Midnight Feasts with Danny

Copyright: https://www.penguin.co.uk/puffin/books/277120/danny-the-champion-of-the-world-colour-edition/

Danny's Midnight Feasts

In Danny The Champion of the World, (1975) Danny adheres to Dahl's tradition of his leading child characters being from dysfunctional families: he lives in a caravan with his father after his mother had passed away when he was just four months of age. Despite these unfortunate events, the close proximity within their small home as well as his mother passing away and leaving just Danny and his father, means that the pair are extremely close and share a unique bond.


During the two key turning points in the plot: Danny's father explaining to him the process of poaching, and the night before the big poaching prank, Danny and his father bond over a 'midnight feast.'(p32&124) These two special moments in the text give a homely feel to the children's novel, releasing a sense of warmth and security in the closeness of the father and son in their bonding over basic snacks and hot beverages at night.


The first midnight feast happens when Danny's father reveals to him the truth about his love of poaching and how he inheritied it from his own father. Before revealing all to Danny about the perfect poaching technique he asks him, 'if you're hungry we could have a midnight feast?'(32)

Copyright: Page 33 of Danny the Champion of the World, see works cited below

Despite the 'feast' only consisting of 'cocoa'(32) and cheese sandwiches, the fact that the young boy and his father relish in their bonding time over these simple snacks is warming for the reader and gives a feeling of home and childhood nostalgia. The homely enjoyment of the food here is clearly familiar to Dahl, who writes in Roald Dahl's Cookbook about the after school snacks that his father knocked up for himself and his sister during his childhood. He describes the 'simple concoctions'(178) that his father would whip up during these 'tea time feasts,' such as 'brown toast with honey' or 'toast smeared with marmalade.' It is likely that Dahl's infatuation with food, particularly his love of 'feasts' influenced those of Danny which brought together him and his father, as this was the case for his own family. There is a feeling of nostalgia in the childish appreciation of simple foods which all readers can relate to in some way or another.

Copyright: Page 124 of Danny the Champion of the World, see works cited below

Danny's second midnight feast comes the night before the big poaching prank in the novel. The way in which the midnight feasts come in the lead up to the two turning points in the novel parodies the typical idea of one needing a big, nutritious breakfast before an important day. Dahl pokes fun by likening these midnight feasts to those ever important breakfasts that are pressed upon the children of pushy parents on the morning of an event; he alludes to feasts as a rite or passage essential to the growing up of a child and bonding with their family. Danny's 'delicious [tuna] sandwich'(124) and 'hot chocolate,' again tugs on the heart strings of readers who can all recall a time in their childhood where a simple sandwich and hot chocolate were almost gourmet and something of incredible indulgence to them. 

Dahls' consistent reverting back to hot chocolate would warm anyone.

Copyright: https://www.thenibble.com/blog/2013/01/09/tip-of-the-day-old-school-mexican-hot-chocolate/

Am I right?

Dahl, Roald. Danny the Champion of the World. Puffin, 2016. 

Dahl, Roald, and Felicity Dahl. Roald Dahl's Cookbook. Penguin Group, 1996.