Now hunger and [Erysichthon's] belly’s deep abyss exhausted his ancestral wealth, but still hunger was unexhausted and the flame of greed blazed unappeased . . . When his wicked frenzy had consumed all sustenance and for the dire disease provision failed, the ill-starred wretch began to gnaw himself, and dwindled bite by bite as his own flesh supplied his appetite.
~~ Ovid, The Metamorphoses

Starvation, by gwenboul

Examining hunger and starvation in individuals is not an easy task, for without body measurements, food-recall questionnaires, blood tests, or any of the other standard tools used by nutritionists to measure nutritional status, accuracy may be fleeting. But if we lack a sure-fire understanding of what happens in individuals, examining the impact of hunger and starvation on populations — in this case, historically — proves to be even more problematical.

But we need to begin with the individual, for a number of reasons.

According to a 1940s classic study of human starvation performed by Ancel Keys at the University of Minnesota, food deprivation impacts greatly on human behavior and goes far beyond the usual marker of weight loss.

How does starvation differ from hunger?

Starvation is the lengthy and continuous deprivation of food, a condition in which the absence of food forces the body to feed on itself. Causes of starvation include famine or other food shortages, war, fasting, systemic illness, social and religious beliefs, or abnormalities of the mucosal lining of the digestive system.

Hunger can be loosely defined as “‘not enough food’ to satisfy body needs. It results in ravenous hunger, eating nearly anything available and lots of it. Eventually, the body adjusts, but the appetite doesn’t.” Causes of hunger include those given for starvation, but more often than the etiology of hunger tends to be economic.

Ovid, by Luca Signorello (ca. 1445-1523)

The Romans knew hunger and made it a goddess, Fames, diametrically opposed to Ceres (Demeter). Ovid describes her in The Metamorphoses 8. 791 ff:

… set out in search of Fames (Hunger) and found her in a stubborn stony field, grubbing with nails and teeth the scanty weeds. Her hair was coarse, her face sallow, her eyes sunken; her lips crusted and white; her throat scaly with scurf. Her parchment skin revealed the bowels within; beneath her hollow loins jutted her withered hips; her sagging breasts seemed hardly fastened to her ribs; her stomach only a void; her joints wasted and huge, her knees like balls, her ankles grossly swollen.

No matter where in the world — or when in history — the human body needs at least two things in order to survive, to prevent and surmount starvation. Those two things are adequate nutrient intake—protein, vitamins, minerals—and sufficient energy to spare the protein in the diet and to make sure that the brain, which uses only glucose, is well supplied without metabolizing any protein intake. [Without enough calories in the diet, the body begins to catabolize — or break down — muscle mass into the energy necessary for the body to function. If enough calories exist in the diet, this breaking down of protein does not occur.]

In the 1940s, when Dr. Ancel Keys studied the effects of starvation on 36 young men, all completely healthy both mentally and physically, he worked with subjects registered as conscientious objectors during World War II, providing them with a diet very low in calories.* The objective was to determine what impact the food conditions in wartime Europe had on the people there. It is unlikely that any such study could ethically be carried out today, because of restrictions on the use of human subjects in medical research. For that reason, Keys’s study is all the more important. The Keys study allows scientists and others to learn about starvation in a controlled situation, rather than by extrapolating data from the so-called “natural” starvation that results during conditions of famine and war. And since the mental health of Keys’s potential subjects was also tested via standard tools, with only the most mentally stable men allowed into the study, psychological testing eliminated the potential variable of pre-existing mental illness.

Exactly what happens physiologically in starvation, other than the expected weight loss?

First to be lost are fat deposits and large quantities of water. The liver, spleen, and muscle tissue then sustain the greatest loss of weight. The heart and brain show little loss proportionately. The starving person becomes weak and lethargic. Body temperature, pulse rate, blood pressure, and basal metabolism continue to fall as starvation progresses, and death eventually ensues, unless feeding resumes.

Essentially a starving person moves from what medical jargon terms “positive nitrogen balance” to “negative nitrogen balance.” In other words, the body begins to catabolize, or break down, protein in the muscles, as mentioned above.

