness and an all-consuming love of reading.
Having grown up in Brisbane, Australia, she moved to London to pursue a career as a theatre producer, but, finding herself heartsick for her family, she turned first to Hogwarts for comfort, and then to the oven.
“I’ve always found reading Harry Potter to be immensely comforting,” she explains. “I’d never eaten treacle tart, but I remembered it was his favourite dessert, so I made one and thought, ‘This is lovely!’”
She fed it to friends who, beguiled by the idea of eating the food inspired by, and found in, literature, encouraged her to start a blog. It was picked up by ta national news ppaer and now, she is releasing The Little Library Cookbook.
Cooking the (literary) classics comes with a certain amount of responsibility Kate admits she easily could have stuck to only creating versions of the food Harry, Ron and Hermione scoff, but couldn’t shy away from tackling some of the most iconic literary food moments. Hence why you’ll find recipes for Paddington Bear’s beloved marmalade, the delicate fluted madeleines that define Proust’s Swann’s Way, and Bruce Bogtrotter’s giant chocolate cake from Matilda.
“People do get attached, particularly to books they loved as children, that shape us and make us who we are,” notes Kate, but she says it doesn’t deter her from whisking fiction into the physical. “It is a thing that I think is affectionate, that I hope people and authors will take well. I’m in no way stomping on anyone’s toes – it’s essentially a fan service!”
Even making Edmund’s pillowy-pink Turkish delight in The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe didn’t worry her. “It’s just so time-consuming!” she admits. “It’s as faithful as I can possibly make it, while being the thing I really want to eat.”
There are a few things she wouldn’t attempt though, like the huge pies for hundreds of people (“Well, mice,”) in Brian Jacques’ Redwall series. “I hate wasting food, and when it’s made for the sake of being made.”
Fundamentally, she explains, the recipes in The Little Library Cookbook are not gimmicks. It’s not about hosting themed parties and presenting food that looks accurate but tastes rotten.
“It’s a real, usable cookbook,” says Kate earnestly. “The recipes aren’t the imaginary dishes in books – it’s the treacle tart rather than fizzing whizbees.” Although she did invent hot honeycomb doughnuts that burst in the mouth, like the pop cakes from Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree.
“I hope people read it and go, ‘That’s a lovely story, but I would happily just make chicken and tarragon without needing to tell everyone it’s from Anna Karenina’.”
For Kate, the process always starts with reading.
“Every time I find a mention of food, I turn down a page; so all my books are really dogeared,” she says with a smile. “If I read a book that doesn’t mention food, I think, ‘What are they doing?!’
“So much of what we do centres around food,” she muses. “There’s something really interesting in the moments we come together and sit down and eat, and the conversations we have. I always find it quite weird when people don’t eat in books.”
Kate comes from a family of cooks and doesn’t remember ever not cooking: “Cooking is what we do and food is what we talk about. We’re planning dinner for four weeks’ time while we’re eating breakfast!”
Cooking, she says, is her obsession: “Even if I’m really tired, I still like thinking about it – and then eating toast.”
The Little Library Cookbook by Kate Young, photography Lean Timms, is published by Anima, an imprint of Head of Zeus, priced £25
If I read a book that doesn’t mention food, I think, ‘What are they doing?!’