The food they eat in “Magic for Marigold”

This is one of my favorite books.

It’s by the same author who wrote Anne of Green Gables.

One thing that always intrigued me about this book is the food they are described as eating. According to “Magic for Marigold”, which is set in the 1920s, all they ate back then was cake and pudding and pie. I’m not sure a single vegetable is mentioned. Maybe you’re thinking, well, the author only lists out the desserts and we can take it on faith that they ate more nutritious things as well. But sometimes, the characters say things like: “for supper we have fruit-cake and raisin-cake and date-loaf”. So with a sentence like that, what else are you to think that they are eating? Here are the meals, and all the food it’s mentioned eaten with them:

The very first dinner that opens the book: this dinner is covered in a very long chapter, and the only thing they’re mentioned as eating is:

• dressing
• pudding

Marigold’s meal with Uncle Paul and Aunt Flora:

• nut cake with whipped cream on top.

Marigold’s lunch on her first day at school:

• heart-shaped sandwiches
• cookies cut in animal shapes
• a broken-handled cream jug full of jelly.

Birthday picnic for Sylvia:

• little frosted cakes with pink icing
• a gorgeous big cake, with a drift of coconut over everything
• tarts with goose-berry filling

Supper at Aunt Stasia’s:

• raspberries in generous blue saucers
• cream
• tea
• cake
• a cooky

Christmas meal:

• mince pies
• Devonshire clotted cream
• a pound cake made of 32 eggs
• little cakes with raisins in them and icing over the tops and pink candies over that
• banana cake with whipped cream
• dressing
• pudding

When Marigold was home alone, her mother suggested that she help herself to:

• doughnuts in the cellar crock
• the cakes with raisins, icing, and pink candies

Supper with Princess Varvara

• fruit-cake
• the cakes with raisins, icing, and pink candies
• date loaf
• plus a purloined chocolate cake

Dinner with Granny Phin (one of the few meals with varied food-groups, other than “dessert”)

• fried ham
• potatoes
• blueberry jam

Supper with Tabby and Abel:

• applecake
• cinnamon buns
• raisin-bread
• The exact line is: “They had a good supper with plenty of Tabby’s apple-cake and cinnamon buns and raisin-bread.” So it’s really implying that’s all they ate. There must have been some strange dietary fads sweeping civilization at this time.

Breakfast food:

• real oatmeal porridge

Supper at Paula Pengelly:

• nuts
• apples
• brown bread
• some stale, sweet crackers
• The exact line is: “There was nothing for supper but nuts, apples, brown bread and some stale, sweet crackers.” To be sure, Paula’s father is a religious fanatic where they believe that “You have to be miserable or you can’t be good” and “You can never go to heaven if you haven’t committed sins, because then you can’t repent of them and be forgiven” and that you should never do a thing you like to do because “if you liked a thing it was a sure sign it was wrong.” So this supper table might be emblematic of the unique dietary restrictions that particular house was operating under. Though nuts and apples sound quite refreshing after endless cake and bread and doughnuts.

General menu at Paula Pengelly’s:

• “nothing but porridge and nuts for breakfast and dinner and supper, day in and day out.”
• This is the religious fanatic’s house
• But if you substitute out the nuts and exchange them for cakes, it is practically the menu in all the other houses

Supper with Mats:

• banana cake with whipped cream
• strawberry shortcake
• date layer-cake
• jelly-roll cake

When Marigold cooks for unexpected guests (the second meal with varied food groups):

• cold boiled chicken on a parsley-fringed platter (is parsley the only vegetable mentioned in the book? and I bet it’s just for decoration, they likely don’t actually eat it)
• ham in thin pink slices
• jam
• hot biscuits
• a feathery cake with whipped cream and orange crescents on it
• tea with milk and cream
• pickles

Dinner at Aunt Marcia’s and Uncle Jarvis:

• the only thing mentioned is Uncle Jarvis stabbing a potato

Picnic at the shore (when the food was made by a bad cook):

• stale sandwiches
• cookies that reeked of soda
• a mushy lemon meringue pie
• a cake whose iced surface was decorated with violent red-and-yellow candies

What a menu!