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April 25, 2005
More on Food Writing
As I mentioned in this entry, I've been doing some thinking about what separates the great from the simply enjoyable food writers. One characteristic I've noted is that some of the best recognize that food isn't always pretty. Food is more than mere pleasure; it's connected to violence, pathos, bathos, and even (perhaps especially) death. One of my favorite pieces by M.F.K. Fisher appears in her Alphabet for Gourmets, in which she is treated to a wretched plastic meal by a man painstakingly, heartbreakingly recreating his dead wife's culinary style. We've left the world of connoisseurship far behind at such moments, and are all the better for it. John Thorne also gives us two excellent examples of the dark side of food, one from his own pen and the other from his reading:
"It should be noted, with wild mushrooms as with anything, that 'edible' does not necessarily mean 'tasty.' The shaggy mane (Coprinus comatus) is a scrofulous-looking, deliquescent (i.e., 'self-devouring') mushroom that comes up in huge clumps even on city lots (I once picked a meal's worth from the grass edging of Boston post office). Most guides aver that it's not only edible but choice. . . at least if caught before self-digestion begins transforming it into a puddle of black slime. However, I find the intention is inherent in the flavor, each morsel attempting one last effort to consume itself even as I chew--a rather unnerving experience." John Thorne, Serious Pig.
"Food is not an innocent as sweet trifle to be played with, even though it appears to waltz so benignly upon our plates and tables. It is nature herself, stupid, cruel, and ruthless. Everything is food, including yourselves, even if it is only bacteria which eat you now. Nature is. . . no other than the mindless sadist who has commanded all living things to eat all other living things with a perpetual and inane violence. . . and whose supposed capacity to maintain harmonious order is merely the effect of the relentless whip that ensures continual discontinuity, the stick which flagellates every beast on its path to consumption." Lawrence Osborne, Paris Dreambook, quoted in John Thorne's Serious Pig."Food is not an innocent." I so like that. There is a sacred side to food that ought to frighten us into abrupt respect from time to time even during our most casual or riotous dining experiences.
Posted by Miki at April 25, 2005 06:10 PM