Then, as the body seeks an energy source for the nervous system, primarily the brain, the body begins to burn fat. Although body fat cannot be broken down to glucose and thus provide a source of “food” for the brain, by breaking down fatty acids, which make up body fat, the body can, however, convert glycerol (with its three carbons) to glucose. But this is a very insufficient and inefficient source of energy. A starving person then goes into ketosis, which essentially means that an excessive amount of ketone bodies are circulating in the blood and present in the urine. Negative aspects of long-term ketosis include kidney damage, among others. (Ketone bodies result from the breakdown of fats.) This scenario accounts for the continuing craze for low-carbohydrate diets; people go into ketosis, after losing a large amount of weight at the beginning — chiefly water weight and lean tissue mass, which is rapidly regained when re-feeding occurs, as Keys discovered in the post-starvation part his study.

Photos from Life magazine

In the beginning, some of the typical physical symptoms of the starving subjects in Keys’s study included fatigue, muscle soreness, and hunger pangs. Then the following symptoms appeared with regularity: gastrointestinal discomfort, dizziness, decreased need for sleep, hypersensitivity to light and noise, headaches, fainting, hair loss, poor motor control/clumsiness, decreased cold tolerance, visual disturbances (inability to focus, eye aches, “spots before the eyes”), auditory disturbances, and paresthesia or tingling in the hands and feet. According to Keys, one of the most noticeable symptoms turned out to be extreme emaciation in the face. Keys emphasized that these symptoms illustrate the extremes to which the body will go to preserve and produce energy for the brain’s continued functioning.

Thus even though Keys’s work took place over 60 years ago, his research still offers insights into the impact of constant caloric deprivation on individuals, populations, and, most interesting of all, on how the food deprivation of those individuals and populations may have in turn affected historical events and trends.

To be continued …

© 2009 C. Bertelsen

Great Famine, China, 1946 (Photo credit: George Silk)

When it comers to food, we humans live in a paradox these days. In the West, there’s too much food — as long as one has money with which to buy it — and because of that excess, we begin to look like the Michelin Man or the Pillsbury Doughboy. And on the flip side  lies true hunger and its cousin, starvation, usually in Africa and other places where money, transportation, and just plain decent soil (not to mention rain) persistent in short supply.

Hunger and starvation pose complications, and always have been there throughout the sweep of human history.

With Thanksgiving coming up, it seems quite appropriate to examine the role of hunger and starvation in human history. After all, we humans consciously and conceptually know about death.  In today’s Western world, side-stepping death’s sting is ultimately the major concern.  Obviously, this proved true in the past as well.

Avoiding death requires food.

So, in theory, the history of humankind really isn’t just about kings and queens, battles and sieges: it’s about food. Most human activity boils down to this:    procuring, storing, and eating enough food.

Hunger is, and was, a powerful weapon.

A modern irony lies in the self-starvation and meat avoidance so prevalent among certain groups today. That’s not to say that the same phenomenon didn’t occur in past centuries.  But today’s luxury choices in food almost make a mockery of the culinary hardship that birthed the very holiday we’re about to celebrate, itself really based upon a myth, as we shall see.

All the lavish writings about food, the chronicling of banquets, the latest “easy” recipes, the gorgeous food photographs, the Twittering about “what I ate at Chez Jean,” hide a fact that, well, we try to ignore. The Bard of Cincinnati coined the perfect saying. When paraphrased, this phrase really implies that humans have only a thin layer of soil between themselves and starvation.

Captain John Smith

We shall begin with a passage concerning Captain John Smith of Jamestown, Virginia:

1607. Being thus left to our fortunes, it fortuned that within ten days scarce ten among us could either go or well stand, such extreme weakness and sickness oppressed us. And thereat none need marvel if they consider the cause and reason, which was this. While the ships stayed, our allowance was somewhat bettered by a daily proportion of biscuits, which the sailors would pilfer to sell, give, or exchange with us for money, sassafras, furs, or love. But when they departed, there remained neither tavern, beer, house, nor place of relief, but the common kettle. Had we been as free from all sins as gluttony and drunkenness, we might have been canonized for saints; but our president [Wingfield] would never have been admitted for engrossing to his private [use] oatmeal, sack, aquavitae, beef, eggs, or what not, but the kettle; that indeed he allowed equally to be distributed, and that was half a pint of wheat, and as much barley boiled with water for a man a day, and this having fried some twenty-six weeks in the ship’s hold, contained as many worms as grains; so that we might truly call it rather so much bran than corn, our drink was water, our lodgings castles in the air.

