The Joy of Eating

And so, the book edited by Jill Foulston casts its first stone at modern misconceptions of what a woman should be and where her interests should lie. With excerpts of works by Jane Austen, Jhumpa Lahiri, Emily Dickenson, Anne Frank, Beatrix Potter, Amy Tan, Sylvia Plath and Frida Kahlo to name a few, it might take a molecular gastronomist to figure out how this motley of distinguished women can be linked.

The answer is food. The preparation of meals, the ritual of dining etiquette, the surge of emotions aphrodisiacs incur, the good housewives and the ones who serve “faux food,” the regrettable meals and the hunger pangs — all captured in The Virago Book of Food that features a compilation of morsel-related musings from diaries, letters, food recipes, memoirs and fiction novels.

The writings, which span centuries, are truly a reminder of the often belittled intimacy women have shared with food throughout history. Particularly heartening are excerpts of unedited, original diary documents like that of Anne Hughes in 1797, where the farmer's wife's entry — with her “cooken grate that does hav an oven toe bake” — reads like a ditty to the art of cooking.

Familiar scenes from acclaimed novels have been cherry-picked and glazed. Emily Bronte's Catherine and her primrose-in-porridge flirtation with Mr. Heathcliff made it in the section titled “Amuse-Bouches.” So did a cringing clash of table manners between the East and West depicted by Amy Tan in The Joy Luck Club, categorized under, “Exotic Tastes.” In the section “Meagre Rations,” letters of Anne Frank describe the “food cycles” during her time hiding in the Annex; her familiar tale newly jerks the heartstrings when she is deprived of her dreams of liver sausage and subjected to long bouts of eating nothing but sauerkraut.

One downside of the book is that the predictability of some selections will make you secretly question why other scenes or preferred passages of the listed authors, such as Plath, did not make the page. In their absence, you will be tempted write the editor or compile a food book of your own.

Furthermore, as passages range from one sentence to three-pages long in length, you are tempted to skip and skim for reads that catch your eye when you experience a shift in appetite. However, there is a calculated order of writings that connects one text to the next; not reading in chronological order can result in a disjointed experience.

Lastly, one of the best features of the literary smorgasbord is a number of practical advice: you can learn how to make a suspicious-sounding “Omelet Agatha Christie” as recommended by the mystery-writer herself. Look out also, for recipes of Dyett Bread and Plague Water, published for the first time. Lastly, try to follow legendary American cook Julia Child, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle in their convoluted but highly eloquent definition of a “Cassoulet.” Overall, The Joy of Eating is a joy to read, serving as a great diving board from which assorted morsels of victual wisdom spring to life.

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