Eleventh International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

Within the world of children’s literature, and the academic discourse surrounding it, there appears to be burgeoning interest in examining the relationship between food and children’s responses to it. The constant presence of food, be it on the peripheries of the text, or, as the focal point, certainly makes the case for such vigorous engagement. The abundance of food descriptions not only adds texture to the lives of the children being represented in the text but also signals a kind of carnal relation between food and childhood, often arising out of deprivation or rationing. Furthermore, the nostalgic affect of these descriptions respond to certain conditions contemporary to the writing of the book. British children’s literature ‘imported’ to the postcolonial scene of Indian children’s readership has raised questions about the circulation of dominant ideas of childhood among Indian children. This paper examines the depictions of food in Enid Blyton’s Famous Five series and how they served to organize postcolonial children’s attitudes towards a distant England nostalgically by associating it with childhood and leisure and might continue to exert a nostalgic force upon postcolonial adults’ response to an erstwhile colonizing culture.