FOOD FOR THOUGHTUNIT 3: 8 CHAPTERS ABOUT BOOKS

“First we eat, then we do everything else”.

So saying, M.F.K Fisher, a well-known American food writer, makes her priorities clear. Her books are compounded of literature, travel and memoir. She belongs to that class of people who are known as gastronomes.

Gastronomy is concerned with the relationship between food and culture and may include investigation of a style of cooking or the products of a particular region. Science, art and history may be components of this study. Gastronomes have refined palates and a heightened sense of visual pleasure at the sight of food. According to Fisher “eating well is one of the arts of life”. Brillat-Savarin went further saying, “The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a star”.

Jean Antheme Brillat-Savarin was a French judge and politician who survived revolution, the Napoleonic Wars and the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy all the while exercising appreciation for the pleasures of the table. He died in Paris in 1826, shortly after the publication of the book that would make him immortal in the food

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world: “ The Physiology of Taste or Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy”. He was considered to be one of the most important figures in culinary history and his book is a series of meditations on topics ranging from the role of taste, the function of appetite, gastronomy and gourmets, obesity and fasting, death, cooking and restaurateurs.

You can see that being a gastronome is not to be confused with being an epicure. Nowadays that has overtones of hedonism and excess, even though Epicurus himself, counselled his followers to live a moderate life, a pleasurable life and a life avoiding the pain of hunger.

On the other hand, gluttony, one of the seven deadly sins is the inordinate desire to consume more than one needs and leads to one declaring “greedy pig” as we watch the last delectable morsel of something disappearing before our eyes. It has been said, “gluttony is an empty pit, an insatiable rumbling”.

As we picture the scene from Oliver Twist where a young boy desperately pleads for “More, Sir”, we may be reminded of the hunger that one often feels when growing up. But in all honesty it is a long time since I have been really hungry, and I have never starved. On this note, strong and resolute people have engaged in hunger strikes as

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a means of achieving social change. Gandhi, the suffragettes and others must have been incredibly fixed on their purpose.

On a more cheerful note, food is not only an essential part of our lives but it can be a source of great joy. Indeed food is so evocative of time and place that you only have to quickly think of a food to be able to recall some memory that is the basis of a story. It is not uncommon to find strong emotion present and to feel all your senses activated.

A moment such as this may be called your “Proustian moment”. Marcel Proust was a French writer whose book, “In Search of Lost Times” was both a novel and an expression of his view of life. He used 1.2 million words so it is not a quick read but it contains wonderful descriptions of people and places and of life in the Belle Époque.

His protagonist, himself actually, searches for a meaningful existence and at first believes that social success will make him happy. But after learning that there is no party where the perfect people dance, he turns to love. Love too, is disappointing as he concludes that no one fully understands anyone.

He is very depressed now but he is about to have his moment. He is sitting in an armchair dipping a madeleine into his cup of tisane and the taste transports him to

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his childhood, to holidays in the French countryside with his aunt. The experience is intense, unexpected and wonderful. He is filled with gratitude as his spirits are lifted. He describes this moment as pivotal in his new understanding of the importance of looking at the world as artists do, freshly, appreciating the charm of the everyday. At last he has found the key to happiness. Enjoy art and use it to look at life as artists do, to prevent us from forgetting to appreciate life, as we should.

Returning to M.F.K. Fisher, she describes an early memory of the taste of “the greyish-pink fuzz my grandmother skimmed from a spitting kettle of strawberry jam”.

This grandmother belonged to the group of Adventists known as Primitive Christians. Their theology differs from the main group of Seventh Day Adventists as they argue about the ultimate punishment for wickedness. Is it annihilation of the sinner or eternal torment? They have strict practices for living including diet. Alcohol, tobacco and other soul defiling habits should be avoided, including red meat.

Grandmother Holbrook, the said grandparent in question, was a follower of John Harvey Kellogg. He was

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influenced by the American Temperance movement, which also concerned itself with a wholesome life style, including the importance of wholemeal flour and the belief that meat eating led to the excitement of carnal passions.

Kellogg himself set about devising cures for what he believed were the common ills of the day, constipation and masturbation. In his mind the two were closely linked, the common cause being a lack of fibre. It was this concern that led to the invention of cornflakes and other prepared breakfast cereals.

