Cersei Lannister and Cooking/Food
Still, working through my head-canons. As I said, pocochina prompted me with exactly what I want to talk about. This entry focuses on Cersei Lannister and food/cooking headcanon. I could be off-case- since I've only read a bit of the books. This entry focuses on what I see on the TV show up to Episode 5X02.
It's also something of me wildly projecting in my unhappiness and fury and "I know this is unhealthy bullshit but I'm supposed to be Size 4" when I tried the Atkins diet to lose weight.
Many times, Cersei would muse on the finely developed strategies that only come to an attractive older woman who retained her slim figure to appear fetching in all manner or gowns and corset. An attractive older woman who had three children and yet, must participate in all of the palace social obligations as the Queen and then Queen Mother. In other words, Cersei would muse on *her* finely developed strategies...
Cersei would look at the ranked lords and kings such as Robert and Ned, observing their entitlement to devolve into a portly, and even corpulent stature as they became king, and laugh at how a lack of willpower becomes a substitute for gravitas when found in a highly ranked man.
For Cersei's part, she was well-aware that her comestible weakness was wine. However, wine tempers brash instincts, it raises confidence even in the midst of danger, a long-stemmed wine glass looks especially elegant in her hand. Cersei could not give up wine. However, Cersei learned from her earlier days of her marriage with Robert that consistent ingestion of wine requires consistent ingestion of food. Without food, wine loses its power. Liquid courage becomes liquid nausea; the wine that provides enervation and energy becomes a sleep potion.
After Joffrey's birth, Cersei learned that she could retain her trim figure while keeping her stomach filled to better enjoy her wine if she dispensed with fruit, grains, and all rice. Cersei found that lean cuts of meat and egg whites kept her full, but did not result in weight gain. Cersei never cared for vegetables. Woe be the governess or nurse who held any hardline in forcing Cersei to eat her vegetables as a young girl, that is, if they were still on her plate instead of sneakily thrown out or handed to Jaime under the table for him to eat for her.
It was difficult for Cersei to cut fruit and grains out of her diet, especially when every insipid tea party for the ladies at court included a platter of pastries and cakes. Cersei could feel herself becoming impatient as she longed for a fruit or pastry or any sort of color to break up the yellows and browns of her diet, something sweet and refreshing instead of the endless morass of savory and greasy. However, Cersei had her obligations and her methods of getting through her obligations so she focused on the power she felt gnawing on rare meats all day when the average Kings Landing townsperson could only afford the cheapest cuts of meat once a week and when, her ladies at court barely touched meat in an effort to appear delicate.
Maester Pycelle once impertinently pointed to Cersei that perhaps Her Majesty might consider a more balanced plate weeks before the Battle of Blackwater. At that point, Cersei pointed out to Maester Pycelle that impudently correcting her diet instead of focusing on a way to defeat Stannis Baratheon's encroaching ships was a sure-fire way to ensure Cersei stuffs Maester Pycelle with so much meat and eggs at once that he suffocates from over-eating. Maester Pycelle did not quite see what was wrong with Cersei's choice in food, but it made him uncomfortable to see the Queen eating a plateful of brown and yellow meats and eggs consistently without colorful, dainty, and lady-like pastry or piece of fruit to break up the pattern.
A modern doctor or perhaps even a maester with more sense than chin hairs might tell Cersei that she was endangering her heart and liver and cutting her life expectancy shorter with her current diet and suggest that she drink less and enjoy a well-balanced diet, regardless of what it does to her corset size. Such modern doctor or maester may speculate Cersei would feel better if she ate what she wanted instead of regulating her moods with alcohol and speculate that this is no long-term way to stay at the healthy weight. However, at that point, Cersei would likely smile and smirk....and sadly say that Lannisters are lions and lions do not die from such pedestrian causes as heart or liver disease. And unlike some silly girls, Cersei does not need pomegranate juice or lemon cakes to cheer her up in delusions of where she stands in this world. A person who must fit into the same corset she did at 17 before she had a child and a person who requires the aid of alcohol, especially as it became the only friend she could count on.
