Two words for you: Turkish Delight.
In a discussion of food in the fantasy genre, we may as well start with one of most well-known examples. When I read the Narnia books at age 12—an age when I fervently wanted magic to be real—I was overwhelmed with curiosity about this mysterious confection called Turkish Delight. I mean, it had to be really good for Edmund Pevensie to sell off his family to the White Witch.
The Narnia books were not favorites of mine—my preference went to Prydain—but that mention of Turkish Delight stuck with me. Later in my teen years when I visited a Cost Plus World Market for the first time, I encountered the candy for sale. I had to buy it.
I also had to throw it away because I found it to be outright vile.
Yes, I know the version I had wasn’t legit Turkish Delight. What is important is the food and the experience. I wasn’t even a Narnia fan, but I wanted to connect with and understand that scene years later.
Food is incredible like that. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the Force. It’s what binds people together within and across cultures and eras. As a worldbuilding element, it’s essential because what we eat (and don’t eat) is personal, is religious, is a snapshot of our very moment in time. Mess that up, and believability in the literary world shatters. If a book has samurai in feudal Japan regularly munching on yeast-risen white bread or William the Conqueror drinking hot chocolate, there had better be some major alternate history going on or a believable magical angle, or I’ll stop reading right there.
Even in outright bizarre settings, food in fantasy usually utilizes recognizable ingredients. There’s a big reason for that. Describing flavor is like trying to describe color to someone who can’t see quite the same range. Have you ever tried to explain a spice to someone who has never had it before? I did that with cardamom once, and I couldn’t get much better than, “It’s like cinnamon, but not at all like cinnamon.”
Bread is probably the most common food across the genre, but it can easily be an anachronism. Fluffy white sliced bread is a fairly recent thing; a book shouldn’t say something is “better than sliced bread” before 1928 unless you’re setting up a paradox.
In my Blood of Earth trilogy, I created an alternate history 1906 setting where many elements of Japanese culture are infused with American daily life. In actual history, European-style yeast breads weren’t successfully adapted to Japanese tastes until the Meiji Era of the late 19th century. For my setting, it therefore made perfect sense for Japanese sweet rolls like an-pan and jamu-pan to be common pastries in America. In Call of Fire, I introduce sylphs who engage in contractual alliances in exchange for bread.
That melding of familiar foods and the magical is something I particularly love about historical fantasies. J. Kathleen Cheney’s Golden City trilogy utilizes this especially well as she establishes her setting of 1902 Portugal:
The waiter arrived then with two plates: Duilio’s hearty meal of liver and sausage with fried potatoes, stuffed mushrooms, and broa, along with Joaquim’s fish soup.
There’s nothing inherently fantasy about that simple line, but basic details like this matter because they accurately portray the culture, place, and period. That kind of detail is also evident in her worldbuilding of the sereia, selkies, and otter-folk who live at the fringes of human society. Broa, by the way, is a yeast-leavened bread made of cornmeal and rye, and it’s delicious.
On the more explicitly foodie-fantasy side are two recent series: Matt Wallace’s Sin du Jour, with a wacky catering angle on urban fantasy, and Cassandra Khaw’s Gods and Monsters, wherein chef Rupert Wong serves man (literally, on a platter) to ghouls in Kuala Lumpur. The two series are radically different yet both invoke food in funny, seriously twisted ways.
A more traditional approach to the theme is found in Christina Rossetti’s famous poem “The Goblin Market,” which explores the old-as-Adam concept of magical beings tempting and destroying humans through food:
…Come buy, come buy:
Our grapes fresh from the vine,
Pomegranates full and fine,
Dates and sharp bullaces,
Rare pears and greengages,
Damsons and bilberries,
Taste them and try:
Currants and gooseberries,
Bright-fire-like barberries,
Figs to fill your mouth,
Citrons from the South,
Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;
Come buy, come buy.”