With this lodging and diet, our extreme toil in bearing and planting palisades so strained and bruised us, and our continual labor in the extremity of the heat had so weakened us, as were cause sufficient to have made us as miserable in our native country, or any other place in the world. (From Generall Historie of Virginia)

Of course some authors beg to differ, chiefly Carville V. Earle.*

A bibliography of hunger, famine and starvation. Somewhat dated, but still pertinent.

*Earle, Carville V. “Environment, Disease, and Mortality in Early Virginia.” In The Chesapeake in the Seventeenth Century: Essays on Anglo-American Society, eds. Thad W. Tate and David L. Ammerman, pp. 96-125. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1979.

To be continued …

© 2009 C. Bertelsen

Photo credit: Tracy Hunter

[A picture, and nothing more, for silent contemplation.]

St. Catherine's College, Oxford, 2009 (Photo credit: Nick Atkins Photography)

The Oxford Food Symposium 2009, from an article by Corby Kummer of The Atlantic.

The 2010 Symposium will take place in July 9 – 11, at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, England; the conference topic is very timely — “Cured, Fermented, and Smoked Foods.” January 15, 2010 marks the deadline for proposals for talks.

Guess what I want for my birthday? (Hint: It involves silver wings and Guinness.)

Photo credit: Annie Schlechter

Marco Polo returned to Italy from his Chinese travels in 1296. The myth, legend, what have you, credits him with introducing pasta into Italy’s culinary repertoire. But Marco Polo did NOT bring pasta to Italy. And 73-year-old Italian author Oretta Zanini de Vita wants you to know that, immediately, upfront and center.

Zanini de Vita says,

Dried pasta, the kind made with durum wheat, is found in Italy from about A.D. 800. It was in fact the Muslim occupiers of Sicily who spread the manufacturing and drying technique.

But the Chinese beg to differ, and that’s another story …*

In the ongoing search for the roots of cuisine comes another branch: Oretta Zanini de Vita’s Encyclopedia of Pasta (California Studies in Food and Culture series, 2009). Translated from the original Italian by Maureen B. Fant, this particular offering far surpasses previous efforts like The Cook’s Encyclopedia of Pasta and so forth.

Photo credit: Alexander von Halem

Ostensibly a catalog of pasta shapes, because — as Zanini de Vita says “Pasta may be the unchallenged symbol of Italian food, yet no in-depth research as ever been done on its many shapes [she found over 1300 names for pastas].” — Encyclopedia of Pasta comes in part from oral history, adding a dimension to food studies research that is usually missing. After all, unless time travel turns out to be part of the new technology, no one can go back and talk to the peasants standing outside the manor house, watching the sides of beef and haunches of venison being carried in for great feasts.

4000-Year-old Chinese Pasta (Photo credit: K.B.K. Teo, E. Minoux et al.)

Most scholars rely on early printed texts, but knowing that an important historical source would soon disappear, Zanini de Vita chose another route. In her own journey, not unlike the wanderlust-infected Marco Polo, she traveled across Italy for ten years, talking

with samplings of very old people, trying to jog their memories about the pasta-making traditions and rituals of the past. … Their stories vividly confirmed … until just after World War II, the country had eaten ‘green,’ that is, only vegetable soup, with pasta a s a rule reserved for the tables of the middle and upper classes in towns and cities and only occasionally for the feast-day tables of the poor.

In addition to the bibliography, bilingual indices, and glossary, the result is 290 pages of alphabetically arranged entries, giving the name of the pasta shape and its type, ingredients, alternative names, how served, where found, and remarks about the pasta made by the informants. No pretty colorful pictures gloss the text, but lovely hand-drawn illustrations by Luciana Marini grace many entries. An ample bibliography of Italian-language works, as well as notes and a glossary, provide the necessary scholarly touch to a work that a reader will actually want to read while burning the midnight oil. Like all good literature, Encyclopedia of Pasta tells a good story, or rather, many great stories about a food that symbolizes, frankly, a collective nostalgic myth surrounding Italian cuisine.

