#mem get recipe for mina

[wheresjonno2023-complete]

Recs to eat out in budapest honeymoon that isn't chicken

Tökfozelék aka Summer Squash Stew. Squash filled with sour cream and dill, very popular stew in the summer.

Gulyás. Full of flavor rich stew with beef, paprika, onions, and potatoes. Impossible to not encounter in Hungary. Not expensive so it's perfect if you already blew your money on trains and hospitals.

Meggyleves. It's sour cherry soup as an appetizer. Sour cherries, sugar, and sour cream. Also Meggyes Rétes, sour cherry strudel.

Dobos torte was made in 1885, It is a sponge cake layered with chocolate buttercream and topped with caramel everybody try it right now this instant. Or chimney cake, even older, caramelized dough around a cylinder and cooked over an open fire.

Tokaji wine for sweetness and Bull's Blood wine. Good for recovery my grandma says so.

-Slovenian but shhh eastern european cuisines are sisters

This project is rapidly becoming the food blog our boy always dreamed of

You're so right I need Dobos torte in my life right now

[sbnkalny]

I'm gonna ride dat ASS like an Eggary taste the white house

[clefadrylcanines]

May 3rd, Jonathan Harker’s journal

(Mem., get recipe for Mina.) I asked the waiter, and he said it was called “paprika hendl,” and that, as it was a national dish, I should be able to get it anywhere along the Carpathians.

I had for breakfast more paprika, and a sort of porridge of maize flour which they said was "mamaliga," and egg-plant stuffed with forcemeat, a very excellent dish, which they call "impletata." (Mem., get recipe for this also.)

Recipe blog casually interrupted by nightmares and the howling of wild dogs. I’m sure it’s nothing.

[thethirdromana]

Mem., get recipe for Mina: a food guide to Dracula Daily

Inspired by There and Snack Again (in which you eat along with the LOTR movies), this is your guide to eating and drinking along with Dracula Daily.

All under a cut because there's no way I can do this without extensive spoilers. I strongly recommend not reading this unless you already know what happens in Dracula. Also only if you're comfortable reading about alcoholic drinks - there's a lot of booze in this novel.

Let's eat!

2 May We start with the famous paprika hendl. Google "chicken paprikash" and choose whichever recipe most strikes your fancy.

3 May For breakfast, choose from mamaliga (cornmeal porridge, similar to grits), "impletata" (vânătă umplută - stuffed aubergine) or anything with more paprika in it.

4 May For dinner, Jonathan has robber steak: "bits of bacon, onion, and beef, seasoned with red pepper, and strung on sticks and roasted over the fire".

5 May Slivovitz, if you'd like it (Jonathan declines). Then, for dinner, Dracula serves up roast chicken, with some cheese, a salad and a glass or two of Tokaji wine.

6 May "A cold breakfast" for Jonathan. In Romania a cold breakfast might include boiled eggs, telemea (sheep's cheese), franzela (bread) with assorted spreads, sliced cucumber and tomatoes, and sunculita taraneasca (sliced smoked pork). Jonathan also has "an excellent supper", but doesn't tell us what that includes.

16 May Would it be too bleak if I suggested eating a symbolic Jelly Baby?

26 May A glass of wine as Quincey and Jack congratulate Arthur and drown their sorrows.

18 June There's a kind of Scottish fruit slice called "flies' graveyard". That might make a suitable snack given Renfield's meal today.

24 June I guess a gingerbread woman, for the wolves? IDK, it turns out doing this for a horror novel is a bit grim.

8 July Thankfully the internet has hundreds of ideas for spider-themed cakes so you can eat along with Renfield.

18 July The voyage of the Demeter begins! Celebrate by eating like a sailor: have some salt pork, or make ship's biscuit.

20 July Renfield has just eaten several sparrows. Provide redress by feeding birds near you, bird flu guidance permitting.

24 July Imitate the "feet-folk" from York and Leeds by drinking some tea or eating some cured herring.

10 August Lucy and Mina enjoy a "severe tea". There are lots of severe teas in Victorian literature, but few writers actually describe what's in it - e.g. the Churchman's shilling magazine, 1868, has a story with a severe tea "which implies coffee, tea, and muffins, with substantials". What are substantials? I have no idea, but that's what you should eat today.