I think most of us know that if we ever get that long-awaited invitation to the Fairy Court, we shouldn’t eat the food, no matter how extraordinary it looks and smells. Certainly, things don’t go well for the maidens Laura and Lizzie in Ms. Rossetti’s poem. The historical context around that poem can’t be ignored, either. We in the 21st century are spoiled by the wealth of international produce offered by even the smallest of grocery stores. In the Victorian era—or really any time before the mid-20th century—a bounty of juicy, ripe fruits like those offered by the goblins would defy geography, seasons, and preservation methods. No wonder such a meal is an infernally tempting event.
Fairies can be the tempters—or the tempted. As I noted earlier, I use this with the sylphs in Call of Fire and my new release Roar of Sky. I love this trope, not just because I’m a foodie, but because there are so many ways to give it a fresh spin. One of the great side characters in Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series is the dewdrop fairy Toot-Toot. While Toot is originally summoned through more traditional means of a magical circle baited with bread, milk, and honey, protagonist Harry Dresden discovers Toot and his kind really, really, really love pizza. Moments like that provide a moment of levity in an otherwise intense story.
Since the old-fashioned fairy spread of ripe fruit doesn’t embody quite the oomph it once did, pizza actually works well as modern-day bait for human and fairy alike—and other creatures, too. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles certainly have a passion for pizza that kids and adults can relate to.
That brings me around again to what makes food essential to world-building in fantasy: we all eat. Our favorite book characters eat (some divine or immortal beings excepted, of course). Even if their world is completely bizarre in contrast to contemporary Earth, the food likely is not. Food provides the common bond between our worlds. It makes the fantasy more real.
Fantasy genre-connected cookbooks and blogs make that realism downright edible. As a Dragonlance-obsessed teenager, I was enthralled that the Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home: The Complete Krynn Sourcebook actually contained recipes based on food from the novels. I begged my mom to give the fried potatoes recipe a try. They weren’t as tasty as I’d hoped, but I still geeked out over it because I was eating Dragonlance food, something that Raistlin Majere might eat.
A more current example of this recipe trend is the food blog Inn at the Crossroads, whose efforts to cook their way across George R. R. Martin’s Westeros garnered them a book deal for an official Song of Fire and Ice cookbook. Devout fans cook up themed meals to enjoy while they watch the show on HBO.
An official cookbook for Outlander takes a more historical tack by providing recipes from postwar Britain to the Scottish Highlands and beyond. Video games also come to life through their foods, as bloggers and Twitch-streamers make mana potions and other dishes into genuine fare. Video game powerhouse Square Enix maintains an official Dragon Quest-themed restaurant in Tokyo called Luida’s Bar which features a full menu of food and drinks, including many that pay tribute to the role-playing game series’ beloved slime.
These examples highlight a major perk of being a reader/gamer and foodie in our modern age: food enables us to celebrate the worlds and characters of the books, movies, and video games we love. Not only does it make the fantasy world feel more real, but social media allows us to be, well, social about it. The internet isn’t just for cats. It’s also about sharing food pictures on Instagram and Twitter, blogging about recipes, broadcasting the cooking process live on Twitch or YouTube, and pinning everything on Pinterest.
On my Bready or Not food blog, I’ve shared recipes related to my Clockwork Dagger duology and my Blood of Earth trilogy. Readers love that they can eat what my characters eat. So do I. I want that level of interaction when I enjoy other books and games, too, whether that involves damsons and bilberries, broa, or a slime-shaped meat bun at Luida’s Bar.
I write fantasy because I want magic to be real. Eating food from the fantasy genre is a way to make worldbuilding into an actual, visceral experience. That is a delicious kind of magic—even in the case of Turkish Delight.
Originally published in October 2018.
Okay, for Turkish Delight you will actually like. Liberty Orchards makes Turkish Delight, not in the traditional flavors (e.g., rose, pistachio) but with a variety of fresh fruit flavors – apple, apricot, blackberry, strawberry, etc. And, in addition to selling it with the traditional powdered sugar coating, they also sell it COVERED IN DARK CHOCOLATE.
