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April 15, 2005
I think I've finally fixed my Movable Type problems. What I've been working on in the meantime:
Lessons Learned from John Thorne
When I first picked up John Thorne's Outlaw Cook, I wasn't as impressed as I had hoped. It wasn't that the writing wasn't good, or inspirational, or smart--but throughout it all I thought I detected I kind of reverse snobbery, a sort of reveling in having different exclusive standards from everyone else (Steve Jenkins, the "Cheese Maverick" of The Cheese Primer fame is an even more blatant example of this tendency). But now I think I'm going to have to go back and check him out again. Having just read The Pot on the Fire and Serious Pig with all the urgency I usually reserve for a good sci-fi novel, I'm feeling much more charitable. It's not that the snobbery has vanished, but in many cases it seems more thoughtful and even more warranted. But the real kicker for me is the way in which Thorne's often deeply researched pontifications widen the world of food and food writing. From an essay on the effects in Ireland of the transition from dairy to potato culture, to a lament for Maine roadside diners, he links simple taste and hunger to global history, folk tradition, sociology, and an almost existentialist meditation on blueberry pie. Reading him and thinking about other food writers and particularly those he praises (I've been dipping into Patience Gray's Honey from a Weed) I've been moved to generate some tentative theories about what makes good food writing good. These theories are offered in the spirit of literary criticism, that is, by one who teaches rather than does, but they are nevertheless in good faith:
1. Good food writers realize that sometimes food isn't pretty. It's about far more than just what tastes good.
2. Good food writers see food as deeply connected to the rest of human experience, and their notion of what constitutes the "human" is a generous one.
3. Good food writers, like many good writers, avoid adjectives and adverbs--but this avoidance is conspicuous in this genre because its sensual nature tends to make one reach for qualifiers.
My plan at the moment is to expand on these three criteria in a series of future posts.
Posted by Miki at April 15, 2005 11:06 PM