Considering these deeply held beliefs and the strict way that Fisher’s grandmother ruled the family it is interesting that on her occasional absences:

“We indulged in a voluptuous riot of things like marshmallows in hot chocolate, thin pastry under the Tuesday hash, rare roast beef on Sunday instead of boiled hen. Mother ate all

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she wanted of cream of mushroom soup, Father served local wine, red ink, he called it and we ate shaved kidneys with a daring dash of sherry on them.”

This list of foods that the family loved drips with mutiny. Words like “rebellion” and “daring” add to the flavour.

Religions, throughout history all over the world have had influence over what people eat or don’t eat. In Australian English the question “is it Kosher?” has come to mean “ is everything okay?” although we all know that the word refers to a set of strict dietary laws. Certainly, “halal” has entered our vocabulary and, we are becoming familiar with its opposite “haram”.

The Bible is full of stories and references to food. The Garden of Eden comes to mind. Picture this: God said:

“ Behold I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of the Earth and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to everything that moves, which has life” and it was so.

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Manna is a mysterious food. It was given to the Israelites during their forty years wandering in the desert. As a child I wondered what it tasted like although later I was led to believe that it was spiritual or divine nourishment.

And of course the ancient Greek Gods long ago drank Ambrosia, which gave them long life or even immortality. The mystery and magic of some foods is seen throughout literature, from bottles marked “drink me” to living mock turtles found in the books of Lewis Carroll.

The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches had great influence on eating habits. Consumption of meat was forbidden for a full third of the year for most Christians and animal products other than fish were prohibited during Lent and Fast days. This was intended to mortify the body and invigorate the soul, to teach self-restraint through abstention.

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However a specialist of medieval cooking, Ann Henisch says:

“It is the nature of man to build the most complicated cage of rules and regulations in which to trap himself, and then, with equal ingenuity and zest, to bend his brain to the problem of wriggling triumphantly out again. Lent was a challenge; the game was to ferret out the loopholes.”

The Fight Between Carnival and Lent Bruegal

One such solution to the challenge of Lent was the matter of definition. “Fish” could mean marine and semi-aquatic animals such as whales, barnacle geese, puffins and even beavers.

Another answer was deception. One could have banquets even during times of penance by imitating banned foods. Fish could be moulded to look like venison. Fake eggs could be made, by stuffing empty eggshells with fish roe and almond milk before cooking them on coals.

The trend from the 13th century onward was more legalistic. Thomas Aquinas believed in dispensation for children, the old, pilgrims and beggars. Benedictine

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monks ate their fast day meals in a room called the misericord rather than the refectory.

In monasteries, Pope Pius XII tightened the rules of diet but monks worked around them. As wine was restricted, at Westminster Abbey each of them was allowed a gallon of beer a day. When the meat of four-footed animals was prohibited, offal and bacon were not considered to be meat.

The cycle of denial and indulgence exists to this day as one can currently buy “Low and Slow: Comfort Food For Cold Nights” by Louise Franc. The blurb for this book uses words like “crave, rich and fragrant, tender, depth of flavour and that most fashionable word, “pulled” in connection with various meats. Not only are the dishes we are talking about tasty, “they are one-pot dishes so once you’ve popped it in the oven you can relax and let time do all the work for you.”

Nostalgia is very marketable at the moment. “Food My Mother Gave me” by Stephanie Alexander is an example. While good plain cooking may have been the order of the day in her mother’s time, the author doesn’t separate the food from her family story or her personal memories and this is why I find the book so interesting. After describing making and drinking beef tea at home she continues:

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“ I also remember beef tea being one of the offerings at Ernest Hillier’s. For Melbourne teenagers in the 1950s Ernest Hillier’s was the height of sophistication. Designed and outfitted as an American soda fountain, it shone with polished wood, brass rails and a marble bar…There was a chocolate nut sundae on the extensive menu that I still dream about…

And while we reminisce, who seated here today does not remember the Downyflake Donut restaurant that was in Swanston Street in the 1950s? Barry Humphries once said:

“ One of the most important Melbourne spectacles of this period was an establishment opposite St. Paul’s Cathedral. Here crowds pressed against the windows to observe an enormous Heath Robinson-like stainless steel machine from which emerged, on a moving belt, an endless succession of sugared donuts.”

