Hunger and plenty: Hans Christian Andersen and the poetry of food

Abstract

Hans Christian Andersen often writes about food, gastronomy and the enjoyment of good meals. As is well-known, Andersen grew up under straitened circumstances, and even if he was hardly exposed to severe hunger, he experienced as a child how good food was one of the privileges of the upper class, while the poor had to make do with less and at times go hungry. These experiences with food play a role in Andersen’s works, also in his depictions of and fantasies about food. In the article, I show how a fairytale such as ‘The Little Matchstick Girl’ contains descriptions of severe hunger and food that give rise to grotesque fantasies. The article also contains an analysis of a couple of Andersen’s birthday letters to the boy Sally Melchior which contain a lovely fantasy about the country with ditches that flow with mixed berry pudding and cream. Finally, the perspectives of food and mealtimes is examined in the letter to his close friend Eduard Collin. These examples show how Andersen uses and stages food, mealtimes and the sensations of pleasure in his art and his writing. The article thereby seeks to gain a clearer view of Andersen’s use of gastronomy and depictions of food as imagination-enhancing elements in what is narrated. The examples from poems, fairytales and letters show both how food, gastronomy, wine and the enjoyment of life are included among the imagination-enhancing elements in Andersen’s art, and that the experiences and memories Andersen has from the straitened circumstances of his early life are further developed in the work of the adult artist.