Do try, you won’t regret it.
Bought Turkish Delight is almost always nasty according to candy fans in the US. I was disappointed when I tried it. The Narnia books were set in WWII where sugar supplies were rationed, and candy was hard to come by. I imagine that was part of its attraction to sugar-addict Edmund.
Even after Harry Dresden “died,” that pizza kept coming for Toot Toot. Wasn’t it mentioned that some of Harry’s friends continued to pay for its delivery? Anyway, that pizza turned lowly Toot Toot into a power among his kind, and he has lead them to fight on Harry’s side during various apocalypse situation. Yes, pizza helped save the world.
And drinks too… Klava from the Vlad Taltos series, for example. People are trying to find a working recipe.
There are blogs like this (https://www.innatthecrossroads.com/) dedicated to reconstructing recipes from fantastical universes.
When I first read “The Once and Future King” at around age 8, what I wanted was the breakfast that Merlin served to Wart:
“There were peaches. There were also melons, strawberries and cream, rusks, brown trout piping hot, grilled perch which were much nicer, chicken devilled enough to burn one’s mouth out, kidneys and mushrooms on toast, fricassee, curry, and a choice of boiling coffee or best chocolate made with cream in large cups.”
Specifically, it was the “chicken devilled enough to burn one’s mouth out,” since, even then I liked spicy food.
When the drama coach at the little private high school where I taught wanted to do a presentation of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, he wanted to use genuine Turkish Delight—thinking it would be irresistible. Because we had no idea where to buy any, I found a cookbook in the library and made our own. It was just as “nasty” as any of the purchased kind. Most US-grown folks are not accustomed to “rose” as a flavor for food. In fact it’s been my experience that we don’t even care for it in women’s perfume, which often replicates flower fragrances. Many people don’t even like the rose fragrance of the genuine flowers, witness all those grocery store roses with no scent.
Turkish Delight was also one of my big fantasy food disappointments. I realized later that some of it was driven by the WWII setting, but in my young mind, Turkish Delight had to be the Best and Sweetest Candy Ever.
The Redwall books were also high on young me’s list of “yes I want to eat this.” I think an official cookbook may have gotten published at some point?
Currently my most coveted fantasy food is the pies from the Market in Seanan McGuire’s In an Absent Dream. There’s meat pies, there’s fruit pies, and if they’re delicious enough to be the main foods for a couple of hungry children for a year, I’d like to try at least once, assuming I could provide the fair trade.
Finally, I’m really excited for a couple of cookbooks for fictional worlds that draw strong inspiration from parts of our world that have either just been released or will be quite soon: Final Fantasy XIV (The Essential Culinarian Guide to Hydaelyn) and Avatar The Last Airbender (Recipes from the Four Nations).
@1. Ursula
I kinda hate you
, because now I have to try those Turkish delights, especially the dark chocolate covered ones
@2. MByerly
US Turkish delight is definitely different and not as good. Like our dear author Beth, I too found and tried it when I was about 10-11yo and hated it (also like Beth, I preferred the Prydain books, Lloyd Alexander doesn’t get enough love). And was so so so disappointed, it sounded so good in the books. I mentioned it to an aunt of mine who lived in Greece, and the next time she visited she brought Turkish delight. WOW, what a difference!
The food that intrigued me most was the butter-pie in Diana Wynne Jones’ A Tale of Time City. It was sweet and both hot and cold. Sam was so besotted with them that he spent all his money on them. I think he was the one who advised Vivian to ‘let the hot trickle into the cold’, or maybe the other way round. It’s something I would dearly love to try.
I’ve always wanted to start a YouTube channel where I try to recreate recipes from fantasy books! Love this article.