11 August Dracula has a little nibble on Lucy. I don't suggest doing this for every vampire bite in the novel, but given this one is particularly significant, how about marking the occasion with some black pudding?

30 August No food details for a while, but in this entry, Lucy notes that she "has an appetite like a cormorant" and "Arthur says I am getting fat". Celebrate with some cake.

3 September Van Helsing has been! And surely he wouldn't have come all the way from the Netherlands empty-handed? Acknowledge his visit with some gouda or a stroopwafel.

4 September Eat some sugar, which Renfield has requested for his flies.

7 September To stay in line with what the characters actually eat and drink, have a glass of port (though ideally not if you've just given blood). But for the real spirit of the day, consider a corn-on-the-cob.

9 September Free space! Jack has "an excellent meal" but doesn't say what it is. Dig into your favourite dinner.

10 September A sip of brandy, with which Van Helsing wets Lucy's lips.

11 September The garlic flowers arrive. There's lots that you can make with wild garlic - personally, I like it in risotto.

17 September A boxful of garlic flowers arrive for Lucy every day. Time to make chicken with 40 cloves of garlic. Other options for today include more black pudding (in honour of Renfield lapping up Jack's blood) or sherry.

18 September The Zookeeper enjoys a teacake, and so shall we.

20 September No food, but the labourers have "a stiff glass of grog". This is rum diluted with water, but you could also add lemon or lime juice, sugar, and/or cinnamon.

25 September Nibble another Jelly Baby for the Bloofer Lady.

29 September A lot happens in this entry, but there's not a lot of food. There are thirsty labourers, however. Maybe have a beer?

30 September Mina makes everyone a pot of tea. Also, we don't know what they have for dinner, but they eat it at 7pm, if you'd like to time your evening meal accordingly.

1 October More tea! Since this is being gulped down by a working man, make it builder's style - strong, sweet, lots of milk.

2 October Jonathan visits the Aërated Bread Company. He only has a cup of tea, but you could have whatever you like best from their menu:

(source)

3 October Dracula forces Mina to drink his blood like "a child forcing a kitten's nose into a saucer of milk". You could either have some more black pudding, or drink a glass of milk in solidarity with Mina.

15 October The Crew of Light aren't focusing much on meals any more, but they have travelled on the Orient Express. Here's the 1887 dining car menu.

(source - I can't vouch for the accuracy of a random person on Twitter but it looks plausible)

29 October No one is thinking of food in this bit of the novel (though Mina makes yet more tea), but as they're heading to Romania, have some sarmale. These stuffed cabbage rolls are the Romanian national dish.

31 October Mina and Van Helsing have "a huge basket of provisions". Have a picnic in their honour, if it's warm enough where you are.

1 November Mina and Van Helsing have "hot soup" into which the local cooks have put an extra amount of garlic. Consider having a truly extra amount of garlic with this 44-garlic-clove soup.

7 November The Crew of Light return to Transylvania. No details of food, but in honour of their journey, I would suggest a final round of chicken paprikash, to bring us back to where it all began.

[serial-serializednovelreader]

Can we talk about “Mem. get recipe for Mina” for a second? Because other than just being a line that makes me smile EVERY time I see/hear it, it’s also the first mention we get of Mina!

I love this line for a multitude of reasons. It’s such a casual way to name drop a character and we don’t get any further elaboration on her, but we can gather that a) Mina is important to him in some way b) she will appear later and c) he is thinking of her even while being immersed in his travels, which is basically all he talks about for this first entry. She is really the only mention he brings up outside of these travels (except for when he mentions researching his trip in London), his tie to his “real life.”

I think it’s one of the few times I’ve seen an author drop in a character’s name like that and not have the POV character we’re reading from elaborate on who they are, why they want the recipe, etc. (it’s also heightened by our reading Dracula Daily reading experience, of course, since we’re not binge reading). It’s truly the art of show, don’t tell.

