Subtraction Stew and Fulfillment: The Phantom Tollbooth

In The Phantom Tollbooth, there is a special kind of food called “subtraction stew.” Produced by a mathemagician, this stew makes you hungrier after you’ve eaten it. Our three main characters don’t realize this, however. And, after the kindly mathemagician offers them some stew, they eat more and more, getting hungrier all the while. Eventually, after a dozen bowls, the heroes catch on that the food does not help at all, and they tell the mathemagician that food is supposed to make people more full, not less. The wizard is baffled. “What a curious idea… The next thing you’ll have us…