Can’t Travel? read a book. Can’t find gourmet food? read a book. Even better, read a travel book that delves into the food.
I ended up doing just that and getting help from a delightful section called . is called A Moveable Feast: Life-Changing Food Adventures Around the World, This lonely Planet The publication takes you to distant lands and food through the eyes and words of some notable authors.
Take the opening lines of Pico Iyer’s essay ‘Daily Bread’. He is in a Benedictine hermitage in California. “Whatever is soft as hope, and the long spears of asparagus are so elegant on the plate that choosing one feels like messing with the symmetry of a clay. We have bowls of lettuce among us, and chunky vegetable soup alone is hearty.” Will make for a meal. Bottles of salad dressing crowd the white-wood table, big enough for the six of us, while early spring sunlight streams into the window-filled reflectors, making it seem like we savoring the radiance and taking in a long draft of the sun.”
Each chapter is a beautifully crafted essay that looks at people, food, culture and memories. And some memories are not only about the food but also about the circumstances in which it was consumed.
anxiously relax
“Like most of us, I really enjoy eating in motion,” writes author Jan Morris. “An Indian curry is at its best when it is promptly thrown through the window of your coach at Hooghly station, just before your great train leaves for Mumbai.” She recalls aboard the Orient Express’s “Last Weak Relic”, where she was given a paper bag containing an apple, cheese and half a bottle of excellent white wine – “better than when we work across Europe.” What could be chewing?”
There is something curiously comforting about these dreamlike chapters. You’re locked indoors, thanks to a seemingly indisputable virus, but find yourself in the Italian Riviera with American author and journalist David Downey. He stands in front of a vegetable patch that has been destroyed by a boar and watches the farmer cutting down the damaged plants one after the other. “He rummaged among artichokes, sniping and yanking, before turning to the lemon tree hanging from the yellow ornaments. Soon the basket began to burst, its contents carefully arranged. He handed it to us.”
Slightly different
I then find myself in French Guiana with journalist-writer Mark Kurlansky, as he recounts his favorite restaurant in Cayenne. “It’s typical in jungle sports: gamey little agoutis, succulent tapir stews, an occasional python or an iguana, foods you can’t find in many places… I don’t understand why everyone else isn’t there.” Also… Instead, they crowded French restaurants to eat northern foods that weren’t tropics-friendly, sweaty pâtés and gloppy sauces that spoiled in the heat—and after In your stomach. Well, I conclude, this is what the French prefer—as with most cultures with good cuisine, hanging completely on its own.”
It’s the subtext—like the slightly different one about the consonant snobbery—that makes this book so readable. The link between food and culture is also running through the essay, ‘Cooking with Donna’, by travel editor William Sertle. She’s in a luxurious Caribbean estate and has just been given a beautiful bell that she needs to ring for the next course.
“At first, I laughed unintentionally. Then I leaned over, and stood up, pushed my chair under the table and went straight to an unknown area of the kitchen. Donna was stirring the contents of the pot on the stove. I approached, lifted the lid and said, ‘What’s for dinner?’
He believes that food is the key to culture – “the easiest way to build relationships with people you haven’t met yet”. Specifically, I’d add the food you still have to try (python, anyone?) and the trips you still have to make.
Rahul Verma loves to read and write about food as much as he loves to cook and eat. well almost.
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