[thegoatsongs]

Mina while starting up Jonathan's journal, reading not even 1 minute in the (Mem: get recipe for Mina): "If I could marry him twice I would"

[charonnyxtides]

Appetite and sleep

Jonathan Harker intro, recently graduated and engaged:

I had for dinner, or rather supper, a chicken done up some way with red pepper, which was very good but thirsty. (Mem., get recipe for Mina.) ... Towards morning I slept and was wakened by the continuous knocking at my door, so I guess I must have been sleeping soundly then. I had for breakfast more paprika, and a sort of porridge of maize flour which they said was “mamaliga,” and egg-plant stuffed with forcemeat, a very excellent dish, which they call “impletata.” (Mem., get recipe for this also.)

Jack Seward intro, asylum manager and recently rejected:

Ebb tide in appetite to-day. Cannot eat, cannot rest, so diary instead.

[aster-blogging-dracula]

Reading BlueCatWriter's Dracula along with Dracula Daily

Ok so I've been meaning to read all of @bluecatwriter 's wonderful Dracula hc fics in order for a long time but I never have time to get with it so I decided to read it along with Dracula Daily this year.

If anyone else wants to do the same, here are the dates (or aproximante dates*) for each fic. (idk if someone has done this already but oh well) (BlueCat if you read this feel free to correct me if i got any date wrong)

*(Since there's 2 pre-canon fics and 2 days of may before dd, i'm setting those fics on those dates. Dates of undated fics are also adjusted to not overlap with date of other fics)

*(The order during the varna stay is a bit wacky since the book gets pretty vague for 2 weeks there but I tried to adjust it as well as possible.)

1-A picnic in may. May 1st 2-Home before you know it. May 2nd 3-I too can love. May 16th 4-Three letters. May 19th 5-The prisioner. May 28th 6-Tonight is mine. June 29th 7-Stay awake. August 14th 8-In sickness and in health. August 24th 9-Full of vague fear. August 24th 10-A golden afternoon. August 31st 11-A doctor’s confidence. September 2nd 12-I come to my friend when he call. September 2nd 13-Blood she must have. September 7th 14-After the transfusion. September 7th or 8th 15-Sleeping beauty. September 10th 16-The wolf in the window. September 17th 17-Sympathy. September 18th 18-Things will be different. September 19th 19-My only son. September 19th 20-Come, my husband. September 29th 21-These others. September 29th 22-Lucy’s second death. September 29th 23-How good and thoughtful. September 29th 24-Brandy, bath, and beadtime. September 30th or October 1st (preferably the former since the dd entry is slightly shorter that day) 25-A pale orphan. October 2nd 26-You will not call in vain. Between September 30th and October 11th?? 27-Renfield’s death. October 3rd 28-Safe for one more moment. October 3rd 29-A week in varna. Between October 15th and October 27th? 30-Waiting. Between October 17th and October 27th? 31-Hungry. Between October 17th and October 27th? 32-Judge moneybag. Between October 15th and October 27th? 33-How i miss my phonograph. October 24th 34-Mem. get recipe for mina. Between October 15th and October 27th? 35-Farewell, sweet friends. October 30th 36-Starlight on the sereth. October 31st 37-Step into the light. Between October 15th? and November 6th (if reading in one sitting wait until november 6th)

38- Love multiplying. November 7th onward

Omg guys it's may already I'm so exited for this. This year I know I will be up do date with everything even tho I'm busy with my End of Degree Project because the dracula fixation i caught last year is a part of my life now I have been planning this so long guys.

[ninadove]

Well, guys, we’re finally doing it. After two years of being subscribed to the newsletter but never actually taking the time to read the god-damned e-mails, I am finally committing to reading Dracula Daily.

So I’m going to dump my thoughts here as if it were the AO3 comment section. Bear with me.

Nina reads Dracula 🦇

May 3rd

We start off very strongly with an excellent instance of food-as-a-metaphor for love:

“(Mem., get recipe for Mina.)” 🥺

From here, it only gets better:

“I did not sleep well, though my bed was comfortable enough, for I had all sorts of queer dreams (me too, Jonathan). There was a dog howling all night under my window, which may have had something to do with it; or it may have been the paprika (!!!), for I had to drink up all the water in my carafe, and was still thirsty. Towards morning I slept and was wakened by the continuous knocking at my door, so I guess I must have been sleeping soundly then.

