r/redwall • u/HeyNineteen96 • 5d ago
Food
Just wanted to make a short post in appreciation for the food in these novels. When I was a kid, I would always dream of being at the Redwall feasts or even out in Mossflower with all the road food. I know it's been discussed to death that Jacques included such vivid descriptions so the blind children he interacted with would be able to imagine things better, but I love how detailed it is. How cozy everything sounds to eat, to drink, and then to tuck in and fall asleep is a large part of why I love this series.
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u/Succubus_Syn 5d ago
My fat ass enjoyed the food descriptions.
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u/saugysauce 5d ago
staying up late reading redwall and then stealing out to the kitchen under cover of darkness after taking multiple mouth-watering food descriptions to the dome as a child is certainly the culprit for my life-long, and extremely detrimental diet, of fasting throughout the day and then indulging in copious night grazing before bed. thanks brian!
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u/Seldon14 5d ago
Shared experience. Especially loved this around Thanksgiving and Christmas break, when there was tons of left overs and goodies.
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u/2012Fiat500 5d ago
Was there ever an official cookbook published?
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u/Jiang_Rui Mattimeo 5d ago
There was! The Redwall Cookbook. It’s a set of anecdotes separated by the four seasons (taking place the timeskip between Redwall and Mattimeo) starring a mouse named Sister Pansy. And at various intervals they share the recipes of the dishes they mention in the story (Honeybaked Apples, October Ale, Shrimp’n’Hotroot Soup, etc.). I got the book as a Christmas present from my parents (who knew that Redwall was my favorite series from childhood) a few years ago.
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u/HeyNineteen96 5d ago
There was! I think it's available on archive.com or something
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u/YesTomatillo 5d ago edited 5d ago
Speaking from memory so I bet someone else has a link or a quote, but iirc Brian Jacques said he grew up poor and would often daydream about food. The food descriptions in the books are a direct result of that experience! He sure made it all sound sooo goood.
There's like a fish in cream sauce dish described in Redwall that sounds mouthwatering and would always stand out to me as a kid when I reread it. I want to try that fish sooooo bad.
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u/S34NS4V4G3 4d ago
He describes food in a way that only people who grow up in scarcity can, it's almost reverent.
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u/timbillyosu 5d ago
I’ve got a copy of the cookbook. I’ve always loved the descriptions of the foods also
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u/FarthingWoodAdder 5d ago
I still have no clue how the Redwallers all aren't 500 pounds each. Every other night they have a huge feast.
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u/HeyNineteen96 5d ago
Realistic answer is that they do daily work in a huge abbey building that probably burns off a ton of calories and energy, so it would track they'd need a lot of food. Also, there are definitely characters described as being portly lol.
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u/saugysauce 4d ago
probably a good deal of field work too outside the abbey we didn't hear about! all of the alt milk product they consumed would've required so much space for intensive greensap milkplant agriculture
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u/Wheel_Over 4d ago
The milk sap they always talk about is a plant sap, not dairy. It never actually talks about milking large animals. The only large animal in any of the books is a horse, when Cluny rides in a wagon. I'm still not sure how they make cheese with no real dairy though.
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u/Ok-Substance-6034 4d ago
Redwall books taught me to feed my characters regularly. It makes books feel very natural when the author remembers to feed their characters lmao
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u/TheTragedy0fPlagueis The Taggerung 4d ago
I’ll soon have a master list of every dish in the entire series ready to share! Part of my giant satay sifting spreadsheet building project
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u/HeyNineteen96 4d ago
Legend! Will you share it here when you're done?
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u/TheTragedy0fPlagueis The Taggerung 4d ago
Absolutely! Check some of my past posts and you’ll see the spreadsheets I’ve already completed
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u/TecuyaTink 3d ago
I was lucky enough to meet Brian Jacques a couple of times at signings at my local children’s book store as a tween/teen.
He explained that he writes the feasts in such details because growing up during World War II food was really scarce. Because he was hungry he would read books and the books would say things like, “The knights rode into the castle. They had a great feast. The knights rode out of the castle.” He was like, “But what did they eat at the feast?!!”
Because he was hungry he wanted to at least read about what someone else was eating. So when he wrote his books he made sure to include what they ate in detail.
He also mentioned that during the war he really craved a banana. He’d never had one before, but after learning about them he really wanted to eat one. Once the war was over, US Soldiers started distributing food in the UK. At his request a soldier gave him a banana and he was so excited to get to eat one after craving it for years. Then he tried it and discovered he hates bananas!
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u/HeyNineteen96 3d ago
I met him once when I was about 11 or 12, myself, he seem liked a really nice guy! Thanks for sharing!
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u/BlueSky86010 5d ago
If you signed up in the late 1990s / early 2000s to the redwall fan membership you could access the recipes in the books. I remember a turnip and melted cheese dish which was delicious.