Setting the Setting with Food

Setting a scene with food sounds like a minor detail. However, if you consider the following questions you'll see I'm onto something.
Where did the food come from? a character's garden, the supermarket, a mom and pop store, a farmers market, foraged in the forest....... Who procured the food? main character, shopkeeper, farmer, child sent on errand? ....... Who prepared the food? your character, a chef in a five-star restaurant, the family cook, a hobo by the railroad? ...........
Envision the story the following foods tell: 1) macaroni and cheese from a blue box prepared on a single, portable burner 2)hot and sour soup, enamel red Chinese spareribs, fried rice, emperor's lobster 3) fish sticks and oven fries 4) shrimp cocktail, French onion soup, salad of celery hearts with a Roman vinaigrette, broiled rainbow trout with parslied lemon wedges, cherries jubilee 5) hot dog with the works, popcorn, cotton candy, nacho chips with neon cheese and beer
Who consumed these foods and where? 1) a bachelor? a starving writer? in a dorm room, a drafty garret? 2) a Chinese meal at your favorite spot? regular dinner out? date night? first date? solo splurge? take out eaten in your pj's while you watch a tear jerker? 3) budget dinner of millions of Americans? fast supper for a babysitter to fix the kids? supper for newlyweds? 4) the big dinner before you pop the question? New Year's Eve dinner? elaborate dinner of the 30's, 40's or 50's? 5) ball park, circus, concert, street fair?
Some fiction writers of the past spent pages describing feasts or the origins of the food served. If that's the way you want to frame your story just don't overlook the chance that your reader may get lost in the detail. However, if I tell you the family of my main character sits down to a regular Sunday dinner of fish sticks and fries what does your reader infer? 1) family eats together 2) they eat budget foods 3) possibly lower middle class 4) they dine on the same meals routinely
Write it like you eat it.
- bethany moran