I had for breakfast MORE PAPRIKA —”

King of not learning from his mistakes!!! Love this for him!!! Also, excellent taste.

I had for breakfast more paprika, and a sort of porridge of maize flour which they said was "mamaliga," and egg-plant stuffed with forcemeat, a very excellent dish, which they call "impletata." (Mem., get recipe for this also.

AU in which Jonathan runs a culinary blog and weird paranormal stuff keeps making its way into his posts 🍝👻

My Friend.--Welcome to the Carpathians. I am anxiously expecting you. Sleep well to-night. At three to-morrow the diligence will start for Bukovina; a place on it is kept for you. At the Borgo Pass my carriage will await you and will bring you to me. I trust that your journey from London has been a happy one, and that you will enjoy your stay in my beautiful land.

Your friend,

DRACULA.

Such a friendly gentleman 🥰 You know you can trust him from the way he declares his friendship twice in the same note 🥰 Which is a thing friends do 🥰

I absolutely love that the note starts and ends with these declarations. It feels like a trap… but surely our good friend Dracula could never…

Sleep well tonight… 🦇

Next >

[wheresjonno2023-complete]

I must have misspelled it somewhere between google maps and my spreadsheet - thank you for the correction! Sadly, I cannot edit polls :/

Now I am enchanted by the idea of him running across the countryside stealing rakott krumplis from windowsills and developing an opinion on every paprika dish in a straight line from Castle Dracula to the Bay of Biscay. Once a food blogger always a food blogger. The new Carpathian cryptid wants your recipes. He's smarter than the av-er-age bear werewolf and after your pick-a-nick basket. Spicy pepper makes him go zoom zoom like a cartoon character. He's like Guy Fieri only instead of Diners, Drive-throughs and Dives it's kolbász, krumpli, and dear God that's a lot of wolves.

[petermorwood]

Follow-up, as promised...

Further to this post, I went rummaging.

My stars, it turns out we've got some serious goodies at the back of the cupboard.

They've all been here long enough that @dduane and I will eat well this next week or so, but the first of them, mentioned often by Dracula Daily...

...“We left in pretty good time, and came after nightfall to Klausenburgh. (Cluj) Here I stopped for the night at the Hotel Royale (AFAIK, fictional) I had for dinner, or rather supper, a chicken done up some way with red pepper, which was very good but thirsty. (mem. get recipe for Mina.) I asked the waiter, and he said it was called “paprika hendl” and that, as it was a national dish, I should be able to get it anywhere along the Carpathians.”

...is this one.

This is a standard bung-it-in-the-microwave ready meal (3 mins / 700w, wait 3 mins, eat) but there's no reason why it can't be prettied up a bit.

Taste report: the flavour was creamy, buttery, paprika-y, and entirely pleasant (if there were more of these I would scoff them) and the Nockerl (mini dumplings) were properly al dente and excellent, but it was by no means "thirsty", by which I assume spicy-hot. Okay, it wasn't labelled as such, but it was even milder than any Paprikahendl I've eaten in a restaurant.

I suspect that, like most ready-meals of this kind, including curries and chili-con-carne, its spice level has been dialled down to Avoid Shocking The Customers, though TBH most German / Austrian dishes labelled Scharf, Feurig or Würzig (all meaning spicy or hot) have been lacking in the oomph department, at least for me. (Some haven't, which is always a pleasant surprise.)

I'm going to make my own Paprikahendl in the next while because I got some sweet and hot paprikas from Polonez in Dublin, and right now, DD is in the process of making Paprikaente, based on several Paprikahendl recipes and a couple of duck breasts found at the back of the freezer. I don't know if that's authentic or not, but it smells great and I don't care. :->

*****

I've suggested in another post why Jonathan Harker found this dish "thirsty".

It wasn't because he he had a wimpy English palate unaccustomed to spicy food - the Edwardian era was familiar with fiery curries from Raj India, and even featured cayenne pepper as a table condiment, complete with its own caddy and (often devil-topped) spoon...

My opinion was that Paprikahendl (Austrian) / Paprikás csirke (Hungarian) was a peasant dish, with the main part of the meal a big dish of noodles or dumplings. Those would be perked up with a sauce based on some elderly chicken which had stopped laying, well-spiced so a little could flavour a lot.

