Food Connections

Food Tie-in with Books and Movies

Unschooling.com's Message Boards: Conversations With Sandra Dodd: Food tie in with books and movies: July 29-August 7, 2003 (archived here)

By Valeriejolley (Valeriejolley) on Tuesday, July 29, 2003 - 04:57 pm:

I'm always thinking of food. I love to bake and cook. More and more my kids are in the kitchen, they love it, too.

We often tie in foods with movies and books. Like this morning, we had green eggs (no ham)because we read Green Eggs and Ham. This inspired Matthew to whip up blue waffles (he doesn't like eggs).

I'm trying to think of something for Alice in Wonderland. Something silly, as if seen through a looking glass.

Anyway, I'd love to hear if anyone has a favorite(s) food tie in for a movie or book or both.

How does it go? Something like

“The queen of hearts, she made some tarts,
all on a summer’s day.
The knave of hearts, he stole the tarts,
and took them clean away.”

And Alice is in court watching the trial of the knave over the stolen tarts.

How about making tarts? You can put backwards letters on each of them somehow. (I don’t know much about tarts.)

Of course there is also mock turtle soup, so thick and green (maybe split pea). Serve it in a hot tureen, squirt sour cream on bowl of soup in backwards writing.

How about oysters with bread and butter while acting out the Walrus and the Carpenter? or roast “jabberwock”? or little cakes that look like stones? or cookies in the shape of large mushrooms that can be nibbled on each side to pretend you’re shrinking or growing?

We are food oriented with books and movies, too. We had to make a chocolate cake while watching "Chocolat" and we actually made tortilla soup while watching...you guessed it..."Tortilla Soup."

Check this out:

Roald Dahl's Revolting Recipes. From the review: Recipes for these and the additional delicacies mentioned in the late Roald Dahl's (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) work are hereby adapted for the home kitchen, thanks to the author's widow.

~ Anne

When we had a redwall activity at the library, dd took scones and honey. When my ds's book chat did The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, dd and I made Turkish Delight. We just did a Star Trek activity and ds's friend used her computer to make bottle labels for Romulan Ale (was blue pepsi), Klingon blood wine (fruit punch), and there were gagh (gummy worms) and Ferengi tube grubs (burnt peanuts)

MLewis

i've added roald dahl's book to my amazon wish list. thanks anne, for the link! it looks like an awesome book.

i love the idea of food movie tie ins, though i had never thought of it before!

Great ideas, Mary. We bought some Turkish Delight after reading The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.

Amber ~ our library had that Roald Dahl cookbook ~ see if yours does before you buy it (and make copies of your favorite recipes!)!

For our Harry Potter night, there were lots of food options. I found a frog candy mold and made chocolate frogs (Warner Bros. now sells them at a whopping buck-ninety nine each!). We made our own version of butter beer with root beer and butter flavoring. We also made little cauldron cakes.

~ Anne

Oh! Great Stuff! I want to write more, but we are about to sit down to ~The Way Home~ No Korean delicacy tonight though.

The Little House Cookbook : Frontier Foods from Laura Ingalls Wilder's Classic Stories by Barbara M. Walker (Author), Garth Williams (Illustrator)(Paperback - October 1995) was a favorite of mine when I was a kid. It has real pioneer foods from the book series (blackbird pie, cracklin's, etc.) I remember we made the blackbird pie with chicken, and we tried pouring maple syrup on snow, and ginger water was also pretty successful. And of course we'd eat by the light of a kerosene lantern...

Oh, another good book and website that has food and activity and literature tie ins is - Literature Alive! by Cay Gibson... http://literaturealive.tripod.com

I'm glad so many people had good ideas, because I'm tired and not so much of a cook!!

Sandra

speaking of the Little House series..has anyone put a cup of popcorn in a cup of milk? MLewis

We have what we call "international nights" at hour house. We watched Ghandi and had a curry dinner. We saw "The Last Emperor" and that when my kids used chopsticks for the first time; we had a real Chinese meal. We watched "Anna and The King" and I called my friend who spent years in Thailand, and ended up with a family meal over a large pot where everything was cooked fondue-style and everyone eats out of the same pot.

We've done this for lots of movies and it's fun.

Ginny

This thread is totally cool! I want to stop at the video store and then the grocery store on the way home. What great ideas!

Lyle

"or cookies in the shape of large mushrooms that can be nibbled on each side to pretend you’re shrinking or growing?"

For mushroom shapes, slightly overfill mini-muffin cups - they have a mushroom shape when they're baked.

See if you can find this book it's fun for the young at heart crowd:

Once Upon a Recipe by Karen Greene

It has recipes related to nursery rhymes, Mary Poppins, and more.

My dds favorite is Benjamin Bunny cake which is a savory carrot cake.

Samantha

Mad Hatter Day is in October and I was thinking of a party. Thank you Cathy and Bugsmom!

I love all of the ideas!! Thank you.

We watched Shanghai Knights the other night. I wanted to make P.F. Changs soothing lettuce wraps. After watching the movie my husband said we should make spotted dick and haggis. I think I can deal with the spotted dick. I'll pass on the haggis.

***speaking of the Little House series..has anyone put a cup of popcorn in a cup of milk? ***

I haven’t myself, but at my Scottish neighbor’s house when I was growing up, that was breakfast!

I ADORE linking food to history and/or entertaiment (well, I like linking food to just about everything..but that's a personal issue. hehe)!!!

Have any of you watched the "Dinner and a Movie" series, I love them. And there is a website with lists and lists of movies and a recipe to go with each movie..very cool!

After watching "Chocolat" I researched and researched how to buy REAL cacao beans. Nearly impossible, only importers can get their hands on the beans. But I did find a site that sells bits and pieces that are broken (just as good for personal use) and some cool recipes for REAL hot chocolate. Haven't tried it though, they are very involved and time consuming it sounds like.

