Alice's Gastronomical Adventures in Wonderland

What I love about blogging: it's like cross training for my brain - I find myself free associating; recalling things I haven't thought about in years; having creative insights (even if they're extremely banal or minor - I recognize that making pesto from left over parsley and lemons is not going to change the way we live in the 21st century - but it means something for me, whose day job is so... so left brain). Blogging recipes of the things we make at home actually makes me think of new things to do with what's in my cupboards - maybe because there's the added pressure of making something interesting enough to be photographed and blogged about.

Meta commentary aside... Over the weekend, I was reminded for some reason about all the food and drink that's featured in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and the lovely song about soup that the Mock Turtle sings, who in the 1999 made-for-television live action film is played by Gene Wilder, who lovingly sings, "Byooooootiful soup, byooootiful soup." If there is a better paean to soup, I am not aware of it.

Alice falls down the rabbit hole, finds the bottle labeled DRINK ME, drinks it, and shrinks; she eats the EAT ME cake, and grows. She finds a Caterpillar smoking a hookah sitting on a mushroom, one side of which will make her bigger if she eats from it, the other side of which will make her smaller. At the house with The Duchess, The Cook, The Baby, and The Duchess's Cheshire-Cat, a soup with too much pepper causes everyone to sneeze. Where does Alice go next? A Mad Tea Party! Then we have my favorite, the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon singing about some lovely soup in a tureen. The trial Alice attends is over the question of whether the Knave of Hearts stole the tarts. In one scene, there is even a Bread-and-Butterfly! And never forget the Walrus and the Carpenter, cunningly luring the oysters away and greedily slurping them down.

What does it all mean? Some say, Lewis Carroll's (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson's) preoccupation with food was a reflection of Victorian society, in which many people were starving and malnourished and during which time (much like today) food prices were skyrocketing. Some textual evidence for this interpretation can be found in the scene with the Gnat, when Alice sees the Bread-and-Butterfly. She asks what it lives on, and the Gnat answers, weak tea with cream; Alice remarks that it must be often that the Bread-and-Butterfly can't find any such tea, and must often starve and die: even in the fantasy world of Wonderland, there is hunger, starvation, and death.

I am not sure there is much to be found in Alice-in-Wonderland by way of morals. There are many "dead ends" in the book, and chaos and meaninglessness more than anything seem to be the themes. The logic grown-ups are always teaching children to mind is turned upside down and flipped backwards. Many of the words themselves are nonsense - brillig as they might be. In answering the riddle of how a raven is like a writing desk with the response (paraphrased), "I haven't the slightest idea," I wonder if Carroll is telling us, This is truly meaningless nonsense. Then again Carroll once admitted he was open to any interpretations of his books, as even if he hadn't consciously intended any grand themes or morals, they might subconsciously have made their way in. 

Perhaps the lesson is, don't swallow everything you come across; think for yourself.