“Soon they were all sitting on the rocky ledge, which was still warm, watching the sun go down into the lake. It was the most beautiful evening, with the lake as blue as a cornflower and the sky flecked with rosy clouds. They held their hard-boiled eggs in one hand and a piece of bread and butter in the other, munching happily. There was a dish of salt for everyone to dip their eggs into.”
― Enid Blyton, Five Go Off in a Caravan
All right! Cross your heart and tell me honestly; did that not bring on an urge to butter some bread and reach for a boiled egg? It did, for me at least. Anyone who has ever read an Enid Blyton, will agree that she possessed the magical power to transform the most mundane food into something irresistibly mouth watering. And then of course, she wrote about some gorgeous food as well, and some that, we suspect, she invented. Last night, when I dug my way into a few of her old titles (borrowed from a young niece), I was surprised to discover that even though 30 long years have passed, like a first-time love, she can still cast a spell on me.
Picture this! Up in the Faraway Tree (a darker green than usual) with its head in the swirling clouds, where a magical land comes and rests at the top every few days; the kids sit on a broad branch with Moon-Face and Silky the fairy eating pop cakes and google buns (she made these up, didn’t she!); and drinking lemonade. The buns are most peculiar. Each has a very large currant in the middle, and this is filled with sherbet. So when you get to the currant and bite it the sherbet froths out and fills your mouth with fine bubbles that taste delicious. The tree sportingly starts growing lemons at that very moment. All Moon-Face needs to do is pluck them, cut them in half and squeeze them into a jug. Then add sugar and water ,and the children can drink as much of it as they want.
If, like Connie and unlike me, you don't believe in fairies or brownies or magic, let me take you to St Clare’s—the boarding school. The girls are in the midst of a midnight feast to celebrate the twins’ birthday. They are snacking on tinned prawns and tuna; and pineapple that tastes so much better when it is dipped in lemonade. They have also ordered a huge cake, covered in yellow icing and sugar roses that have been sliced into big pieces after the twins have blown out the candles.
The Famous Five are meanwhile facing their own dilemma. They are sitting for dinner with Mrs Andrews and there is a big meat-pie on the table, a cold ham, salad, potatoes in their jackets, and homemade pickles. After the first course, there are plums and thick cream, or jam tarts and the same cream.
I guess you’ve guessed it by now. Enid Blyton is what some of my favourite preteen food memories are made of. If you, too, happen to be a fan, chances are that so are yours. Ours was an entire generation of school-going children who grew up on Famous Five, Mallory Towers and Secret Seven, with a few St Clare's thrown in for good measure. That was staple afternoon post-school reading for years before we stepped into the emotionally sinister world of Mills & Boon.
via Pinterest
And though those romances quickly replaced Blyton and were exciting to read (secretly, under a quilt, mostly, because mom never approved); the memories of wide-eyed beauties with perfectly oval faces and madly beating hearts who got their first kisses from dark and arrogant heroes seem to have faded with time. Strangely enough, the ones that have lingered on belong to Blyton and food. Or Blyton's food. They seem to have become more precious with time. Maybe because they link food memories to freedom and adventure, maybe because I now appreciate the healthy farm food the kids had even more, or maybe only because those words conjure up sights and smells that make me revisit a childhood that I know can never come back.
At a time, when I could only wonder what strawberry tarts and meat pies were, I tasted them on the pages of a Blyton book. It was a magical world she enticed me into where kids my age took buses to quaint little villages and visited ice-cream shops on hot summer afternoons, where Timmy the dog got to have his very own ice-cream, served in a saucer.
Besides introducing us to interesting characters and mouth-watering food, Blyton also gently slipped in some life hacks. I notice them now when I reread her books as an adult, but they must have affected in a positive way the thousands of children who grew up reading her. “Leave something for someone but don’t leave someone for something,” she says in Five on a Hike Together. In Mr Galliano's Circus, she says, “The best way to treat obstacles is to use them as stepping-stones. Laugh at them, tread on them, and let them lead you to something better.” I read so many of them last night, and I marveled at how wisely she had let these beautiful lessons slip in between her beautiful stories and her beautiful food.
Thank you Blyton! For your stories, your mouthwatering comfort food and your gently told lessons. Thank you for your homemade scones, your sticky brown gingerbread (straight from the oven), your big solid fruitcakes. For the drifting scent of honeysuckle, the sounds of the night, the flicker of bats overhead, the song of the weed-warbler. And above all, for making me remember, at 47, what it was like to think in the way children do. I think I shall be raising a toast to that. Bring on some freshly brewed ginger-pop!
