The summer issue of Bookforum has a review of Lara Vapnyar’s “Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love.”
In these brief, precisely rendered stories, each character’s relationship to food — a lovelorn woman obsessed with vegetables, a man estranged from his wife and in need of all kinds of nourishment, two older women preparing Russian dishes to compete for the only single man in their adult-education class – establishes his or her degree of assimilation into American culture.
The collection reminds me of a particular favorite of mine by Jim Crace, “The Devil’s Larder.” It’s not quite a collection of short stories, more like short-shorts, but all fantastical stories about food. Here’s an excerpt from one section:
Someone has taken off – and lost – the label on the can. There are two glassy lines of glue with just a trace of stripped paper where the label was attached. The can’s batch number – RG2JD 19547 – is embossed on one of the ends. Top or bottom end? No one can tell what’s up or down. The metal isn’t very old.
One night when there are guests and all the wine has gone, they put the can into the candlelight and play the guessing game. An aphrodisiac, perhaps; “Let’s try.” A plague. Should they open up and spoon it out? A tune, canned music, something never heard before that would rise from the open can, evaporate, and not be heard again. The exlixir of youth. The human soup of DNA. A Devil or a god?
If that’s not enough food focus for foodies, there’s the lit journal focusing on food. Alimentum, on its fifth issue, boasts an article on Czeslaw Milosz growing a garden (he’s one of my favorite poets); and a story about an Antartic stew of dubious ingredients.
I know what you’re thinking. Yes, so I’m a bit food obsessed. But hey, I just spent a week in Puerto Vallarta doing nothing but sitting in the sun and eating. So give me a bit of leeway here.