Regarding a stuffed pasta called Ofelle, Zanini de Vita writes:

The word offa used to mean the Roman spelt cake that was offered to the gods. Aeneas himself, when he came face to face with Cerberus at the gates to the underworld, managed to put the terrible dog to sleep by giving him an ‘offa made sleepy with honey and drugged meal.’

And in the many names and shapes of pasta lie a lot of history. Just one example serves to illustrate this aspect of pasta shapes: Cappellacci dei Briganti:

The name, literally ‘brigands’ hats, refers to the conical hat with upturned brim that was part of the everyday uniform of the briganti, from brigantaggio, a bloody and disorderly social and political movement active in the Mezzogiorno during the unification of Italy and the first decade of the Kingdom of Italy.

Among the complaints a reader might have about Encyclopedia of Pasta is that there are no numerically detailed recipes, much like many old cookbooks. However, the enterprising cook could take the list of ingredients and the notes in the “How Made” section and attempt to reproduce the tastes of the past. Another question concerns the reliability of her informants, but the copious bibliography indicates that much textual research went into Encyclopedia of Pasta as well as oral history. Yet more needs to be done, as Oretta Zanini de Vita suggests:

[T]his is a first, hesitant attempt to catalog an unalienable heritage that belongs to all Italians. Perhaps there are some courageous and willing souls to carry it on.

Food of the gods. Maybe.

*The Marco Polo legend, according to Zanini de Vita, began in 1938 in Minneapolis, a “marketing gimmick,” thanks to L. B. Maxwell, for a trade publication, Macaroni Journal. For more about the Chinese/pasta connection, see Houyuan Lu et al. “Culinary archaeology: Millet noodles in Late Neolithic China“. Nature 437: 967–968, October 13, 2005.

© 2009 C. Bertelsen

Painting by Elizabeth Floyd

Guarded treasure, honeycomb partitions,
Richness of flavour,
Pentagonal architecture.
The rind splits; seeds fall–
Crimson seeds in azure bowls,
Or drops of gold in dishes of enamelled bronze.
–André Gide in Les Nourritures Terrestres (trans. Dorothy Bussy)

Like the pomegranate itself, so ripe and bursting with seeds, the history of this berry-like fruit reveals more and more the deeper one looks into it.

The myths, the legends, and the journeys of the pomegranate serve as an archetypal case of plant migration, illustrating how humans took a species and created variations of it.

Madonna of the Pomegranate, by Botticelli (1487)

Long associated with Christianity, the pomegranate represented fertility and faith. Artists painted pomegranates along with religious figures like the Virgin Mary and Christ.  In Spain, this seed-rich fruit inspired Queen Isabella, perhaps apocryphally, to say “Just like the pomegranate, I will take over Andalusia seed by seed.” The city name of Granada in Spain derives from the Latin for pomegranate and Granada’s coat of arms to this day contains a depiction of a pomegranate. The pomegranate appeared in California when Spanish Franciscan missionaries began planting orchards of pomegranates at the long string of missions up and down the coast.

Ginger Pot with Pomegranate and Pears, by Paul Cézanne

Take some of the names of pomegranate varieties currently grown in California:

Balegal, Cloud, Crab, Francis, Granada, King, Phoenicia (Fenecia), Wonderful …

Almost a poem, a haiku …

Appropriately, given the pomegranate’s association with fertility and its probable origins in Iran, my first encounter with the pomegranate took place at a spectacular wedding. My brother married into an Iranian family and one of the dishes featured in the vast repast prepared for that day was Khoresh-e Fessenjan, a rich Persian stew traditionally made with duck or pheasant and permeated with pomegranate syrup. (See my previous post —  “Iran: the Beauty of an Ancient Cuisine“)