Those noodles have lots of names - nockerln on the packet I posted, also nokoldel, csipetke, spaetzle, tarhhonya and so on - and were what filled people up, with the meat accompaniment more of a relish or seasoning. In the same way, for instance, Yorkshire Pudding used to be served with gravy as a first course, so the second course of meat would go further.

Rice / bread / couscous/ pasta / mian / potatoes / fufu / polenta etc. did the same; many of these are served alongside rich, spicy, buttery etc. dishes and are now suggested as fire extinguishers for "over-hot" foods because the proportions of bland vs rich / spicy have shifted.

Back when, dinner would have been lots of name-the-regional-bland carbohydrate, along with a little bit of over-hot (or -garlicked or -herby or -smoked-bacon / sausagey) protein, which might have tasted excessive alone but would have given flavour to all that bland.

*****

Side-note: it's another possible reason, besides conspicuous consumption, for lots of spice in (rich people's) medieval dishes; in winter and spring, all that spice would have made smoked / salted / dried meat more interesting.

The business of "spices masked bad meat" is rubbish, and originated as recently as 1939 thanks to historian J.C. Drummond, who didn't know what "green" meant in food context. Green cheese = fresh cheese, green meat = un-aged meat.

Drummond assumed a recipe to change the flavour of "green venison" was to cover that it had gone off. It was in fact meant to tenderise it as if hung a few days in the cold store, but "medieval people were primitive" has always been more acceptable pop history than "medieval people were pretty smart".

*****

Harker, eating the chicken-and-sauce as The Meal (Stoker doesn't mention accompaniments or Bulk Carbs like noodles, spaetzle, etc. so you'll have to trust me), would have been like someone taking a swig of hot sauce or chomp of chilli pickle and then declaring the entire meal over-spiced or "thirsty", unaware of the proper proportions of What Goes With What.

A hotter, spicier, "thirstier" Paprikahendl would definitely go with a big mound of these little noodles, so I plan to see - and taste - how it'll work.

And how it'll look, too. :->

[mesothulass]

big fan of how they did the mem. get recipe for mina in re: dracula that was very nice and cute

[see-arcane]

Did you know that late Victorians were crazy about Valentine's? I bet Jonathan bought into the hype and went even harder.

The one thing the Harkers compete with each other on in full earnest is Valentine's Day. They craft the most elaborate cards possible; none of that store-bought sentiment. It is not powerful enough to conquer the foe. More lace. More roses. More decorative pearls. More cursive. More!

They take aim in cuisine. (Mem. Get recipe for Mina = GET RECIPE TO COOK FOR MINA WHILE SHE'S UNPREPARED. >:) )

Jonathan: I made your favorite! (mwa ha ha)

Mina: I made yours! With enough for leftovers. (mwa ha ha x2)

There are flowers from both sides. Date trips. Gifts bought and gifts made. They are soldiers of Eros and this is war.

The saps.

[astrangergivingthestrangewelcome]

you had me at (mem: get recipe for Mina)

[harker-jonathan]

3 May. Bistritz. —Left Munich at 8:35 P. M, on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an hour late. Buda-Pesth seems a wonderful place, from the glimpse which I got of it from the train and the little I could walk through the streets. I feared to go very far from the station, as we had arrived late and would start as near the correct time as possible.

The impression I had was that we were leaving the West and entering the East; the most western of splendid bridges over the Danube, which is here of noble width and depth, took us among the traditions of Turkish rule.

We left in pretty good time, and came after nightfall to Klausenburgh. Here I stopped for the night at the Hotel Royale. I had for dinner, or rather supper, a chicken done up some way with red pepper, which was very good but thirsty. (Mem. get recipe for Mina.) I asked the waiter, and he said it was called “paprika hendl,” and that, as it was a national dish, I should be able to get it anywhere along the Carpathians.

I found my smattering of German very useful here, indeed, I don’t know how I should be able to get on without it.

Having had some time at my disposal when in London, I had visited the British Museum, and made search among the books and maps in the library regarding Transylvania; it had struck me that some foreknowledge of the country could hardly fail to have some importance in dealing with a nobleman of that country.

