Puddings and Pies

In The Tale of Mr. Tod, The Tale of the Pie and the Patty-Pan, and The Tale of Samuel Whiskers, or, the Roly-Poly Pudding, Potter uses quintessential British foods—pies and puddings—to motivate the plot, shape the characters, and create a social world. The chapter uses period cookbooks by Mrs. Beeton and Eliza Acton to understand the preeminence of puddings and pies in British cooking. To take into account Potter’s representations of class and setting, the analysis considers British rural and urban cultures, the food-related problems of poverty, and period-applied social work theory. In these tales of failed pies and puddings, Potter represents food as strategic in a fictive world where characters must be alert to the constantly changing ways that food shapes the social landscape. Potter uses food to show the complexities of the real world within her stories, acknowledging the hidden violence of social relations.