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The Box Car children! I read the entire series when I was a kid and only recently admitted to myself that didn't care about the storyline. It was all about getting through the dry plot to the gratuitous food passages (this made them even better). There were some pretty good ones. Like the time they scavenged for food and made hobo stew while they were homeless kids in the boxcar (oh yes I still remember) or that time they saved this pizza parlor that made a secret, homemade pizza sauce from being sabotaged.

Sweet Valley had some decent food passages as well--well, not as much. There was a book about how Jessica the ditzy one made delicious purple cookies on accident and had to recreate the recipe for a TV show. I think I was born obsessed with food.

Funny you should mention Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder. All of her books in the Little House series sparked in my an intense love of all things foodie...from the descriptions of her Ma's amazing breakfasts, to how they made hoe cakes and maple sugar candy in the snow. I would always have cravings for big bowls of hearty stews with cornbread made in a skillet after reading those books.

I agree with juliebugsamama, all the Little House books are laden with food. Another series from my childhood is the Anne of Green Gables series. Anne is always cooking something! Both Little House and Anne have their own cook books to go with the series that came out in the 80s or 90s (I have both), and I figure any series that has it's own cookbook must have a lot of food in it!!

To be honest, even the Harry Potter series has it's fair share of food in it from all the feats they have at school and the food Molly Weasley cooks up for the family!

Harry Potter. Everything I know about British food, I learned from Harry Potter. I still want to get my hands on some butterbeer, which to my 12-year-old self seemed only slightly less exotic than treacle.

And Roald Dahl. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's pretty obvious, but who doesn't remember the fart-soda from the BFG?

Almost any Hemingway novel has lots of food and drink.

Heidi! There are some great passages about food in Heidi. The toasted bread and cheese. The goat's milk... and the scenes when Heidi hoards food when she stays in the city for awhile.

Totally agree with everyone on the Laura Ingalls Wilder books... I've always wanted to try roasted pig's tail after I read the description in the first book, Little House in the Big Woods. Blowing up the pig's bladder always sounded really fun too!

agree with jwalz. Redwall was the first thing that came to my mind. I'll be damned if 12-year-old me knew what elderflower burdock or a loganberry scone with fresh meadowcream was, all i knew was that i wanted it SO BAD.

The Cat Who...series. There is even a cookbook, which I have. The food sounds so good and eating is part of what we all do every day. Plus you get the ambiance of the place where the food is served. For a detective novel with cats, you need interesting food. Yes, I agree on the Harrry Potter series as well. I learned all about treacle that way.

Don't remember much of my childhood reads, though I did read all the Little House books. Same with Anne of Green Gabels. Will have to go back and revisit them after 50 years!

I'm with @Grace Kang up there. ANY of the Little House on the Prarie books makes you want to get out a cast iron pan and do something with pig pieces.

Highly recommend: Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe series. Excellent noir fiction.

Pretty much anything by L.M. Montgomery or Laura Ingalls Wilder will have a ton of food in it, those sparked a lot of my foodie dreams growing up. Mercedes Lackey books have a lot of food in them, too, especially The Fire Rose, although all of them have food. The Pern books do, too, especially the Harper Hall trilogy, and Louise Fitzhugh has some food. For adults, I suggest Maeve Binchy books, one of hers (Scarlet Feather) is about caterers and another one (Quentins) revolves around a restaurant. Also, if you can find them, the Crossroads trilogy by Nick O'Donohoe has enough about food, plus a fascinating plot to make it a lot of fun. And the books by Barry Hughart of The China That Never Was, (Bridge of Birds, The Story of the Stone, and The Eight Skilled Gentlemen) have a lot of food plus these books are absolute gems to read.

Robert Parker's Spencer books. Not about food but it is clear that Spencer enjoys good food and can cook good food. His descriptions often make my hungry. It doesn't hurt that I love his books.

Don't forget Wind in the Willows! I've always wanted to have a picnic like the ones described there:

"‘There’s cold chicken inside it,’ replied the Rat briefly;
coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrenchrolls
cresssandwidgespottedmeatgingerbeerlemonadesodawater––’"

Ooh, or the one later on:
"There he got out the luncheon-basket and packed a simple meal, in which, remembering the stranger's origin and preferences, he took care to include a yard of long French bread, a sausage out of which the garlic sang, some cheese which lay down and cried, and a long-necked straw-covered flask wherein lay bottled sunshine shed and garnered on far Southern slopes."

Spenser may not be "imaginative" but I like the way Parker has him whipping things up from what's available w/out making a fuss about it. For Spenser, cooking isn't a production or a chore - it's something he does easily and with some enjoyment. Nice to have a "macho" male character who enjoys cooking.

Definitely the Chronicles of Narnia - especially The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian. The Turkish Delight, the fried fish at the Beavers', and the giant feast at the end of Caspian, with roasted sides of beef and boar...The descriptions of wine in that book engendered extreme disappointment when my parents let me taste the real thing. Luckily, I discovered sangria.

I actually have to space out my food lit to make sure I read things that aren't about food!

Haruki Murakami always does an excellent job of describing what his characters are eating, and The Pickwick Papers, by Dickens, always makes me hungry. And I umpteenth the Anne of Green Gables series. I always think of plum puffs when I'm feeling disconsolate. I don't even know what plum puffs are.

Umpteenth vote for the Laura Ingalls Wilder books and the Anne of Green Gables series. I could probably attribute both of those series as the precursors to my current love for food.

I wanted to mention Boy by Roald Dahl - his little blurb about the Norweigan holidays, with the freshly poached fish and the burnt toffee ice cream, always makes me drool. Still.

the epicure's lament by kate christensen. a hilarious novel narrated by an exceedingly self absorbed, manipulative man who happens to be a superb cook.