I find that the district he named is in the extreme east of the country, just on the borders of three states, Transylvania, Moldavia, and Bukovina, in the midst of the Carpathian mountains; one of the wildest and least known portions of Europe.

I was not able to light on any map or work giving the exact locality of the Castle Dracula, as there are no maps of this country as yet to compare with our own Ordance Survey Maps; but I found that Bistritz, the post town named by Count Dracula, is a fairly well-known place. I shall enter here some of my notes, as they may refresh my memory when I talk over my travels with Mina.

In the population of Transylvania there are four distinct nationalities: Saxons in the South, and mixed with them the Wallachs, who are the descendants of the Dacians; Magyars in the West, and Szekelys in the East and North. I am going among the latter, who claim to be descended from Attila and the Huns. This may be so, for when the Magyars conquered the country in the eleventh century they found the Huns settled in it.

I read that every known superstition in the world is gathered into the horseshoe of the Carpathians, as if it were the centre of some sort of imaginative whirlpool; if so my stay may be very interesting. (Mem., I must ask the Count all about them.)

I did not sleep well, though my bed was comfortable enough, for I had all sorts of queer dreams. There was a dog howling all night under my window, which may have had something to do with it; or it may have been the paprika, for I had to drink up all the water in my carafe, and was still thirsty. Towards morning I slept and was wakened by the continuous knocking at my door, so I guess I must have been sleeping soundly then.

I had for breakfast more paprika, and a sort of porridge of maize flour which they said was “mamaliga”, and egg-plant stuffed with forcemeat, a very excellent dish, which they call “impletata”. (Mem.,get recipe for this also.)

I had to hurry breakfast, for the train started a little before eight, or rather it ought to have done so, for after rushing to the station at 7:30 I had to sit in the carriage for more than an hour before we began to move.

It seems to me that the further east you go the more unpunctual are the trains. What ought they to be in China?

All day long we seemed to dawdle through a country which was full of beauty of every kind. Sometimes we saw little towns or castles on the top of steep hills such as we see in old missals; sometimes we ran by rivers and streams which seemed from the wide stony margin on each side of them to be subject ot great floods. It takes a lot of water, and running strong, to sweep the outside edge of a river clear.

At every station there were groups of people, sometimes crowds, and in all sorts of attire. Some of them were just like the peasants at home or those I saw coming through France and Germany, with short jackets, and round hats, and home-made trousers; but others were very picturesque.

The women looked pretty, except when you got near them, but they were very clumsy about the waist. They had all full white sleeves of some kind or other, and most of them had big belts with a lot of strips of something fluttering from them like the dresses in a ballet, but of course there were petticoats under them.

The strangest figures we saw were the Slovaks, who were more barbarian than the rest, with their big cow-boy hats, great baggy dirty-white trousers, white linen shirts, and enormous heavy leather belts, nearly a foot wide, all studded over with brass nails. They wore high boots, with their trousers tucked into them, and had long black hair and heavy black moustaches. They are very picturesque, but do not look prepossessing. On the stage they would be set down at once as some old Oriental band of brigands. They are, however, I am told, very harmless and rather wanting in natural self-assertion.

It was on the dark side of twilight when we got to Bistritz, which is a very interesting old place. Being practically on the frontier–for the Borgo Pass leads from it into Bukovina–it has had a very stormy existence, and it certainly shows marks of it. Fifty years ago a series of great fires took place, which made terrible havoc on five separate occasions. At the very beginning of the seventeenth century it underwent a siege of three weeks and lost 13,000 people, the casualties of war proper being assisted by famine and disease.

Count Dracula had directed me to go to the Golden Krone Hotel, which I found, to my great delight, to be thoroughly old-fashioned, for of course I wanted to see all I could of the ways of the country.

I was evidently expected, for when I got near the door I faced a cheery-looking elderly woman in the usual peasant dress—white undergarment with a long double apron, front, and back, of coloured stuff fitting almost too tight for modesty. When I came close she bowed and said, “The Herr Englishman?”

“Yes,” I said, “Jonathan Harker.”

