Literary snacking (or, food for thought…)

I just saw someone do this for a collection of stories and so I wanted to play. If you have ideas, or different ideas, I would LOVE to hear about them in comments.

What snack or drink should you pair with every story in a collection? Let’s use my Fractured Fairy Tales.

Some of them  could be considered relatively easy. For “The Wedding of the Weed Witch”, for instance, you might nosh on a sophisticated salad – you know, the kind that has flowers as an ingredient. Would a generic “seafood” be a little too on the nose for “The Dolphin’s Daughter” or “The Princess of Pain”? Something from the Latin cuisine (several possibilities are actualy mentioned in the story) would do for “The Glowstick Girl”. There are a number of alternatives discussed within the story of “Twice Promised”, you can take your pick. Something bitter to drink, for the “butterfly collection” story, maybe; wild forest mushrooms for “My Music was my Life”; I want to say birthday cake, for “Finley’s Joy”, not just because Finley was still young enough to love the idea of candles and blowing them out but also honoring the birthdays she would never get to spend on this world. Something spicy and eastern for “The Perfect Rose”; something from South Asia for “A Coin of Silver”. The Aris stories would go well paired with homemade bread and homebrewed ale and some of that classic fantasy “stew” that you find in all those taverns people end up in while on various quest journeys.Cookies and milk for “Safe House”.

Any ideas for “Vision” or “Rum Pelt Stilt’s Skin” or “Go Through”? This food for stories thing is kind of tricky! A while ago someone online was pairing teas with novels and I ended up having “Secrets of Jin Shei” paired with Oolong tea (which I love) but I find myself oddly unable to match a specific food or drink to a specific story. I like to think of this entire collection as a box of dark – very dark – chocolates, anyway, with an ever-so-slight bitter aftertaste that comes with high quality high percentage of cacao stuff. I suppose dark chocolate covers ALL sins…

Any thoughts?

Photo by Alexander Schimmeck on Unsplash