FROM A CLIPPING FILE: FOOD IN LITERATURE
Literature offers possibilities, examples: possible lives, thoughts, feelings, actions; here or far away, now or in years to come or years past. In doing so, it helps us understand ourselves and others, which is to say the human condition. In literature, as in life, food can play an important role. It is an effective device in storytelling, because it is both an instantly recognisable aspect of all our lives — a means of identification between reader and text — and a highly specific signifier of personality and culture small and large. Food is nature and it is culture. It is immensely important to our sense of self, because it makes tangible the relationship between us as people and the world around us, which again is to say the human condition. The following examples of food making an appearance in literary works can feel random, and they in many ways are. They have been read and remembered over the years, clipped away in the corners of our brains where memorable things live. Some deal with food in a grand, theoretical sense, others mention it almost in passing. In these texts, food serves as a narrative arc, as example, as setting and scenery, as a common denominator or character-defining quirk.
This list contains ten fragments of literature, which have all been previously posted on our Instagram page, illustrated with photos from photographers and friends. Making the ten mark seemed as good a time as any to compile this list, but as much as this selection showcases a richness, it also inevitably points towards the books not read, the ideas and perspectives lacking and the languages never learned.
Irmgard Keun: After Midnight, 1937
After having her books burned by the Nazis, Irmgard Keun fled to Ostend in Belgium and began to write her masterful short novel After Midnight, in which she processed the impending terror of the early years in the Third Reich through the perspective of the politically naive, yet intuitively smart young Sanna. This line captures her attitude at the beginning of the novel perfectly: Only half understanding what is going on around her, she tries to be inconspicuous — and wishes she could just focus on her beer.
“I’d like to sit and drink my beer in peace, but when I hear the word weltanschauung I know there’s trouble ahead.”
Photo (upper left): Andreas Lisander
Albert Camus: The Stranger, 1942
A book that probably needs little introduction, The Stranger is Camus’ masterpiece of absurd existentialism. This fragment illustrates the protagonist Meursault’s beginning estrangement from society, and in some ways serves to show that he has already stopped playing the game — by eating his eggs straight from the pan.
“I decided not to lunch at Celeste’s restaurant as I usually did; they’d be sure to pester me with questions, and I dislike being questioned. So I fried some eggs and ate them off the pan. I did without bread as there wasn’t any left, and I couldn’t be bothered going down to buy it.”
Photo (upper left and lower right): Mono Germany
Christa Wolf: What Remains, 1979/1989
This fragment from Christa Wolf’s What Remains, her account of a day in the life of an author whose every movement is followed by the East-German secret police, shows that even in the face of extreme situations, food is something to be grateful for and one should never forget that.
“The coffee had to be strong and hot, filtered, the egg not too soft, home-made jam was preferred, black bread. Luxury! Luxury! I thought, as I did every morning seeing everything assembled on the table — a never-waning feeling of guilt to us, we who know of shortage, that permeates and heightens every single pleasure.”
Photo (upper right): Yannic Moeken
J.D. Salinger: Franny and Zooey, 1961
In the case of Franny and Zooey, J.D. Salinger uses food — in particular a restaurant order — to create a striking and very vivid image of a personality, using very few words. Across the table from, and in contrast to, Franny, Lane orders snails and frog legs, while sipping on martini cocktails.
““You haven’t touched your goddam sandwich,” Lane said suddenly. “You know that?”
Franny looked down at her plate as if it had just been placed before her. “I will in a minute,” she said. She sat still for a moment, holding her cigarette, but without dragging on it, in her left hand, and with her right hand fixed tensely around the base of the glass of milk.”
Photo (lower left): Rita Lino
Joan Didion: Good Citizens, 1968-1970
In Good Citizens, Joan Didion mocks the empty phrases and good-willed clichés she hears at dinner. The fancy French strawberries further emphasize the pretense and self-congratulatory atmosphere in the societal circles she writes about.
“‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’, someone said to me at dinner not long ago, and before we had finished our fraises des bois, he had advised me as well that ‘no man is an island.’”
Photo (left): Joanna Legid
Lily Allen: LDN, 2006
When Lily Allen broke out in the 2000s, it was immediately obvious that she had one of the sharpest tongues in pop. In LDN she paints a portrait of her hometown, observing what goes on while riding through the city on her bike. Differences in social circumstance become obvious when she contrasts an old lady struggling with bags from Tesco with business people eating their lunch al fresco.
“There was a little old lady who was walking down the road
She was struggling with bags from Tesco
There were people from the city having lunch in the park
I believe that it’s called al fresco”
Photo (upper left and lower right): Yu Xi
Willem Frederik Hermans: From Countless Millions, 1981
Willem Frederik Hermans, who is considered to be one of the great post-war Dutch authors, is famous for his nihilistic views and explosive opening lines. This one certainly is a banger — with just a kettle full of water waiting to be turned into tea, he sets the scene of a marriage in distress.
“When Clemens would, for once, get out of bed before Sita, he would go into the kitchen to make tea and while waiting for the water to boil, he would think: I’m actually a good person for not poisoning her.”
Photo (lower left): Canqi Mu
Nathaniel West: The Day of the Locust, 1939
Nathaniel West’s The Day of the Locust describes California during the Golden Age of Hollywood as a land of oranges and broken dreams, of tensions rising. With all this impending violence still brooding under the surface, for now, the right clothes are worn and the right fad diets are followed on the road to health and happiness — highlighting the societal rights and wrongs that have surrounded food since the dawn of time.
“Her next question surprised them both.
‘Who do you follow?’
‘What?’ said Tod.
‘I mean — in the Search for Health, along the Road of Life?’
They both gaped at her.
‘I’m a raw-foodist, myself’ she said.
‘Dr Pierce is our leader. You must have seen his ads — “Know-All Pierce-All.”’”
Photo (right): Tim Bruening
Marcel Proust: Swann’s way, 1913
This one is such a cliché it even has a psychological phenomenon named after it: The madeleine moment, otherwise known as involuntary memory. When Proust’s narrator dunks a madeleine into a cup of tea, a flurry of childhood memories rushes over him like a tsunami — an experience most of us are familiar with, though not necessarily caused by a madeleine.
“And as soon as I had recognized the taste of the piece of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-blossom which my aunt used to give me…immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set to attach itself to the little pavilion opening on to the garden which had been built out behind it for my parents….and the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea.”
Photo (lower left): Yu Xi
Annie Dillard: Total Eclipse, 1982
Annie Dillard describes being shaken to the core by the sighting of a rare total eclipse in 1979. With all of reality now a question mark, the only thing that makes immediate sense is food. There is never a question about food and what to do with it.
“There are a few more things to tell from this level, the level of the restaurant. One is the old joke about breakfast. “It can never be satisfied, the mind, never.” Wallace Stevens wrote that, and in the long run he was right. The mind wants to live forever, or to learn a very good reason why not. The mind wants the world to return its love, or its awareness; the mind wants to know all the world, and all eternity, and God. The mind’s sidekick, however, will settle for two eggs over easy.”
Photo (upper right): Andreas Schreiner
Text: Yannic Moeken
Photos (in files): Tim Bruening, Joanna Legid, Rita Lino, Andreas Lisander, Yannic Moeken, Mono Germany, Canqi Mu, Andreas Schreiner, Yu Xi
