“Wooster”, those who know me have sometimes said, “may be a pretty total loss during the daytime hours, but plunge the world in darkness, switch on the soft lights, uncork the champagne and shove a dinner into him, and you'd be surprised.”The hilarious fictional world of P. G. “Plum” Wodehouse is a gourmand's paradise. From Bertie Wooster demolishingSylphides à la Crème d'Écrevisses, to Lord Emsworth tucking into a well-jammed roly-poly pudding, to a schoolboy toasting a muffin at the study fire, “browsing and sluicing” is not simply eating and drinking but a daily celebration of being alive. How many other writers actually make their readers feel hungry? Plum can … and does, while alerting them to the perils of over-consumption, dieting and food fads.
So grab yourself a half bot of something half decent and settle back with this, the first of Paul Kent's occasional amuse-bouches on Wodehousean themes. Bon appétit!
