Lucky dip - a food memoir
Memoirs with recipes have captured the money-making imagination of the publishing industry, whisking together two of the book categories that remain successful.
Christine Muhlke - New York Times
I was trying to do something quick because we have been out almost all day, so I thought to do a lucky dip. But nothing is quick is it? You always have to do at least a minimal bit of research. And indeed this is being finished the next day.
Anyway the lucky dip book is not an actual cookery book with mostly recipes. It's a book we had in a book group a few years ago which was a memoir of a romance in Venice that was centred around food. I actually remember very little about the book. I don't think it was very good. But I kept it because it had a few recipes in the back. And I don't think I shall even bother with them in this post. Instead I will say a few words - or borrow other people's on food memoirs and food novels and food travelogues.
It's sort of food porn isn't it? And I do remember on one of our trips to Italy feeling that I was sitting in a sort of food porn dream - in a hilltop village on the border of Italy and France. Magical village, magical village square with a view of another magical village on the hilltop opposite and pretty magical food too. And no tourists! It is called Apricale by the way and it is well worth a visit. Even a stay. The b&b Apricus Locanda was wonderful. And I see it now even has a swimming pool.
And I think I felt like being in a wet dream of some travel/foodie writer because of all the books like the one at the top that I have read over the years. Some have been actual novels - like Chocolat, some have been the story of some foodie's life and some have been rhapsodies about making a new life in stunning French and Italian villages. Some of them have been more about the food and the recipes but with lots of memoir stuff - be it of a holiday, a move, a visit or just research about a particular cuisine. And here I was in one of them. It was all so perfect, but because of all those books it all felt a little false and unreal. Well not too false and it was real. Here are the photos to prove it and it is still a wonderful memory.
My book of the day though, is not about a little village but about Venice, and if I had time I could look into the cooking of Venice - but I don't. Another time perhaps. Suffice to say we went there back in 2009 and stayed a night there - that's all, but it was enough to also convince us that Venice was indeed a magical place.
And the food we ate was pretty magical too.
Here are my pesto gnocchi.
I am constantly surprised when in Italy or France, how amazingly wonderful it all is - how they have preserved the beauty of those places and their antiquity. How the way of life has adapted to modern life. If you pick your spot that is - because most of the more well-known spots are overrun with tourists - which we all are of course. Venice, in particular is undergoing some sort of revolt against the tourists by the people who actually live there.
I gather from the couple of articles I read on the food memoir that they have taken the place of the travel books of the earlier decades after the war. I remember my mother exclusively read travel books and I understand why. She wanted to travel but could not afford to and so she read about it. Fortunately late in life she was able to realise those dreams by travelling to Australia by sea - both ways round. Nowadays in escapism books we get the food as well as the travel and my 1000 Days in Venice is a good example of the genre. There are literally thousands of them. When I googled travel memoirs hoping to find an article on 'why' what I mostly found was lots of different 'best of' lists. And half of the coffee table cookery books that you see these days are travelogues as well. And on the TV. Another added bonus of being a celebrity chef - you get to visit faraway beautiful places, eat wonderful food, stay in sumptuous hotels and make TV series. Food is the thing though.
"You can appreciate its delicious qualities without feeling the least need to pick up a wooden spoon and have a go yourself. (The recipes included in all those food memoirs are surely for illustrative purposes only.) Food writing is writing full stop, and the best of it does what good writing always does, which is to create an alternative world to the one you currently inhabit. Anything else is gravy." Kathryn Hughes - The Guardian
And you have there part of the problem, because in spite of the overload of foodie stuff (and I include my own insignificant little thing in this blizzard of foodie writing), we apparently aren't cooking and we are still eating rubbish. There is an obesity epidemic folks. Well we all know that don't we, but do we do anything about it?
"We are, say the doomsayers, a generation of food voyeurs, porno-dependent quick-fixers who snack on crisps (quite possibly of the "artisanal", hand-crafted kind) while virtual-feasting on pictures of Nigella's store cupboard." Kathryn Hughes - The Guardian
Also, interestingly, much of the food writing that used to exist in magazines and newspapers is disappearing. Whole magazines have disappeared and are being replaced by blogs. Me again. Not that mine is in any way, like most of them, attempting to make a mark. Me I'm just doing it as an intellectual exercise, to keep the brain cells ticking over and to have a bit of fun too. And perhaps I'm a bit too hard on myself and all those other food writers. Some of those books are really, really good. Not my lucky dip though.
"The food memoir is a dicey proposition for a writer: It takes real courage to sit down and decide that your individual eating experience is interesting enough for other people to care about. ... The job is easier said than done, but when written well, a food memoir can touch on universal feelings of growth, understanding, and self-awareness." Grub Street