Fantasy-loving foodies will want to check out the anime Restaurant to Another World (there are novels too, but they obviously lack the lovingly-rendered visuals), where a travelling door allows fantasyworld denizens to modern Earth food (with much attention paid to the novelties of refrigeration, transportation, cooking technology, and even filtered water for someone from a pre-industrial world).
The most appetizing article ever :)
For fans of Genshin Impact there is a YT channel called MoriKitchen that makes all sorts of foods from the game. It’s such a delight to watch!
@5, srEDIT, Most US-grown folks are not accustomed to “rose” as a flavor for food.
Hmmm. I used to eat rose petals as a child. Maybe I’d like Turkish Delight.
@13: Were they candied rose petals, or did you just pluck them off the bush and chomp? ;)
I actually do like rose-flavored things, so genuine Turkish Delight sounds like it would be fun to try at some point. Again, not what I’d ask for in Edmund’s situation (chocolate would *definitely* have to be involved) but Adult Me is more amenable to the concept than Younger Me was.
@14, just picked them off the bush. I learned it from a friend. I can’t really recall any flavor but I remember the scent. I still love rose scent which apparently makes me unusual?
@15: I did that a few times, but it’s the texture that I didn’t like, not the taste. Pretty much all edible flowers have that problem for me. And we can be unusual together!
@princessroxana 15: No, not unusual, really—but there are enough people who either dislike or claim allergies to the scent, that we seem to be deprived of it in bouquets these days.
@kam 6: Agree about the Redwall books. Not only adult-me but my kids as they read them were on the verge of drooling. Even things I know I do not like were described in ways that had me thinking I ought to try cooking some of them.
I have actual experience with trying a food that I had detested, because it had been described so temptingly. The food was shrimp—something I could NOT abide—which Carolyn Keene (or whichever one of the stable of writers had taken on this particular book) described as a meal that Nancy Drew and her two friends tried in an upscale oceanview restaurant that served puffed shrimp. I think it was George who thought the dish looked like too much to eat but discovered they were so light that she easily finished them off. Something about the description made me want to try puffed shrimp in spite of how much I hated seafood. Still do hate it, as a matter of fact, except for shrimp.
@5, srEDIT: I won’t argue about rose as a flavor, but I think you exaggerate in saying USians don’t even like the smell and offer commercial roses as proof. Commercial roses were bred for looks and durability; aroma got left behind. ISTM something similar happened with food processing in the US — salt and sugar were used to replace the flavor lost to processing and preservatives. (Don’t get me started on what happened to hops.) I’m old enough to remember Wonder Bread being advertised on TV, boasting of all the nutrients added — because everything had been refined out.
I have also had real Turkish Delight; ISTR it wasn’t that sweet, unlike the version that is used to trap a murderer in Strong Poison.
Food can also be a character marker, e.g. the capo in Last Hot Time who orders duck a l’orange, or the tenderized-to-fall-apart steak in “Waldo”.
I’ll add CMOT Dibbler’s “Sausage Inna Bun”
Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, anyone?
Also, I’d love to try Kaf from Wheel of Time. Now… I realize that it’s probably just a simple stand-in for coffee. However, my brain REALLY wants it to be sort of like coffee, but just different enough to make it exotic and new.
All of the meal/food descriptions in Wind in the Willows spoke to me as a child (as did all of the Narnia fare, including the elusive Turkish Delight).
100% with the author and a few others here… Loved Narnia, but Prydain was the world I most longed to escape to.
@@.-@, RussellH: you and T. H. White and Mr. Micawber. “You will allow me to take the liberty of remarking that there are few comestibles better, in their way, than a Devil.”
@8, Clare: Maggie Stiefvater credits Diana Wynne Jones and the Butter Cakes as the inspiration for the November Cakes in The Scorpio Races, found only on Thisby and only in November. At least, formerly found only on Thisby, but I believe she’s since developed a this-world recipe for them. I haven’t had the nerve to try my hand at it yet; whatever I make of it can’t possibly be as good as the description.
