When and what does Jon Snow eat?

[Seams]

Please help to compile a list of Jon Snow's encounters with food. My sense is that he gives away more food than he ingests, but I may be allowing a couple of notable scenes to crowd out other situations that I can't summon to memory. This forum has the power to crowd source the answers to this important question. Of course, we need to figure out why Jon Snow eats or rejects food, too. 

Come to think of it, he often discusses food with Dolorous Edd and he serves food to Jeor Mormont. Those are also significant encounters with nourishment. 

Here are a couple of examples to get us started. First, some examples of Jon Snow giving away food:

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Something rubbed against his leg beneath the table. Jon saw red eyes staring up at him. "Hungry again?" he asked. There was still half a honeyed chicken in the center of the table. Jon reached out to tear off a leg, then had a better idea. He knifed the bird whole and let the carcass slide to the floor between his legs. Ghost ripped into it in savage silence. 

AGoT, Jon I

Much later:

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"Sleep well, my lord." Jon gathered up the empty cups and stepped outside. He heard distant laughter, the plaintive sound of pipes. A great blaze was crackling in the center of the camp, and he could smell stew cooking. The Old Bear might not be hungry, but Jon was. He drifted over toward the fire.

Dywen was holding forth, spoon in hand. "I know this wood as well as any man alive, and I tell you, I wouldn't care to ride through it alone tonight. Can't you smell it?"

Grenn was staring at him with wide eyes, but Dolorous Edd said, "All I smell is the shit of two hundred horses. And this stew. Which has a similar aroma, now that I come to sniff it."

"I've got your similar aroma right here." Hake patted his dirk. Grumbling, he filled Jon's bowl from the kettle.

...

"Your head's as wooden as your teeth," Hake told him. "There's no smell to cold."

There is, thought Jon, remembering the night in the Lord Commander's chambers. It smells like death. Suddenly he was not hungry anymore. He gave his stew to Grenn, who looked in need of an extra supper to warm him against the night.

ACoK, Jon IV

Keep in mind, Jon is a steward and he is giving stew (that smells like death) to Grenn (a symbolic green character). I think this is the sacrifice of the Summer King, part of the symbolism of the harvest cycle. This immediately precedes Jon Snow discovering the dragonglass / obsidian cache.

Hake patting his dirk is significant because a Night's Watch brother named Dirk will kill Craster and Asha Greyjoy's "suckling babe" is a dirk. I've written in a recent thread that I suspect the dirk and the axe are son and father symbols and allude to the ancient rivalry of son and father such as we see in the Star Wars saga. 

And here we see Jon eat something, probably symbolic of his "oath" as Qhorin Halfhand is the purveyor of oats but also the person who holds Jon Snow to his oath.

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They were scaling a low ridge between two snowcapped peaks when a shadowcat came snarling from its lair, not ten yards away. The beast was gaunt and half-starved, but the sight of it sent Stonesnake's mare into a panic; she reared and ran, and before the ranger could get her back under control she had stumbled on the steep slope and broken a leg.

Ghost ate well that day, and Qhorin insisted that the rangers mix some of the garron's blood with their oats, to give them strength. The taste of that foul porridge almost choked Jon, but he forced it down. They each cut a dozen strips of raw stringy meat from the carcass to chew on as they rode, and left the rest for the shadowcats.

ACoK, Jon VIII

There are some linked symbols here - Jon breaks the leg on the chicken carcass but then gives the whole chicken body to his direwolf. The garron breaks its leg but then the entire horse is eaten by the direwolf, rangers and shadowcats.

Jon eating horse blood has to be related to Dany eating the stallion's heart and Bran "eating" dead horses when he is warging his direwolf. 

There is also a significant moment when Tyrion is very hungry and I believe he takes a mouthful of meat from a suckling pig that Tywin has served up after a battle, but Tyrion spits out the meat and walks away from the feast. But I don't want to get too ambitious in analyzing the food that is chewed and eschewed. Let's start with Jon Snow. 

[Seams]

This seems significant. Just after Tyrion tells Jon to embrace the "bastard" insult and identity, both Jon and Tyrion are "hungry" at the same time. Jon warms his hands over the mutton stew, but the reader never sees Jon or Tyrion eating in this scene, which is interrupted when Ser Aliser Thorne tells Jon Snow that Mormont has a letter regarding Bran Stark.

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The dwarf lifted an eyebrow. "Would you rather be called the Imp? Let them see that their words can cut you, and you'll never be free of the mockery. If they want to give you a name, take it, make it your own. Then they can't hurt you with it anymore." He gestured with his stick. "Come, walk with me. They'll be serving some vile stew in the common hall by now, and I could do with a bowl of something hot."

Jon was hungry too, so he fell in beside Lannister and slowed his pace to match the dwarf's awkward, waddling steps.

...

Inside, the hall was immense and drafty, even with a fire roaring in its great hearth. Crows nested in the timbers of its lofty ceiling. Jon heard their cries overhead as he accepted a bowl of stew and a heel of black bread from the day's cooks. Grenn and Toad and some of the others were seated at the bench nearest the warmth, laughing and cursing each other in rough voices. Jon eyed them thoughtfully for a moment. Then he chose a spot at the far end of the hall, well away from the other diners.

Tyrion Lannister sat across from him, sniffing at the stew suspiciously. "Barley, onion, carrot," he muttered. "Someone should tell the cooks that turnip isn't a meat."