Photo credit: Chris Chen

Khoresh-e Fessenjan (Poultry in Pomegranate Sauce) (Adapted from Food of Life: A Book of Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies, by Najmieh Batmanglij)

6 servings

2 large onions, chopped, divided
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
¼ cup oil
2 cups walnuts, finely ground in a food processor
1 t. salt
¼ t. freshly ground black pepper
½ t. ground cinnamon
½ t. freshly ground nutmeg
1 cup fresh orange juice
2/3 cup pomegranate syrup or molasses
1 T. sugar
¼ t. saffron, dissolved in 1 T. hot water
1 large frying chicken, cut into serving pieces

Sauté half the onion in 3 T. of the oil in a large heavy pot. Add the walnuts and fry for 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Stir in salt, pepper, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Cover with 1 ½ cup water.

Mix together the orange juice, pomegranate syrup, sugar, and saffron. Add this to the onion/walnut mixture. Cover, and simmer 20 minutes over low heat. Check taste and add more sugar if sauce is too sour.

Place chicken in another large pot with the remaining onion. Cover the pot and simmer for 30 minutes (1 hour if you use duck). DO NOT ADD WATER. Debone chicken when tender.

Add chicken to the pomegranate sauce mixture. Cook another 30 minutes. Stir occasionally, careful not to break up the chicken too much.

Check seasoning and place sauce/chicken in a covered casserole dish until serving. Serve with rice (chelo).

Note: You may use pomegranate juice as well. To make your own, just cut open the pomegranate like your would an orange or a grapefruit and squeeze out the juice or use a juicer.

How to Open a Pomegranate:

Pomegranates may seem intimidating, but they are easy to open. This efficient procedure for opening a pomegranate has six simple steps:
Cut – With a sharp paring knife, cut off the top about a half inch below the crown.
Score – Once the top has been removed, four to six sections of the pomegranate divided by white membrane will be visible. With the knife’s point, score the skin along each section.
Open – Using both hands, carefully pull the pomegranate apart, breaking it into smaller sections.
Loosen – Over a bowl of water, loosen the arils and allow them to drop freely into the bowl. The arils will sink to the bottom of the bowl and the membrane will float to the top.
Scoop – Use a spoon to scoop out the pieces of white membrane that have floated to the top of the water.
Strain – Pour the arils and remaining liquid through a strainer.

For more on cooking with pomegranates, see Pomegranates: 70 Celebratory Recipes, by Ann Kleinberg (2004). Another interesting source is  Pomegranates: Ancient Roots to Modern Medicine (Medicinal and Aromatic Plants – Industrial Profiles), by Navindra P. Seeram, Risa N. Schulman, and David Heber (CRC, 2006).

© 2009 C. Bertelsen

Photo credit: C. Bertelsen

Our sense of the ancientness of the pomegranate comes not just from words, but also from the earth.

Words do provide clues to the incredible journey of the pomegranate, such as this little ditty inscribed in Egyptian hieroglyphics — said to be translated by Ezra Pound and Noel Stock, from an Italian rendition by Boris de Rachewiltz, based on papyrus and pottery preserved from 1567 – 1085 BC.

The Pomegranate speaks:
My leaves are like your teeth
My fruit like your breasts.
I, the most beautiful of fruits,
Am present in all weathers, all seasons
As the lover stays forever with the beloved,
Drunk on shedeh* and wine.
All the trees lose their leaves, all
Trees but the Pomegranate.
I alone in all the garden lose not my beauty,
I remain straight.

When my leaves fall,
New leaves are budding.
First among fruits
I demand that my position be acknowledged,
I will not take second place.
And if I receive such an insult again
You will never hear the end of it….

Papyrus and the pottery point to other sources, as do myths like that of Persephone and Demeter,** passed down in almost universally in one sense or another. In a parallel with Persephone, evidence comes from the earth, and at times, from the sea.

Pomegranate artifact from Israel

In Iraq, a vase found in Uruk dating back to 4000 BC suggests that pomegranates enjoyed lively popularity, while in Iran small pomegranate tokens dated to 3300 BC surfaced in Susa.

