tell me what you eat, and i will tell you what you are

[ivy_chan]

I'm idly thinking about food in fiction and how it's used to flesh out characters. (No pun intended.) How authors deliberately pick food choices to reflect a character personality or to give insights to a culture in general. I think this is partially because Hunger Games, (which I have completed and love,) is just full of food observations. It reminds me of Harry Potter that way, honestly. I like the use of food as a motif, mainly because I myself am a shameless foodie, and also because food is so wonderfully flexible.

You can use it to display seasons, mood, culture, class, personality, wealth, and probably a whole slew of other things I haven't thought of. As a reader, I think descriptions of food enrich the world I'm reading about and give me insights into characters as well. This may be silly, since tastebuds most likely have nothing to do with personality, but I like seeing quirky characters eat ketchup and tic-tac sandwiches, and upright, solemn characters like Spock eat things like plomeek broth and very simple veggie trays. I like to think about what foods different characters might like to eat, what their favorite food is, what they like to snack on, etc. It's a fun creative exercise, so I'm going to turn it into a meme:

Give me any character/s from any of my fandoms, and I will talk to you about their eating habits.