As mentioned below, I want to write fiction and write about food. At first glance it appears I have what it takes: passion for food and writing; an awareness of detail, an inherited talent for spinning stories*, and the ability to construct good sentences; but something is seriously missing, both at the palate and the pen end of things.
Take vinegar, for example. I've wanted to write about vinegar for acid year for months. I have a collection of 16 vinegars in my house: white, industrial cider, Canadian artisanal cider, coconut, champagne, sherry, opal basil, rice, black Chinese, ume plum, red wine (Rioja), malt, lesser expensive balsamic, really nice balsamic and Spanish white wine. I have tasted and used all of these except the ume plum and coconut (both of which, to the uninitiated me, just taste sharp and nasty). The really nice balsamic can actually be sipped as an aperitif and is smoother and sweeter than the big bottle of balsamic. The sherry is my favorite for most things: bracing and tart but complex, smooth, and not the least bit like cleaning solution or old wine. Artisanal cider vinegar is nothing like Heinz cider and Heinz cider tastes more apple-y and real (less like industrial cleaning solution) than the Walmart Great Value brand which is useful to know, if one is going to try to drink a spoonful of vinegar before each meal as a dietary tonic. They all taste different and they all taste acidic.
Yep, that's about the best I can do. Months of working with these vinegars and thinking about them and how I should blog about them and what do I come up with? A list.
Something is missing from the great food (or fiction) writer I would like to be. Let's hope it is just time.
*some might call a high BS factor. It permeates both of my parents' families.
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6 comments:
No, no, the list is a central feature of all-too-much postmodern fiction. You are on your way. A ten page list of varieties of vinegar, some real, some fictional, with commentary, is a publishable short story.
I am not even kidding. You'll be the Italo Calvino of food.
He's right. Throw in a reference to the Arcades Project, come up with an enigmatic phrase -- "Vinegar is the prostitute of order" sounds about right -- and you're away.
While I don't doubt the veracity of your encouragement, it quickly leads to a big problem. I don't like reading lists.
I love writing them.
I'm hoping to write the kind of thing that I enjoy reading.
Many writers try to make themselves into something they are not before inevitably embracing their true talent.
Herring vinegar. Puffin egg vinegar.
Luckily for me, fiction writers have written and are writing exactly the kind of thing I enjoy reading. My behavior suggests that I do not believe the critics are doing as well.
Vinegar for the beach. Vinegar for the car.
I did expound on Umbagollah thought, "Vinegar is the prostitute of order. The acidity wears away at the very corner stones of the foundations of society". Then I throw in a reference to the junior high experiment shaking up chalk (limestone) in vinegar. And there would be a profound allusion to climate change for those so inclined.
I'm unconvinced that we should all just embrace our true talent. I am really good at writing sappy, simplistic poetry. I do not like reading such poetry written by other people, so I have a hard time envisioning myself embracing it.
If I do, someday, write longer fiction (or essays) they will certainly include lists, as I think and write in lists, but I'd like to hope I don't inflict much on the wider world until I can offer additional substance to go with my lists.
Well, but what if sappy poetry is the thing you need to write before you can reach the beyond-sappy-poetry phase of your existence? Sappy poetry might be your seed and not your terminus. Not stasis but vehicle.
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