I do wonder though if I would have seen the presented dystopic elements all that clearly in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs if I had read this story as a child (probably not). Now I have always enjoyed stories about food getting out of control, and the idea of an El Dorado like food utopia ending up as a dystopia really resonates with me, both tickling my funny bone and also of course making me think a bit. There is thus a strong attitude featured in folklore that free and magical food (and that one does not have to do much in order to receive or eat it) is not only often too good to be true, but that it can easily have adverse effects if one is unable or in some cases, unwilling to control and master it. And in my humble opinion, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs actually seems to combine two European folklore traditions, the legend of the Land of Cockaigne, the so-called Schlaraffenland, a utopian land of milk and honey, where residents do not have to work and where food is not only readily available, but where fish, already cooked, swim in the rivers, and the houses are made of gingerbread and candies, and indeed the many folklore stories presenting uncontrollable cooking and food (often with magic pots that continue cooking porridge etc. Something had to be done, and in a hurry.While Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is of course first and foremost simply a fun romp, both Judi Barret’s narrative and Ron Barrett’s accompanying artwork also manage to convey rather vividly how food can become a rather massive problem when it is uncontrollable or uncontrolled. The town was a mess and the people feared for their lives. Chewandswallow was plagued by damaging floods and storms of huge food.
The food got larger and larger and so did the portions. Life for the townspeople was delicious until the weather took a turn for the worse. And sometimes the wind blew in storms of hamburgers. The tiny town of Chewandswallow was very much like any other tiny town-except for its weather which came three times a day, at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.īut it never rained rain and it never snowed snow and it never blew just wind.
Is a favorite of grown-ups and children everywhere.
An imaginative story of amazing food weather that inspired the hit movie,
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