Diane Duane loves to collect recipes, and is working on a cookbook of dishes from her Middle Kingdoms series. She occasionally posts them for fans to try creating on her middlekingdoms.com site.
I want very badly to drink a raktajino.
@20: All of the meal/food descriptions in Wind in the Willows spoke to me as a child. Oh yes — I so wanted to know what bubble-and-squeak was, as it sounded so desirable. Contrariwise: now that one can look up all sorts of oddments in Wikipedia, the description of stargazey pie sounds just about as unappealing as the characters in The Left-Handed Booksellers of London found it.
I don’t know which of the Liavek world-sharing team came up with pot-boil, but it sounds wonderful: somewhere between a soup and a stew, with ingredients added as necessary to keep the supply up, and ladled hot into waxed-paper(?) cones by street vendors, each with their own recipe.
About 20 years ago, I was in the UK on business, and (as a fan of Red Dwarf) wanted to try a chicken vindaloo.
This was a mistake, particularly the next day in an enclosed laboratory…
The food descriptions in Tolkien’s works made me hungry as a child–like the “mighty dish of mushrooms and bacon” that Mrs. Maggot serves to the hungry travelers. And lembas!
I personally love food-grade rosewater and adore rose taffy made to a thousand-year-old recipe. Marvelous stuff. I’ve never had anything labeled “Turkish Delight,” but I figure that Aplets and Cotlets come pretty close: They’re sweet, fragrant, delicious, covered in messy powdered sugar, and something you would never eat a lot of unless you were being put under a spell by it.
I love the food described in Becky Chambers’ books – particularly “hoppers” -spicy grasshopper burgers. I want mine with grilled onions.
@21 Amaryllis Thanks! I looked up the recipe and it sounds very nice. In my imagination the butter pies are less floury, more liquid. But who knows?
Rose-flavored Turkish delight can be ordered on Amazon US. Hazer Baba brand is close to the authentic stuff from Turkey, at least to my tastebuds.
Rose-flavored tea is also delicious. Adagio teas online store has a lovely rose petal and black cherry blend.
Eating rose petals is one of several things I remember doing as a small child that I can’t understand for the life of me now. Why was sitting in a box such fun?
@30: Because, as a friend of mine with both a small child and several cats has observed, small children are basically cats. ;)
@ 26. Jenny Islander
We’re talking about the same thing – Liberty Orchards makes Aplets & Cotlets.
And the dark chocolate makes a huge difference, because the slight bitterness cuts the sticky sweetness. If you like the chocolates with a fruit jelly filling, they are by far the best, intensely fruity, plus some nuts, plus really good dark chocolate. (They do milk chocolate as well.)
What @1 said times infinity. I adore Liberty Orchards. Cannot get enough, which is why I reserve it for treats and holidays.
My SF/F book club just had a ‘fantasy meal’ potluck for our November meeting – basically we all brought food from fictional works. Someone did bring Turkish delight
We also had wife soup from Firefly and goat cheese and blackberries on toast (Hunger Games), among other things. Luckily my library has several cookbooks full of recipes from fictional places. We had a good time with it and we’re planning to do it again next year.
Floral flavors can be overpowering, but also delicious. The tiniest dash of rosewater in lemonade is lovely. But a bit of orange blossom water is better.
Nevèrÿon double soup – cooked in two pots and served in one bowl.
Re the comments about Turkish Delight, I grew up (1960s-70s UK) with Fry’s Turkish Delight which was a chocolate covered commercial version. On the rare occasions I get it these days (I’m now diabetic), I go to the Turkish deli in the local market where I get cherry-flavour, although I have to taste check because they use 2 brands; one actually tastes of cherry and is very nice, and the other tastes vaguely of honey and is not very nice.
Oddly, Turkish Delight was not one of the things my dad used to bring back from his Middle Eastern trips. Tins of Iranian caviar, on the other hand!
