Good for the bowls and jugs

[Quang Hai]

I am reading Midwinter Break by Bernard MacLaverty. A man goes to breakfast room in his hotel at Amsterdam.

"He gathered himself some cereal from the buffet and proceeded to a table set for two beside the window. Since Belfast, he always sat in a chair facing the door. Prunes on top of cornflakes. Good for the bowls and jugs. The sucked prune stones transferred from spoon to plate had a disturbing similarity, in colour and shape, to cockroaches."

I do not understand several things in above passage.
1. "Good for the bowls and jugs" What does it mean? I guess people normally eat cereal with milk (from jugs) in bowls. Is that correct?
2. "The sucked prune stones transferred from spoon to plate":
- Sucked prune stones: What does it mean? prune absorbed milk (sucked?) but still hard like stones?
- Why he transfers prune from spoon to plate? I thought he should eat in a bowl as said above.
Can anyone help me out please? Many thanks!

 

[GoesStation]

Does the text say "bowls" or "bowels"?

The character sucked on the prune pits, also known as "stones", then spit them into the spoon and tipped them from the spoon onto the plate.

 

[PeterCW]

Prunes (dried plums) have a laxative effect. I have never heard the phrase before but it is obviously, to a native speaker, a euphamism for the bowels. The nature of the north European diet means that consitpation can be an issue for people who don't take care over what they eat.

 

[emsr2d2]

Prunes (dried plums) have a laxative effect. I have never heard the phrase before but it is obviously, to a native speaker, a euphemism for the bowels. The nature of the north European diet means that constipation can be an issue for people who don't take care over what they eat.

See above.

 

[PeterCW]

See above.

Thanks. My fingers do run ahead of the spelling when I am typing sometimes.

 

[Rover_KE]

Please get into the habit of proofreading your own text both before and after posting it.

 

[Rover_KE]

Good for the bowls and jugs.

Yes, 'bowls' is pretty clearly a typo for 'bowels', but I didn't want to be the first to suggest that 'jugs' might be the coarse word for the mammaries, which as a man, the writer presumably didn't have.:-?

 

[Tdol]

Thanks. My fingers do run ahead of the spelling when I am typing sometimes.

It's when they get ahead of the meaning that you really need to start worrying. ;-)