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February 18, 2003
The literature of food
During my senior year of college -- not all that long ago -- I took a class called "The Literature of Food" to fulfill some requirement or other. Our final assignment was to write a description of a dinner party including several of the authors we'd read, with the goal of demonstrating that we'd read the material. Following is what I wrote. As you can see, anyone who'd even cursorily thumbed through a few books would have been able to use the textual citations I used. Whether anyone would have been capable of being quite as gigantic an ass while doing so remains to be determined.
Inexplicably, I got an "A."
My dinner with the authors from English 270
My late-night mystical incantations had come to fruition. Not only had I succeeded in hypnotically inducing Like Water for Chocolate author and Ariel-award winner Laura Esquivel to come to my place for dinner, I had also been able to raise Charles Dickens, Isak Dinesen, Ernest Hemingway, and M.F.K. Fisher from the dead and convince them, as well, that Saturday at 7 would be a good time to head over to my dining room. I know; you're stunned at my supernatural powers. But everyone there was just hungry.
I started things off with a selection of grapes, peaches, and fresh figs, just like Babette served in Isak's quaint little story, "Babette's Feast." I remembered the passage fondly, as well as its page number (51): "General Loewenhielm no longer wondered at anything. When a few minutes later he saw grapes, peaches, and fresh figs before him, he laughed to his neighbor across the table and remarked: 'Beautiful grapes!'" And so were the grapes that I served.
"These are delightful," said Isak, swallowing a grape.
"Thank you, Isak," I responded.
"Please, call me Karen," she said. "After all, it's my real name."
"This fig leaf," interrupted Ernest, "reminds me of when F. Scott Fitzgerald showed me his penis. Boy, I wish he'd had a fig leaf then."
"Really? What happened?"
"Well, as you'll remember from page 190 of my classic memoir of Paris, A Moveable Feast, Fitzgerald told me, 'Zelda said that the way I was built I could never make any woman happy and that was what upset her originally. She said it was a matter of measurements. I have never felt the same since she said that and I have to know truly.' Now, I try to be friendly and all, but damn if Scotty wasn't just a little too eager to show me his ding-dong."
"I had several lovers in Paris show me their ding-dongs," rejoined M.F.K.
"He wasn't my lover!" snorted Ernest. "I was and am completely heterosexual."
"Could you provide an explicit textual citation to prove it?" asked M.F.K., narrowing her eyes slyly.
"Of course. It's right there on page 18 of, again, A Moveable Feast. 'I had certain prejudices against homosexuality since I knew its more primitive aspects. I knew it was why you carried a knife and would use it when you were in the company of tramps when you were a boy in the days when wolves was not a slang term for men obsessed by the pursuit of women.' I didn't have sex with men -- I was prepared to kill 'em."
The ox-tail soup which I brought steaming from the kitchen must have excited Laura. "Men obsessed by the pursuit of women," she repeated. "Oh, the pulsing heat of their animalistic lust! The throbbing, moist ecstasy of their dank desire! The sweet, juicy apricot paste!"
"Apricot paste?" I was confused.
"Oh, I'm sorry," said Laura shyly. "Food and sex -- to me they are the same. Your bowl of ox-tail soup is to me a tender caress. Your turkey mole with almonds and sesame seeds is my gentle kiss. Your packet of Sweet 'n' Low is my ferocious night of mad Sicilian love."
"I remember the distinct connection between food and sex in your novel," I said. "Could you refresh my memory?"
"Of course," said Laura. "The strongest example would have to be the effect of the quail in rose petal sauce on Gertrudis. Page 51. 'On her the food seemed to act as an aphrodisiac; she began to feel an intense heat pulsing through her limbs. An itch in the center of her body kept her from sitting properly in her chair.'" Laura paused for a moment. "May I be excused?"
"Of course," I said, though the bathroom door had already slammed behind her. It was her loss, really, as I was ready to bring out the main course: roast turkey.
"This," said Charles around a mouthful, "reminds me of the turkey purchased by Scrooge for the Cratchits in A Christmas Carol, a little tale of mine that renews the joy and caring that are Christmas."
"Tell me about it," I said.
"Well, it's right near the end -- page 82, to be exact. Scrooge asks a boy, 'Do you know whether they've sold the prize turkey that was hanging up there? Not the little prize turkey: the big one?' And then the boy asks, 'What, the one as big as me?'" Charles chortled warmly. "Oh, I love that scene."
Karen nodded. "Food can be a remarkable gift," she said. "In my story, when Martine and Philippa realize that Babette has spent ten thousand francs on their meal, they are awed beyond belief. On page 57, I wrote, 'The ladies still did not find a word to say. The piece of news was incomprehensible to them, but then many things tonight in one way or another had been beyond comprehension.'"
"Bob Cratchit has a very similar reaction when Scrooge offers him a raise," said Charles. "On page 86: 'Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He had a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down with it; holding him; and calling to the people in the court for help and a strait-waistcoat.'"
Charles had barely finished his sentence when Laura returned. Her complexion exhibited a kind of flushed glow. "What's for dessert?" she panted.
"Cream fritters," I said.
"I'm surprised you were capable of making them," said Laura. "For in my novel -- page 192 -- 'Gertrudis read [the cream fritters] recipe as if she were reading hieroglyphics.' Not even Gertrudis could make them."
"Well," I replied, "I'm not Gertrudis."
Posted by tony at February 18, 2003 12:00 AM