"It's mutton stew." Jon pulled off his gloves and warmed his hands in the steam rising from the bowl. The smell made his mouth water.

...

A bird arrived this morning from Winterfell, with a message that concerns his brother." He corrected himself. "His half brother."

"Bran," Jon breathed, scrambling to his feet. "Something's happened to Bran."

Tyrion Lannister laid a hand on his arm. "Jon," he said. "I am truly sorry."

Jon scarcely heard him. He brushed off Tyrion's hand and strode across the hall. He was running by the time he hit the doors.

AGoT, Jon III

Jon comes right up to the brink of eating this stew but we never see him dig in. Tyrion complains about the ingredients and we never see him eat, either. 

I suspect that food served in bowls, perhaps especially stew, is important in ASOIAF. We know that the Flea Bottom staple is "bowls of brown." Bran eats the mysterious weirwood paste from a bowl. Wordplay enriches the meaning as a "bole" of a tree is the main trunk of a tree. Theories about the weirnet in Westeros might mean that people who eat from bowls are connecting with trees.

This scene with Jon Snow's near miss with the mutton stew involves a lot of touching of hands and arms. When Jon returns from Mormont's chamber, jubilant about the news that Bran has awoken, he offers to teach Gren how to defend against the sword fighting move that injured his wrist. 

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"I'm sorry about your wrist. Robb used the same move on me once, only with a wooden blade. It hurt like seven hells, but yours must be worse. Look, if you want, I can show you how to defend that."

Alliser Thorne overheard him. "Lord Snow wants to take my place now." He sneered. "I'd have an easier time teaching a wolf to juggle than you will training this aurochs."

Thorne's remark is particularly relevant to the arm and hand symbolism here because he is the Night's Watch Master at Arms. If Jon Snow is taking his place, Jon may take on a new importance in the arm hierarchy of ASOIAF - maybe warming his hands over the stew was an important symbolic step. It might also foreshadow the burned hand he will incur when using the flaming drapery to fight the wight. 

The interaction of Tyrion and Jon at Castle Black is shown from both POVs. Tyrion makes this observation from the top of the Wall:

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He passed a massive catapult, as tall as a city wall, its base sunk deep into the Wall. The throwing arm had been taken off for repairs and then forgotten; it lay there like a broken toy, half-embedded in the ice.

AGoT, Tyrion III

So we have Tyrion and Jon both embracing their "outsider" status, both hungry, both on the brink of eating stew. We see broken arms or injured wrists and Jon Snow assuming the role of Master at Arms after warming his hands over the stew and by offering to help Grenn. 

This scene takes place before Jon Snow learns that he will be a steward, but I think the offer to heal Gren (representing the "green" cycle of seasons) is a sign that Jon is becoming a steward of the earth. Perhaps the point is that Jon Snow is moving toward the stew but isn't quite there yet. Bran (Summer) is awakening but he isn't yet fully recovered. 

[SerDuncan]

On 8/13/2023 at 7:50 PM, Seams said:

Hake patting his dirk is significant because a Night's Watch brother named Dirk will kill Craster and Asha Greyjoy's "suckling babe" is a dirk. I've written in a recent thread that I suspect the dirk and the axe are son and father symbols and allude to the ancient rivalry of son and father such as we see in the Star Wars saga. 

Jon

Lucifer - Lightbringer - fallen angel - symbolic 'son/sun (of god) of the morning' - Rise again as the 'devil' (eviljon fans don't get excited)? If so, bane for whom

Are the old gods what protect them from what's beyond the cold or are they the ones themselves? Bloodraven and the children included.

On 8/14/2023 at 7:18 PM, Seams said:

We know that the Flea Bottom staple is "bowls of brown."

Dunk

On 8/14/2023 at 7:18 PM, Seams said:

Bran eats the mysterious weirwood paste from a bowl

...Bloodraven and the children included.

On 8/14/2023 at 7:18 PM, Seams said:

It might also foreshadow the burned hand he will incur when using the flaming drapery to fight the wight. 

Since you mentioned Star Wars, both the Skywalkers lose their right hands too...

And yet the Targaryens don't burn apparently, true of blood and/or character?

[Seams]

“It is the little grey cells, mon ami, on which one must rely.”– Hercule Poirot

@SerDuncan I'm glad you are seeing some of the same motifs and themes I am seeing in these characters. 

Re-reading that moment where Jon Snow stabs half a honeyed chicken, gives birth to it, then feeds it to his wolf, I was reminded that Bran ingests a lot of honey. Perhaps he is like a bee, nurtured to become bee royalty?

This is the scene that immediately came to mind:

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Lady Stark was there beside his bed. She had been there, day and night, for close on a fortnight. Not for a moment had she left Bran's side. She had her meals brought to her there, and chamber pots as well, and a small hard bed to sleep on, though it was said she had scarcely slept at all. She fed him herself, the honey and water and herb mixture that sustained life. Not once did she leave the room. So Jon had stayed away.

AGoT, Jon II

Of course, sweet and bitter comprise one of GRRM's wordplay pairs. If Bran eats a lot of honey, does he balance it out with bitter foods as well?

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Supper was a fistful of acorns, crushed and pounded into paste, so bitter that Bran gagged as he tried to keep it down. Jojen Reed did not even make the attempt. Younger and frailer than his sister, he was growing weaker by the day.

ADwD, Bran I

 

[SerDuncan]

Daenerys eats honeyed unborn dog pups IIRC

Oh Cleganes?