She smiled, and gave some message to an elderly man in white shirt-sleeves, who had followed her to the door.

He went, but immediately returned with a letter:

“My friend.–Welcome to the Carpathians. I am anxiously expecting you. Sleep well tonight. At three tomorrow the diligence will start for Bukovina; a place on it is kept for you. At the Borgo Pass my carriage will await you and will bring you to me. I trust that your journey from London has been a happy one, and that you will enjoy your stay in my beautiful land.–Your friend, Dracula.”

[serial-serializednovelreader]

What's the first thing comes to mind when you think about them? -Jonathan Harker

Favorite canon thing about this character? -Van Helsing

Deepest darkest secret they won’t even admit to themselves -Jonathan Harker

More asks yay!!!! I am going to get into some implied spoilers in this one; since you’re asking about Van Helsing, it sounds like you’ve read the book before! I’ll try to keep the spoilers implied, but I also have a spoiler-free ask here, if you haven’t read Dracula already!

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of them?

Jonathan Harker — bravery, love, and lizard fashion (yes I know, hear me out).

For bravery, I think of him trying to save a child, hitting Dracula with a shovel, and silently sharpening his knife.

For love, I think of “(Mem. get recipe for Mina)”, holding Mina closer when she cries and calls herself unclean, and his hair turning white.

For lizard fashion, I think of him looking down to prevent surprise/fear of the height later, straining to climb just a *little* more while gritting his teeth, and risking his life in hopes he could escape by imitating the monster who’s kept him prisoner.

Favorite canon thing about this character?

There are many things I love about Van Helsing, so I’ll give two: a serious and a funny thing.

Serious: That he’s not afraid to break down and be emotional, especially in front of other men. Most mentor characters, even in today’s age, are expected to be infallible and stoic. When things go wrong, they are impassive and continue on as if everything is normal. It’s refreshing to see him not be stoic when something terrible happens and instead cry it out — especially considering the conventions for men at the time. I know you didn’t ask this question, but this is also the scene that really made me love him!

Funny: Pulling Jack Seward’s ear “playfully” and making metaphors about corn is just a regular thing he does. IIRC, that’s like…the first in-person scene we get with Van Helsing (by which I mean he’s in-person with Jack and not writing a telegram/letter to him — I know everything in this book is a collection of letters/diary entries)? And he immediately owns the scene by calling Arthur “good corn” and then pulling on Jack’s ear when he doesn’t get the metaphor. It’s glorious, I love it!

Deepest darkest secret they won’t admit even to themselves?

I think, for a while, Jonathan is unable to admit to himself he was fed on by Dracula the night of June 29th. The evidence is all right there for him to see the next day when he sees Dracula bloated and blood coming out of his mouth, but…he doesn’t seem to register it. He doesn’t say anything of it, except he’s (understandably) disgusted, but also notes he doesn’t want “his own body” to be a “banquet” for the three vampire sisters — as if he wasn’t already one last night.

I think it’s understandable he doesn’t write it down. We know Jonathan doesn’t like to write about events he has no concrete evidence for and — well, he’d remember being fed on by a vampire, right? He remembered when the sisters were going to do it last time. But this is different. I believe the Count kept Jonathan asleep for the feeding (or wiped his memory of it) because he knows Jonathan has been acting “rebellious” lately and didn’t want him to rebel further, though it would’ve been difficult for him to with Dracula’s mind control on him. Perhaps Dracula just didn’t want to take any chances.

So if Jonathan can’t remember the event, he isn’t going to write it down. Plus, emotionally, it may be too overwhelming for him to write about in the moment. After all, he’s just tried to escape the castle several times before he wrote it and he’s about to try another escape attempt right after he finishes the entry, which may result in his death. In other words, his emotions are all over the place. We’ve always commended Jonathan on writing the hard truth — even when it’s difficult — but in this case, I think it’s a lot like Seward writing about Renfield, where he’s not even fully thinking of the idea to make it conscious. At this point, it’s more of a horrifying possibility he’s content to leave as an unconscious idea for the time being. Later, when Jonathan has processed this trauma, he’s able to understand he was fed on and can use that knowledge to his advantage! For now, he can’t admit this, even to himself. :(

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