@25 There’s a reason people in the UK often drop the ‘v’ when referring to the dish… Especially when it’s the traditional Friday night pub-crawl followed by a late-night curry.
I’ve never seen a recipe, so this is only a guess:
Hardtack + apotheosis = lembas.
@37. Lesson learned.
Nowadays, on the rare occasions I eat Indian, I go for tandoori or korma.
I think the first fictional cookbook I ever read was The Dragonlover’s Guide to Pern, although I never tried any of the recipes.
I wouldn’t mind trying “bubbly pies’ tho. I love pie. :)
@31,Kam, ‘small children are basically cats’
By George! I think you’ve got it! Eating plants, sitting in boxes, I was a cat!
@25 “Vindaloo: Clears the Parts Other Curries Can’t Reach”
@41 “And breaks all the CBW treaties to boot!”
@22: https://www.middlekingdoms.com/category/food-and-cooking-of-the-middle-kingdoms/
Oh man, Redwall has got to have the best food scenes. But hobbit food is so good. Sometimes I make myself a hobbit-worthy second breakfast and feel so pleased. I have also make pumpkin pasties and been pleasantly surprised at their savory deliciousity.
Turkish Delight never tempted me, because I didn’t know what it was, and because after that it was a symbol of temptation, the opposite of bounty and blessing.
…suddenly I am very hungry for comfort food.
Oh goodness real Turkish delight is completely worth selling out your siblings for. (Sorry, David!) Although I really do love rose-flavoured stuff! When I was in Turkey I got to try rose petal jam, and felt like legitimate Fair Folk.
The Legend of Zelda game, Breath of the Wild, has a great cooking component to it. Definitely took some fruit cake to the castle for Zelda at the end of the game!
Add me to the rose fans: Turkish Turkish delight, rose jam, rose tea …
As the fish course began, I heard a soft creak overhead. I glanced up in time to see a piece of the plaster ceiling the size of a wagon wheel bid farewell to its grip on the laths above and crash down on them table. Soup tureen, candelabra, glasses, and plates alike were cast into chaos.
“Dear me,” said Mr. Brummell.
The servants left the room. In the distance, i could hear the innkeeper’s bay of alarm. Close at hand, i could hear soup dripping to the floor, a not-unmusical trickle.
I put down my spoon and looked around the table. Opposite me, Thomas was a expressionless as I have even seen him. I worried what his honest response to the catastrophe might bet, that such impassivity was needed. Cecy’s eyes were wide with astonishment. Lady Sylvia used her napkin to extinguish a sprig of the floral arrangement where a fallen candle was trying to smolder into flame. I think Thomas was trying not to laugh. With all the aplomb I’d learned tilling fibs as a girl, I turned to our guest. “Mr. Brummell, with such fine weather, we thought it might amuse you to take the rest of the meal in the classical fashion, al fresco in the garden. I hope you will accompany me?” My conscience intruded. More honestly, i went on. “It may take some time for the table to be laid—indeed, there may not be a table at all.”
“But the menu is worth the wait, I promise,” Thomas added. He was still straight faced, but I could see now what he’d striven so hard to hide from me. Amusement. I would not have thought it possible, but I felt my affection for Thomas increase. He probably though it would have wounded my feelings had he laughed aloud.
“Not only that, the open air can sometimes be more private,” said Lady Sylvia with a smile.
I only with that everyone i ever told a bouncer to could be a willing to be deceived as Mr. Brummell. He was courtesy itself as he offered he his arm. “Then by all means, Lady Schofield, let us enjoy a fête champêtre. I believe there is to be a particularly fine moon tonight.”
[Patricia C. Wrede, Caroline Stevermer, The Grand Tour, 2004]
Brummell would undoubtedly have admired such presence of mind and aplomb. It would be entirely in character for him to play along. Inside he’s probably laughing as hard as Thomas.