Photo by MPerel

When you visit Oxford you are surrounded by history of all types. Some of the colleges were founded in the 13th Century, and their famous alumni are too numerous to count, stretching across all imaginable professions including historians, chemists, writers, explorers, politicians and more. One quite pleasurable way to make a connection with some of these denizens of the past is to visit their old stomping grounds for a pint or two.

There are quite a number of very old pubs in Oxford, some dating from the 15th Century. With the resurgence of Real Ale, the selection of drink at most pubs has greatly improved over the last 20 years or so. Look for the hand pumped taps to try some local specialties.

When I come to Oxford for the Symposium on Food and Cookery, I always try to visit a couple of pubs I haven’t been to before. This year I tried out the Eagle and Child which is in a building built in the 16th Century and became a pub in approximately 1650.

Notably, the Eagle and Child is associated with several writers who studied and/or taught at Oxford, including J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis. They were part of a group called the Inklings which met from about 1933-1963 at Lewis’s rooms at Magdalen College to read aloud unfinished works. The group also had a standing lunch date on Tuesday afternoons at the Eagle and Child (or the Bird and Baby as they liked to call it). They would sit in the then back room (the pub has since been extended in the rear), known as the Rabbit Room.

The name of the pub is supposedly derived from the eagle and child on the coat of arms of the Earl of Derby. However, the Earl’s lands are in Lancashire and there is also a pub called the Eagle and Child there which used to lie on the Earl’s estate, so who knows?

Legend has it that one of the Earls of Derby back in the 14th Century had not succeeded in fathering a male heir (he and his wife had one daughter). Trying to ensure the continuation of his line, he had a dalliance with a noblewoman whom he kept in style nearby. This liaison resulted in the birth of a bastard son. The Earl then arranged to have his son “found” in an eagle’s nest dressed in clothing appropriate to a noble child. The story of a child found in an eagle’s nest is common to several mythologies of ancient Europe including Norway and France, so perhaps this is where the Earl got the idea. In any case, his wife agreed to adopt the child and raise it as their son and heir.

While sipping my pint, I got to wondering if Mr. Tolkien created the giant eagle that rescues Galdalf from Sarumon’s tower in The Lord of The Rings on a Tuesday afternoon while drinking at the Eagle and Child.

Jupiter and Mercurius in the house of Philemon and Baucis by Rubens

In the US, April is National Poetry Month. From Ovid’s Baucis and Philemon who share a meager meal with wayfaring strangers who turn out to be the gods Jupiter and Mercury in disguise, to the perfect little morsel that is William Carlos Williams’s “This is Just To Say,” food has always been a compelling subject for poets. Here is one of my favorites:

Perhaps The World Ends Here

by Joy Harjo

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of the earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

Read the rest of the poem at The National Poetry Foundation

Do you have a favorite food poem? Please share it in the comments.

The sixth, and final, part of the first “Novel Dishes” series is up over at Fiction Writers Review.

If you haven’t seen it before, “Novel Dishes” is an occasional series in which I explore fiction where food is an important theme that supports the plot and drives it forward. Each piece includes at least one recipe based on food described in a novel. In this set of articles I’ve been cooking my way through Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife. If you’d like to see all the columns in the series you can find them here.

Just a quick note to let you know about some other food-related writing I’m doing. The editor of the online literary magazine Fiction Writers Review has asked me to do an occasional series about food and fiction called “Novel Dishes.”

For each series we’ll choose a novel where food is an important theme, supporting the plot and driving it forward. Each piece will include at least one recipe based on food described in the story. The first book I’m cooking from is Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife. We begin with a cocktail, so come on over and join us for a drink.