The Torah, specifically Exodus 28:33-34, expounds on the pomegranate, one of the Seven Species — the others being barley, dates, figs, grapes, olives, and wheat. This list represents a good profile of the important plants growing at the time and which eventually formed the basis of much of the cuisine of the Middle East. Today, Jews traditionally eat pomegranates on Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot, for they regard the pomegranate as an important symbol of righteousness. Legend has it that the pomegranate contains 613 seeds, one for each of the 613 mitzvot (commandments) of the Torah. Archaeological evidence for the presence of pomegranates in what is now modern-day Israel comes from a 1600 BC Hyksos tomb in Jericho — the find consisted of a box shaped like a pomegranate, with six whole fruits. A recent find in the City of David generated some controversy over the interpretation of the meaning and significance of the object:

Ivory Pomegranate with Dove

January 9, 2009 Ha’aretz Hebrew online edition has an illustrated report about the discovery in the City of David excavations led by Dr. Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron of a miniature ivory pomegranate …

That the pomegranate moved with the trade routes is indisputable, as archaeologists found thousands of seeds in a 13th-century BC shipwreck off the coast of Turkey, at Ulu Burun (Kas).  The ship carried goods originally from all over the Mediterranean.***

The fact that part of the pomegranate’s scientific name — Punica — comes from “Phoenician” hints at the pomegranate’s restless travels.

*Shedeh: a drink from ancient Egypt, suspected to have been made form pomegranates, but recent research suggests that people used grapes instead. See Maria Rosa Guasch-Jané, Cristina Andrés-Lacueva, Olga Jáuregui and Rosa M. Lamuela-Raventós, The origin of the ancient Egyptian drink Shedeh revealed using LC/MS/MS, Journal of Archaeological Science, 33 (1): 98-101, January 2006.

**For an in-depth analysis of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, see The Narcissus and the Pomegranate: An Archaeology of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, by Ann Suter, 2003. See also Nightly She Sings on Yon Pomegranate-Tree.

***Cheryl Ward, Pomegranates in Eastern Mediterranean Contexts during the Late Bronze Age. World Archaeology 34(3):529-541, 2003.

To be continued …

© 2009 C. Bertelsen

Magic and myth wind through the history of many foods.

At the crux of these stories the very mysteries of life clamor for explanation.

In the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone, for example, it’s possible to feel the foreboding of ancient humans when the first chill kissed the air and darkness descended over leafless trees and barren fields.

Demeter and Persephone. Mother and daughter. Goddesses of Earth. Fertility.  Loss. Hope. A very human story, actually.

Frederic Leighton: The Return of Persephone (1891)

But first let’s gather around the fire pit and let the old storytellers speak:

And when Demeter saw them, she rushed forth as does a Maenad down some thick-wooded mountain, while Persephone on the other side, when she saw her mother’s sweet eyes, left the chariot and horses, and leaped down to run to her, and falling upon her neck, embraced her. But while Demeter was still holding her dear child in her arms, her heart suddenly misgave her for some snare, so that she feared greatly and ceased fondling her daughter and asked of her at once: “My child, tell me, surely you have not tasted any food while you were below? Speak out and hide nothing, but let us both know. For if you have not, you shall come back from loathly Hades and live with me and your father, the dark-clouded Son of Cronos and be honoured by all the deathless gods; but if you have tasted food, you must go back again beneath the secret places of the earth, there to dwell a third part of the seasons every year: yet for the two parts you shall be with me and the other deathless gods. But when the earth shall bloom with the fragrant flowers of spring in every kind, then from the realm of darkness and gloom thou shalt come up once more to be a wonder for gods and mortal men. And now tell me how he rapt you away to the realm of darkness and gloom, and by what trick did the strong Host of Many beguile you?”*

Persephone answered her mother by saying

… he secretly put in my mouth sweet food, a pomegranate seed, and forced me to taste against my will.*

Pomegranate.

Punica granatum or “seedy apple.”

Perhaps the “apple” of Eden, the forbidden fruit of the Garden of Paradise? “I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranates….” (Song of Songs 8:2)

Photo credit: Judy Baxter

Now languishing in food markets, scarlet mounds of womb-shaped pomegranates still shroud the seeds of that ancient myth. And yet the tough skin and multitude of seeds of this fruit gave birth to more than myth.