Anyway, I love the ideas here, great thread.

Ren

Ren, I do like the "Dinner and a Movie" series. I need to check out that web-site.

There is a new series now called, "Movie and a Makeover". Not quite the same...but I did see Sixteen Candles and a sweet sixteen birthday party. They did have food and lots of other ideas.

I’ll have to ask my husband more about cacao beans. He was reminiscing recently about how when he was a kid in Nicaragua he would make this common drink from scratch: He would take some cacao beans and dry corn kernels outside and roast them in a big bowl over the BBQ. Then he would take the roasted beans and corn to the local mill and have them ground. The ground up stuff is then used like instant cocoa - get a couple tablespoonsful and mix in a glass of water. If you want to get fancy, you mix it in milk and maybe even add sugar. I drank some years ago that he had, and it was really strange - the water was flavored, but all the solid stuff settled to the bottom of the glass.

I know his sister still makes drinks like this, and I’m wondering if she has a source for the cacao beans. She does have several ingredients that her chef boyfriend in Nicaragua sends her.

This reminds me of when we were researching about the diet of the Ancient Egyptians. They drank a lot of beer, but their beer was warm and thick, like soup. (We didn’t try making that!)

Try looking up this subject on your library catalog: * Literary cookbooks -- Juvenile literature



It's not a perfect search (it didn't come up with the above-mentioned Little House cookbook, which the library does have). I did find cookbooks for the Boxcar Children and Little Women. The latter also included crafts, which made me think of other craft books that include recipes, like the A.merican Girls (if you call those literary).

If you do a similar search at Amazon (I tried "literary cookbook juvenile" and "literature cookbooks juvenile fiction"), you come up with cookbooks for Peter Rabbit, Winnie the Pooh, Mary Poppins, the Wizard of Oz (I don't remember much food in that one!), Stan Lee's superheroes, Anne of Green Gables, Narnia, others--many out of print, but check your library.

Also, Joan D'Amico has a cookbook related to U.S. history, if a book has that kind of setting. And back to craft books, Laurie M Carlson's books on ancient Greece Rome, the American West, U.S. Colonial also have some recipes.

As for a movie tie-in: Dd just checked out The Star Wars Cookbook: Wookiee Cookies and other Galactic Recipes, being mostly word-play on character and recipe names, including Princess Leia Danish Dos (you know what shape), Yoda Soda, TIE Fighter Ties (little sausages wrapped in shaped refrigerated dough), Boba Fett-uccine, Hoth Chocolate, and Death Star Popcorn Balls.

-=-Boba Fett-uccine-=-

HOW CUTE.

Used book stores often have cookbooks of some regional or historical nature (or both). And if you use google.com to search you can find some specific menus and recipes from historic events (at least for Renaissance stuff you can--some cooks were documenting their bigger projects, or in some cases menus have been found in correspondence, by someone who was there who wrote home about it).

There is a movie about a cook. A little rough for youngest kids (sexuality) but BEAUTIFUL.

Vatel.

Gerard Depardieu stars.

It also has Tim Roth, who is in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (with Gary Oldman). It has Uma Thurman. It's not a great story, but it is a GREAT cooking movie.

Sandra
-----------------------------------

"I know his sister still makes drinks like this, and I’m wondering if she has a source for the cacao beans. She does have several ingredients that her chef boyfriend in Nicaragua sends her."

OOh...if you do find a source, will you share?

Sandra, remember that thread from long ago, something like "Kumari, poi and....???" I can't remember exactly.

THAT was a really fun thread. I'm thinking some of it would be fun to share over here.

Ren

When David was 5 and interested in dinosaurs, I was lucky enough to find a recipe in my mil church cookbook.

Dinosaur Food (no-bake cookies), complete with: dirt (cocoa), swamp water(milk), crushed bones(sugar), fat(butter), grass(oatmeal) and squashed bugs(peanut butter)!

They ask for dinosaur food so often that I included it in our family cookbook, along with the song: I'm A Mean Old Dinosaur (to the tune of I'm A Little Tea Pot). I found the song on the internet.

"I'm a mean old dinosaur
Big and tall
Here is my tail, here is my claw
When I get all hungry I just growl
Look out kids, I'm on the prowl"

My older kids still love this, as it turns into a tickle fest.

P.S.

Thanks! I love the inspiration and ideas. It is so hot here. I'm having a hard time thinking of things to "kick it up a notch".

I hope I can find Vatel! I couldn't find tortilla soup.

Tortilla Soup has gorgeous cooking scenes and is a wonderful movie. Eat, Drink, Man, Woman has essentially the exact same script, but it’s in Chinese (English subtitles), with Chinese food, and is not nearly so visually and emotionally extravagant as Tortilla Soup (well, it’s Chinese). I was so surprised to hear the exact same script, though.

Ren, I’ll post a source for cacao beans if I get one. I searched for recipes online for the drink, pinolillo, but they all use cocoa powder and corn meal. My husband says, “That’s just not right!” I did dig up some classic Nicaraguan dishes, though. I’m still looking for one for nacatamal.

My husband ordered netflix for us. I could not find a lot of movies, like Tortilla Soup and Vatel. Netflix has them all.

And, since I'm here...We have all the Land Before Time series, Jurassic Park movies, Walking with Dinosaurs, etc...

One time we made our own amber. We made suckers with little plastic flies (couldn't find mosquitos) inside them.

For folks enamored of Pirates of the Caribbean (and Delicious Depp), look for The Pirate Cookbook at your local library (it's out of print). My kids had a blast with this book.

df

Thanks dragonfly! My dd just posted the other night that it was her favorite movie right now. I think "enamored" is an understatement, though.😊

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