{"id":40167,"date":"2022-04-18T06:30:35","date_gmt":"2022-04-17T18:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=40167"},"modified":"2022-04-17T21:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-04-17T09:00:00","slug":"a-book-quote-for-easter-monday-from-chocolat-by-joanne-harris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2022\/04\/18\/a-book-quote-for-easter-monday-from-chocolat-by-joanne-harris\/","title":{"rendered":"A Book Quote for Easter Monday: from \u201cChocolat\u201d by Joanne Harris"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the many fascinatinging aspects of Joanne Harris\u2019s<\/strong><\/a> magic realism novel, Chocolat<\/em><\/strong>, is that although it\u2019s often perceived as being a foodie tale with a strong dash of \u201cpagan\u201d mythologies drawn from a wide range of cultures such as Aztec, Inca, and Roma, the narrative arc is grounded in the Western Christian calendar.<\/p>\n

\"Chocolat_Joanne<\/p>\n

The story begins on Shrove Tuesday, or Mardi Gras, and continues through the six weeks of Lent, to reach its denouement at Easter.<\/p>\n

The arc is illustrated and expressed through food throughout, from the greasy foods of the Mardi Gras celebration:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe came on the wind of carnival. A warm wind for February, laden with the hot greasy scents of frying pancakes and sausages and powdery sweet waffles cooked on the hotplate\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

concluding with the chocolates and eggs that have become synonymous with Easter:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026an amazement of riches, <\/em>glac\u00e8 fruits and marzipan flowers and mountains of loose chocolates of all shapes and colours, and rabbits, ducks, hens, chicks, lambs, gazing out\u2026with chocolate eyes\u2026and above it all a statue of a woman, graceful brown arms holding a sheaf of chocolate wheat, hair rippling\u2026The wheatsheaf woman smiles very slightly, as if contemplating mysteries.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Getting in the Chocolat spirit…<\/p><\/div>\n

The wheatsheaf woman (if you\u2019re wondering) is Eostre, the Germanic goddess of dawn, who presided over the spring equinox celebrations and gave her name to the Christian festival of Easter, which superseded her worship.<\/p>\n

The name Lent also refers to spring, being derived from the Old English term, l\u00e6ncte, which referred to the season\u2019s lengthening days.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Chocolate spice biscuits continue the theme.<\/p><\/div>\n

Of course, it\u2019s all the opposite here in the Southern Hemisphere, where Easter is an autumn rather than spring festival. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

\"\"

A galette, but a little more autumnal than Chocolat’s Mardi Gras.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the many fascinatinging aspects of Joanne Harris\u2019s magic realism novel, Chocolat, is that although it\u2019s often perceived as being a foodie tale with a strong dash of \u201cpagan\u201d mythologies drawn from a wide range of cultures such as Aztec, Inca, and Roma, the narrative arc is grounded in the Western Christian calendar. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,10,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funstuff","category-general","category-other-writers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40167"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40171,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40167\/revisions\/40171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}