Art. Religion Literature. Cuisine. Through these, it’s possible to trace the journey of the pomegranate from Iran, where it may have originated, to the Mediterranean-like soil of California.

To be continued …

*From the Homeric hymns, Hymn to Demeter, 7^th century BC.

For more about myth, see Karen Armstrong’s A Short History of Myth.

© 2009 C. Bertelsen

A novel about an arrogant food critic could only happen in France. Bien sûr!

Some time ago, I set myself the challenging and Sisyphean task of reading Muriel Barbery’s first novel, Une gourmandise, in French.  (Barbery’s reputation rests on her extremely philosophical second novel — The Elegance of the Hedgehog [what a title!], which took France by storm. The heavy larding of the text with academic philosophical bits proved to be the downfall of many American readers. But not all.)

Un peu every day. Slog, slog, but of the pleasurable sort. But, finally, in September 2009, the English translation — Gourmet Rhapsody (with its lousy translation of the title, Une gourmandise, IMO) — appeared and, with relief, I read un peu of both versions every day, in little chunks to assure myself that my twisted French à l’ancienne still worked, un peu at least.

Several of the same characters in Hedgehog appear in cameo in Une gourmandise. But center stage belongs to the insufferable food critic and food writer, Pierre Arthens, dead as a plucked pheasant in Hedgehog, but vibrant as a crowing peacock in Gourmet Rhapsody.

Right off the bat, Pierre Arthens calls himself “the greatest food critic in the world.” (Je suis le plus grand critique gastronomique du monde.)

Uh, OK. A little ego thing going there, a big attitude with no adjustment in sight, but people apparently can live with that sort of thing. I mean, stand in any grocery store checkout lane, and scan the headlines of the tabloids and fan magazines displayed oh so subtly for one’s ready pleasure, conveniently placed within an eye’s reach and an arm’s length. We’re a culture that worships large egos.

And so, faced with his impending death, the egotistical Arthens recounts his frantic attempt to recall a certain great taste during his last 48 hours.

Une gourmandise/Gourmet Rhapsody really nails it when it comes to descriptions of food. Arthens, through Barbery’s pen, captures one taste memory after another in seductive, almost pornographic, prose:

The grilled sardines filled the entire neighborhood with their ashy marine aroma.  … In the flesh of grilled fish, from the humblest of mackerel to the most refined salmon, there is something that defies culture. Early man, in learning to cook fish, must have felt his humanity for the first time, in this substance where fire revealed both essential purity and wildness. (Les sardines grillées embaumaient tout le quartier de leur fumet océanique et cendré. … Il y a dans la chair du poisson grillé, du plus humble des maquereaux au plus raffiné des saumons, quelque chose qui échappe à la culture. C’est ainsi que les hommes, apprenant à cuire leur poisson, durent éprouver pour la première fois leur humanité, dans cette matière dont le feu révélait conjointement la pureté et la sauvagerie essentielles.)

And so it goes, for pages, different foods, buried memories, dishes bordering on the divine, more vignettes than traditional story telling, a calling up of last suppers and large regrets. Barbery certainly grasps the power of critics and writers to make and break lives.

Nevertheless, when the last pages fall together, at THE END, images of other unforgettable (but real) food writers and food critics emerge out of the mental stew served up by Barbery.

Take a moment to reflect on this Day of all Souls (La Toussaint). In tribute, remember those saintly souls of the food world who went before, leaving us with profound pleasure on the page and in the pan, those who wrote seductively and winningly of food and the kitchen.

The following are just some of the souls who “preserve” me on the page and in the kitchen. Arthens they’re not …

Elizabeth Pennell

Elizabeth David

M. F. K. Fisher

Roy Andries de Groot

Photo credit Nancy Crampton

Laurie Colwin

And a nod to all the late food-besotted personalities included in Culinary Biographies, as well as those found in the series edited by Holly Hughes, Best Food Writing … even if the writers from the latter still wield their pens.

*As All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day are called in France.

© 2009 C. Bertelsen

[A photograph, and nothing more, for silent contemplation.]