The best feasts quotes in literature | Children's books

October 2024 · 4 minute read
Children's booksChildren's books This article is more than 8 years old

The best feasts quotes in literature

This article is more than 8 years old

From Keats to Harry Potter to Christina Rossetti to Wind in the Willows, we have mouthwatering quotes from the greatest literary feasts to whet your appetite for Christmas indulgences

[…] he forth from the closet brought a heap

Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd;

With jellies soother than the creamy curd,

And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon;

Manna and dates, in argosy transferr’d

From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one,

From silken Samarcand to cedar’d Lebanon.
John Keats, The Eve of St Agnes, published 1820


Our grapes fresh from the vine,

Pomegranates full and fine,

Dates and sharp bullaces,

Rare pears and greengages,

Damsons and bilberries,

Taste them and try:

Currants and gooseberries,

Bright-fire-like barberries,

Figs to fill your mouth,

Citrons from the South,

Sweet to tongue and sound to eye,

Come buy, come buy.
Christina Rossetti, Goblin Market, published 1862


The most prominent object was a long table with a table-cloth spread on it, as if a feast had been in preparation when the house and the clocks all stopped together. An épergne or centre-piece of some kind was in the middle of this cloth; it was so heavily overhung with cobwebs that its form was quite undistinguishable; and, as I looked along the yellow expanse out of which I remember its seeming to grow, like a black fungus, I saw speckled-legged spiders with blotchy bodies running home to it, and running out from it
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, published 1861


Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook’s next door to each other, with a laundress’s next door to that! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs Cratchit entered — flushed by smiling proudly — with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, published 1843


Good bread and good drink, a good fire in the hall,

Brawn, pudding, and souse, and good mustard withal.

Beef, mutton, and pork, and good pies of the best,

Pig, veal, goose, and capon, and turkey well drest,

Cheese, apples and nuts, and good carols to hear,

As then in the country is counted good cheer.
Thomas Tusser, ‘Christmas Cheer’, 1557, from Tusser’s book, A Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie, a long, rhyming treatise about caring for home and farm in rural England.

‘‘It is dull, Son of Adam, to drink without eating,’’ said the Queen presently. ‘‘What would you like best to eat?’’

“Turkish Delight, please, your Majesty,” said Edmund.

The Queen let another drop fall from her bottle on to the snow, and instantly there appeared a round box, tied with green silk ribbon, which, when opened, turned out to contain several pounds of the best Turkish Delight. Each piece was sweet and light to the very centre and Edmund had never tasted anything more delicious. He was quite warm now, and very comfortable.”
CS Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, published in 1950

Harry’s mouth fell open. The dishes in front of him were now piled with food. He had never seen so many things he liked to eat on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and, for some strange reason, peppermint humbugs.
JK Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, published 1997

“Hold hard a minute, then!” said the Rat. He looped the painter through a ring in his landing-stage, climbed up into his hole above, and after a short interval reappeared staggering under a fat, wicker luncheon-basket.

“Shove that under your feet,” he observed to the Mole, as he passed it down into the boat. Then he untied the painter and took the sculls again.

“What’s inside it?” asked the Mole, wriggling with curiosity.

“There’s cold chicken inside it,” replied the Rat briefly;

“coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrenchrolls-

cresssandwichespottedmeatgingerbeerlemonadesodawater—”

“O stop, stop,” cried the Mole in ecstacies: “This is too much!”
Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, published in 1908

Check out the Young Poet Network’s Festive Feasts challenge which asks young poets to be inspired by John Keats’ The Eve of St Agnes to create poems about their own fantastical banquets. You can also follow Young Poets Network on Twitter @youngpoetsnet.

Explore more on these topicsShareReuse this content

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEoKyaqpSerq96wqikaJuYnrmlvsSnqmaan6S4tHnSoqueZ2JlfnZ7w56aaGlpZMGpsYybnKysXZuyor%2FTrGSqrZ%2BpsrR5yKdkpaGkmr%2BiwNSrnA%3D%3D