It's also something of me wildly projecting in my unhappiness and fury and "I know this is unhealthy bullshit but I'm supposed to be Size 4" when I tried the Atkins diet to lose weight.
Many times, Cersei would muse on the finely developed strategies that only come to an attractive older woman who retained her slim figure to appear fetching in all manner or gowns and corset. An attractive older woman who had three children and yet, must participate in all of the palace social obligations as the Queen and then Queen Mother. In other words, Cersei would muse on *her* finely developed strategies...
Cersei would look at the ranked lords and kings such as Robert and Ned, observing their entitlement to devolve into a portly, and even corpulent stature as they became king, and laugh at how a lack of willpower becomes a substitute for gravitas when found in a highly ranked man.
For Cersei's part, she was well-aware that her comestible weakness was wine. However, wine tempers brash instincts, it raises confidence even in the midst of danger, a long-stemmed wine glass looks especially elegant in her hand. Cersei could not give up wine. However, Cersei learned from her earlier days of her marriage with Robert that consistent ingestion of wine requires consistent ingestion of food. Without food, wine loses its power. Liquid courage becomes liquid nausea; the wine that provides enervation and energy becomes a sleep potion.
After Joffrey's birth, Cersei learned that she could retain her trim figure while keeping her stomach filled to better enjoy her wine if she dispensed with fruit, grains, and all rice. Cersei found that lean cuts of meat and egg whites kept her full, but did not result in weight gain. Cersei never cared for vegetables. Woe be the governess or nurse who held any hardline in forcing Cersei to eat her vegetables as a young girl, that is, if they were still on her plate instead of sneakily thrown out or handed to Jaime under the table for him to eat for her.
It was difficult for Cersei to cut fruit and grains out of her diet, especially when every insipid tea party for the ladies at court included a platter of pastries and cakes. Cersei could feel herself becoming impatient as she longed for a fruit or pastry or any sort of color to break up the yellows and browns of her diet, something sweet and refreshing instead of the endless morass of savory and greasy. However, Cersei had her obligations and her methods of getting through her obligations so she focused on the power she felt gnawing on rare meats all day when the average Kings Landing townsperson could only afford the cheapest cuts of meat once a week and when, her ladies at court barely touched meat in an effort to appear delicate.
Maester Pycelle once impertinently pointed to Cersei that perhaps Her Majesty might consider a more balanced plate weeks before the Battle of Blackwater. At that point, Cersei pointed out to Maester Pycelle that impudently correcting her diet instead of focusing on a way to defeat Stannis Baratheon's encroaching ships was a sure-fire way to ensure Cersei stuffs Maester Pycelle with so much meat and eggs at once that he suffocates from over-eating. Maester Pycelle did not quite see what was wrong with Cersei's choice in food, but it made him uncomfortable to see the Queen eating a plateful of brown and yellow meats and eggs consistently without colorful, dainty, and lady-like pastry or piece of fruit to break up the pattern.
A modern doctor or perhaps even a maester with more sense than chin hairs might tell Cersei that she was endangering her heart and liver and cutting her life expectancy shorter with her current diet and suggest that she drink less and enjoy a well-balanced diet, regardless of what it does to her corset size. Such modern doctor or maester may speculate Cersei would feel better if she ate what she wanted instead of regulating her moods with alcohol and speculate that this is no long-term way to stay at the healthy weight. However, at that point, Cersei would likely smile and smirk....and sadly say that Lannisters are lions and lions do not die from such pedestrian causes as heart or liver disease. And unlike some silly girls, Cersei does not need pomegranate juice or lemon cakes to cheer her up in delusions of where she stands in this world. A person who must fit into the same corset she did at 17 before she had a child and a person who requires the aid of alcohol, especially as it became the only friend she could count on.