By Erin Sherry
Spring 2018 Intern
When I think back to the most vivid food
descriptions of my reading career, it doesn’t take long for Suzanne Collins’s Hunger
Games trilogy to come to mind. As the title suggests, food plays a major role
in the plot and is symbolic throughout the book. In the next installment of my
literary recipes series, I cook up some Capitol-inspired cuisine!
In one particularly mouth-watering scene,
Katniss describes her first meal in the Capitol with such detail that readers
can practically taste it themselves: “Chicken and chunks of
oranges cooked in a creamy sauce laid on a bed of pearly white grain, tiny
green peas and onions, rolls shaped like flowers, and for dessert, a pudding the
color of honey.”
To make this decadent dish for yourself, start by
tossing chicken in flour, salt and pepper, then sautéing it in plenty of
butter. Next, add one cup of heavy cream and two tablespoons of unsweetened,
frozen orange juice concentrate. Allow it to simmer. Once your sauce has
thickened, season with additional salt, pepper and chives; stir in chunks of a
single orange; and serve over fluffy white rice along with steamed peas and
pearl onions. It’s savory with just a hint of sweetness, and so creamy it might
just become your new favorite comfort food.
Happy cooking, and may the odds be ever in your flavor!
