[Food in Books] Syren (Septimus Heap #5) - Angie Sage

Originally first compiled and posted at the Septimus Heap Wiki.

• Prologue

• Café's menu

They are looking at scrawls on a chalkboard offering three varieties of fish, something called Pot Luck Stew and a steak from an animal that no one has ever heard of.

• What the gang ate

They watch Nicko demolish numerous plates of odd-shaped fish garnished with a variety of seaweed and a thick red steak with white bristles on its rind, which he feeds to Ullr after one mouthful. Nicko is at last eating his final dish—a long white fish with a lot of tiny bones and a reproachful stare. Jenna, Beetle and Snorri have just finished a communal bowl of harbor dessert—baked apples sprinkled with sweet crumble and covered with chocolate sauce.

(all from a seedy café on Harbor Number One)

• Ch. 3

• Aunt Zelda's recipe

Aunt Zelda retrieved the silver tube, then sat down at her desk and revived herself with a cup of hot cabbage water into which she stirred a large spoon of Marshberry jam.

• Cabbage sandwich

• Ch. 6

• Banana Bear
• FizzBom specials
(both from Ma Custard's All-Day All-Night Sweet Shop)

• Ch. 7

• 3 pies have cabbage as one of their ingredients
• Sausage-and-tomato pie
• Bacon-and-egg pie
• Wolf Boy's pie

He munched his way through a cheese-and-bean pie, a beef-and-onion pie and a particularly delicious vegetable-and-gravy pie.

(all from Harbor and Dock Pie Shop)

• Ch. 12
• Maureen's hot chocolate

Maureen did not reply. Instead she got up and walked over to a small stove, where she had set a pan of milk to heat. She busied herself there for some minutes, concentrating on dissolving three squares of chocolate into the hot milk.

• Ch. 13
• In Marcia's saddlebags

Septimus heaved off Marcia's saddlebags, extracted four roast chickens and a bag of apples and placed them beside the dragon's nose in case he woke for a midnight snack.

• Ch. 15
• A bag of sausages

• Ch. 16
• Cabbage soup

• Ch. 18
• On Milo's ship

Wishing more than anything in the world that he could disappear right now, Beetle’s ears glowed brilliant red as he watched a deckhand emerge from the hatch, proudly bearing the dessert aloft. It was an exceptionally odd creation—a large plate of something black and wobbly, possibly a jellyfish, but equally possibly a fungus plucked from the depths of the hold. Reverentially the deckhand placed the dish in the center of the table. Everyone stared in astonishment. With a shock they all realized that it looked like—maybe even was—a giant beetle boiled, peeled and laid on a bed of seaweed.

• Ch. 21
• Marcia's perfect Young Army Officer Cadet Hostile Territory Survival Pack

To Septimus’s amazement, Marcia had put together the perfect Young Army Officer Cadet Hostile Territory Survival Pack, with some rather nice added extras in the form of a self-renewing FizzBom special, a Ma Custard bumper variety pack of sweets and a fancy WaterGnome.

• What the gang ate

Using an assortment of packets labeled WizDri, Septimus put together what he called a "Young Army stew, only much better." They sat and watched the stew bubble in the pot on the stove until the aroma made it impossible to just watch it anymore. They ate it with Marcia's StayFresh bread and washed it down with hot chocolate—made by Jenna with the help of her ChocolateCharm, which she had used on some seashells. As they sat around the flickering FlickFyre stove, silently drinking the hot chocolate, each one of them felt surprisingly content.

• Ch. 23


• What the gang ate

They cooked the fish in the approved Sam Heap style, by threading them onto wet sticks and holding them over the glowing embers. Marcia’s StayFresh bread and dried fruit provided the rest of supper, and the WaterGnome fueled so many FizzFroots that they lost count.

• Rhubarb Lump
(presumably from Ma Custard's)

• Ch. 24

• Oatmeal
• Coffee
(both Marcia's breakfast)

• Ch. 26
• Chocolate cake

• Ch. 33
• Miarr's "chocolate raisins"

Miarr offered them a ration box containing—to Lucy’s delight—a bag of chocolate raisins among the packets of dried fish and bottles of stale water. The chocolate raisins tasted somewhat fishy, but Lucy didn’t care—chocolate was chocolate. She changed her mind, however, when she realized that the raisins were tiny fish heads.

• Ch. 37
• Syrah's first day on the island

I have made a camp in a sheltered hollow overlooking the lighthouse. I like to see the light at night. Today I found all that I need: sweet water from a spring, a prickly yet delicious fruit that I picked from a grove of trees and two fish that I caught with my bare hands (you see, my time spent fishing in the Moat was not wasted!)