Philip Adams remembered the sign in the same shop:

“As you ramble thru life, Brother Whatever be your Goal Keep your Eye on the Doughnut And not on the Hole”

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But to return to more serious matters, we need to remember that it was not only religion that influenced differences in the way people ate. In medieval times, society was highly stratified. Food was an important marker of social status that perhaps has no equivalent today. Society consisted of the three estates of the realm: commoners, the clergy and nobility. The relationship between them was strictly hierarchical and displayed by power and wealth. One was expected to remain in one’s social class. Nobles dined on fresh game seasoned with spices. They used refined table manners and possibly after Catherine Medici’s time, two-pronged forks. Labourers could make do with unrefined food and no etiquette. Meanwhile at the top table, gold and silver plates and elaborate roasted peacocks with their feathers carefully replaced for presentation may have been the order of the day.

During the middle ages, the increasing wealth of merchants meant that commoners began to emulate the aristocracy, thus necessitating the introduction of sumptuary laws. These capped the lavishness of commoners’ banquets and were legally enforceable. This was not a time to ape one’s betters.

Fruit and vegetables were common foodstuffs, eaten by all classes. Giuseppe Arcimboldo, was an Italian artist, best known during his life time for amusing nobility, including the Hapsburgs by creating imaginary portrait heads entirely from fruit,

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vegetables, flowers and fish. After his death his fame faded for centuries but it has been revived by the surrealists, who love his work. Watch this clip.

Giusepp Arcimboldo

Bookshelves abound with books particularly about fruit and vegetables to this day. Jane Grigson, an English food writer, who has had the rare honour of being translated into French, was born in 1928. She was way ahead of her time in terms of glorifying the carrot. She wrote the award winning books, “The Mushroom Feast”, “Jane Grigson’s Vegetable book” and “Jane Grigson’s Fruit Book”. When she died in 1990 she left a legacy of fine writing on food and cookery for which no parallel exists. She caught the imagination with deftly chosen fragments of history or poetry but she never failed to explain the “why” as well as the “how” of cookery. She cared passionately about provenance and became quite politicised. She was angry that people were becoming deskilled and disconnected from food’s origins. “ I think food and its quality, its origins, its preparation, are things to be studied and thought about in the same way as any other aspect of human existence” she wrote in her introduction to “Good Things”.

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Grigson’s example is part of a whole genre of food books concerned with the issues of sustainability, commercialism, pure food sources and morality. Peter Singer, in his book “ The Ethics of What We Eat’ talks about healthful, humane choices.

The preface of a book of essays called “ Our Sustainable Table:” says that since the Second World War, “how much and at what price?” have often seemed more important questions than “ how good and at what cost?” The novel “Grapes of Wrath” describes the growth of the big corporate farmer at the expense of the traditional smallholders and the terrible personal costs to individuals.

“Harvest for Hope: Guide to Mindful Eating” by the renowned Jane Goodall, is dedicated to the thousands of small farmers who are valiantly struggling to survive, especially those who have embraced organic practices and to those who work tirelessly to reintroduce us to real, wholesome food. Her book raises a wide range of concerns under chapter titles such as “Ravaging the Oceans and Seas”, “The Myth of Fresh Food” and “Obesity, Fast Food &Waste”. She finishes with the words “ changing the world: one purchase, one meal, one bite at a time… Let us together, sow seeds for a better harvest- a harvest for hope”.

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Some of the concerns raised by these serious books have led to another enormous but commercial group. The ubiquitous diet/ health book can be found anywhere, at the dentist, the airport, big and little newsagencies and other places besides. The topics are wide- ranging and changeable, depending on the current health concern.

There are many books that direct us to the connection between eating seasonally and from home grown ingredients. Our own Stephanie Alexander feels so strongly about this that she has established the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Foundation. Her program encourages and enables schools to provide pleasurable food education so that the children can reap the benefits of growing, harvesting and preparing healthy food. This is now supported, using Education Department money to give assistance for producing supplementary teaching materials.

Diet books are no longer based on simple calorie counting. We have had many fads, including the Atkins diet, the Paleo diet, Dr.Grundy’s Diet Revolution. Now “Good Clean Food: Super Simple Plant-Based Recipes for Every Day” is marketed as a colourful cookbook filled with recipes to make you feel beautiful inside and out.

