By Jane Ward
What Tastes Best in the End?
In Natalie Babbitt’s 1969 young adult novel, The Search for Delicious, the Prime Minister of the land wishes to complete a large-scale project, the writing of a dictionary, but gets stuck on defining the word “delicious.”
The King declares delicious to be apples; the Queen, Christmas pudding. An army general nominates beer.
With no easy consensus in sight, the King sends the Prime Minister’s twelve-year-old special assistant, Gaylen, out into the country to poll the citizens. The King decides that the food or drink garnering the most votes will become the dictionary definition of delicious.
Gaylen quickly learns that the task is almost impossible: No one in the country agrees, and, worse, friends and neighbors ridicule each other’s choices while championing their own. Before long, civil war threatens to break out. Such unrest leaves the King vulnerable to an uprising, and, sure enough, an evil opponent attempts a takeover, damming up the country’s freshwater spring to further alienate the people from their leader.
After several plot twists and turns, Gaylen is able to save the day together with Ardis the Mermaid, guardian of the spring. When at last the water begins to flow again, everyone drinks thirstily, proclaiming the cool spring water “delicious…yes, yes, delicious.”
The Prime Minister finally has his definition.
Natalie Babbitt’s story has been on my mind all week as I sat by my mother’s bed in the nursing home. My sister Joan called the Sunday before to tell me that my mother had begun a serious decline. We expect she will not live much longer. She ate her last solid food on Monday, when Joan spoon-fed her a small hot fudge sundae from Friendly’s. Sundaes could always tempt my mother’s appetite, even when she claimed to have little or no interest in food, and the coffee ice cream worked its magic one last time.
“Good,” she said after the final spoonful.
Since Tuesday, she has been able to take only water by mouth.
The days of the last week have been good ones. Sad, but good. When not resting or sleeping, my mother has been able to speak a little, responding to her children and grandchildren as we visit, to all the hospice workers and the many nursing home staff members, too, who have come to care so deeply for her. She has left nothing unsaid to anyone—I’m comfortable; I’m happy; I love you—and keeps her patience even as we ask her to repeat her whispers so that we may understand.
The patience wavered a bit on Saturday when she rejected the drink she asked for because the water in the cup was tepid. “I’ll leave this place when I have a drink of really cold water,” she said, more loudly and very clearly.
Since then, Joan has kept ice cubes in the water. After one last drink late yesterday afternoon, Joan asked how the water tasted. “How was that, Mum? Good?”
My mother answered, “Delicious.”
Publishing Information
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The Search for Delicious by Natalie Babbitt (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1969; reprinted in paperback by Square Fish, 2007).
Art Information
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“Apples” and “Ice Water” © Jane Ward; used by permission
Food columnist and fiction writer Jane Ward is the author of Hunger (2001) and The Mosaic Artist (2011). She hosts her own blog, Food and Fiction, and is a contributing writer for Local In Season. She lives on Boston’s North Shore with her husband, two children, and dog Spy.
This piece first appeared, in a slightly different form, as “The Search for Delicious” on Jane’s blog.
