Enid Blyton Loves to Eat: A New Appreciation of My Favorite Childhood Books

Reader Contribution by S.M.R. Saia
Published on April 23, 2011
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First off let me say that I know nothing about English author Enid Blyton’s personal life. It may be that she didn’t have a hearty appetite at all. I have never read a biography of the woman or combed the web for fascinating facts about her. My information comes entirely from the first-hand reading of primary texts. My conclusions about her are entirely my own, and one of them is this: Enid Blyton had a real appreciation for good, farm-grown food, and anyone that took so much care to write about every meal that her characters had, must have loved to eat.

The food in Blyton’s Famous Five books isn’t fancy. It’s just good, plain food that’s travelled a very short distance – from the hands of the farmer’s wife to the stomachs of four hungry kids. Lest you think that this means interminable passages along the lines of the excruciatingly long and boring dinner scene in the movie The Age of Innocence – it doesn’t. It’s more like this:

Nothing could be nicer than icy-cold, creamy farm milk from the dairy on a hot day like this. They all sat down to tea, and the four visitors wished they had not had such a big lunch! A large ham sat on the table, and there were crusty loaves of new bread. Crisp lettuces, dewy and cool, and red radishes were side by side in a big glass dish. On the sideboard was an enormous cake, and beside it a dish of scones. Great slabs of butter and jugs of creamy milk were there, too, with honey and home-made jam.

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