While in Portland with my father, we paid a visit to Powell’s book store. There was never a consideration that we might not, but rather a large and looming possibility that we might not do anything else. I consider Powell's headquarters, "the city of books," the absolute epicenter of Portland. Founded 38 years ago, the new and used book retailer resides in a huge multi-story building that takes up an entire city block. There, I can get lost in the uber-literary blue room, perhaps find myself in the red room's travel section or indulge in the rare and out of print collections in the pear room. There's even a café with good coffee, tea and delectables where patrons are welcome to bring in unpurchcased books for perusal. I’ve spent entire weekends in Powell’s, sleeping in a car with the bookstore in clear sight. Like a book itself, Powell’s is a place of powerful potential.
On our Saturday in Portland, my dad and I shopped at the satellite stores in the Hawthorne district, saving the main store for Sunday. I spent a few solid hours and a very restrained $150 in the Home and Gardening store, which shelves cookbooks and food literature. I admit I went a little crazy with the food lit.
Now, you’ve surely noticed, attentive reader, that I do not actually post recipes, at least not in any measured manner, but rather ramble about the inspirations and results of a meal. This is what attracts me to the genre of food literature, to the combination reference books and autobiographies of yesteryear written by the likes of James Beard, Elizabeth David and M.F.K. Fisher.
In their books, food and words become intertwined to create an image. Through that series of images, a person emerges. It’s less an accumulation of measurements meant to help you recreate a meal. More a movie reel recalling the sources of ingredients and people that made a meal immeasurable, unrepeatable and unforgettable.
Some of my favorite examples of food literature are James Beard’s “Delights and Prejudices,” an autobiographical bildungsroman of sorts complete with the recipes of his childhood and travels, with details of food and places that existed a century ago; Thomas McNamee’s biography “Alice Waters and Chez Panisse,” which chronicles Waters’ romance with the food culture of the 70’s and how she planted the roots of localalized eating in America. Michael Pollan’s “Omnivore’s Dilemna,” is a fabulous read if you skip the introduction, and the most popular example food literature on the shelves today.
To beef up my library, I bought MFK Fisher’s “How to Cook A Wolf” and Elizabeth David’s “Is There a Nutmeg in the House?”. Ethan Stowell’s Queen Anne restaurant How to Cook a Wolf inspired me to read it’s namesake, Fisher’s book. The book is not a cookbook so much as an instructional. Fisher's every wit is intended to help the reader preserve dignity in the face of poverty and hunger. Whenever appetite, Shakespeare's "universal wolf," scratches at the door, she has a menu for remedy. She takes such pleasure in food, and seemingly the economy of food, I wonder if hunger permanently heightened her appreciation. I know some deprivation always makes a sensation sweeter. For a comparison between past and present, I also picked up the anthology " Best Food Writing 2009," edited by Holly Hughes.
What's in a book? Something so great. The words are the essence of the author’s work and toil. It’s not just a story, but a dialogue between writer and reader, rooted in time and place and then uprooted from its context when each new reader cracks the cover. The book becomes a capsule of sorts, the conquest of a period and a person. What's even better is when the author and reader can together conspire in a new creation, perhaps something in the kitchen.
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