Of course this is a sign of the modern concern with health and looks, super concerns. There are huge numbers of books claiming that previously acceptable ingredients are akin to poison. Sugar, fat of different kinds, dairy products, refined food, eggs,

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may lead to obesity, high anxiety, depression and fatal allergies. Hence, the popularity of a book called “Reset Your Metabolism” or another, “Primal Blueprint”.

Here is another view:

Two Fat ladies

There are people who love to celebrate life by going out to restaurants. It has not always been the case. The first restaurant as we know it was called the “ Grande Taverne de Londres, which opened in Paris in 1765. It succeeded because during the French Revolution, there was a rise of the middle class and relaxing of the prohibition for luxury foods to be eaten by the masses.

Until this time it was customary to eat at home and for wealthy people to have an infantry of servants to present elaborate meals on delicate china and appropriate cutlery. At this point the rules of eating had become complex and any lapses could imply that the offender was an imposter, unrefined and not of good breeding.

No wonder Mrs.Beeton became so popular. She wrote during the Industrial revolution, a generation after the massive shift of population from countryside to towns. She was typical of a new stratum of the upwardly mobile, mid-Victorian class,

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who were a couple of generations away from the sort of people who lived over the shop.

“ What moved me to attempt a work like this was the discomfort and suffering which I have seen brought upon men and women by household mismanagement. I have always thought that there is no more fruitful source of family discontent than a wife’s badly cooked dinners and untidy ways. Men are so well served out of doors at their clubs and taverns that a mistress must be thoroughly acquainted with all the arts of making and keeping a comfortable home.

As well as cooking and household management Mrs.Beeton included chapters about the management of children and “The Doctor”, as well as other important aspects of living. It is poignant to remember that she died at the age of 28, of fever, almost certainly caused by the failure of the attending doctor to wash his hands before delivering her fourth child.

In the late nineteenth and early 20th centuries, the first luxury hotels appeared in European cities. With rail connections on the Continent it became easy for the affluent to travel and lavish hotels were established to cater to their whims. Escoffier and the Ritz began this development in Paris and later teamed up with the Savoy Hotel in London.

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victorian dining

Escoffier transformed restaurant kitchens, which were often vulgar, mismanaged boozy places where staff worked in poor conditions and bullying was common. He introduced the method of organisation known as The Brigade System. Tasks became specialised and supervised by sous chefs who in turn were responsible to the head chef. The working atmosphere aimed to become calm and respectful and working in a kitchen became honourable. Escoffier would not have tolerated Chef Ramsay of Hell’s Kitchen fame.

Although Escoffier wore platform shoes so that he could reach the stove his achievements were many. As well as all his other feats he invented bouillon cubes, canned tomatoes and dried soups. He was known as the king of chefs and the chef of kings.

As eating out became an established practice, Michelin, a French tyre manufacturer, hit upon the idea of selling more of their products by appealing to motorists’ stomachs. At first they gave away helpful guidebooks that contained maps, repair instructions, petrol station locations and the names of hotels.

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From 1936 they included a system of star ratings for restaurants. One star meant very good, two excellent, worth a detour, while three was exceptional, worth a special journey.

These guides have been so successful that now they have spread to many countries and are translated into different languages. The ratings are awarded by specially recruited “inspectors” who are required to maintain anonymity, even to their parents.

The French chef Paul Bocuse, who helped to create nouvelle cuisine in the sixties and whose restaurant near Lyons has held a three star Michelin rating for a record forty-five years, has said, ”Michelin is the only guide that counts”.

Each year its publication sparks the kind of media excitement attendant on the Academy Awards.

When Bernard Loiseau, who had been awarded the Legion of Honour for his classic cooking, was losing ground to trendier fusion styles, he sank into despair and believing that his third star was “living on borrowed time”, he killed himself after a day at work in the kitchen.

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Today we see the rise of molecular gastronomy. The fusion of physical sciences with culinary artistry has fundamentally changed the fine dining landscape. However Heston Blumenthal prefers the term “modernist cuisine” because “molecular” makes it sound complicated.

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Here is the man himself:

heston

Having feasted ourselves on many aspects of food and hopefully now having many thoughts about it,

I would like to invite you to share food and a film next week. However, remember there’s no such thing as a free lunch! A small task is involved. The task is to share something from this talk that has moved you- perhaps a memory, something that you love or hate, a good meal or a cookbook or a recipe or anything at all.

Let’s eat together and have fun and the name of the fourth session will be:

“The taste of Memory”

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