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Sunday when I was in the bookstore I was perusing the food writing section to see if there was anything new or interesting I had missed as of late. I probably own a good amount of what is in that section but a person still looks. I also (despite not being in the book business anymore) wanted to see how things are trending at the moment.
I wouldn't say it is dreary but it is obvious publishers are saturating the market these days with snout to tail/look how smug my locavore ways are/Michael Pollan is my God sis boom bah stuff. While I heartily believe and mostly practice a lot of that stuff it gets a wee bit old and tiresome to see nothing but that stuff on the shelves. It is kind of like how ten years ago it was all, "and then I bought a second house in some bucolic location and the natives taught me how to eat now let me wax poetic about a salad I had."
I know I can't lay all the blame on Michael Pollan. He is a nice enough guy. But he is kind of like a preacher and sometimes you want to say, "don't you have a ladies auxiliary meeting to attend?"
I think some of the snout to tail eating books are an off-shoot of the "bucolic living" books. People trying to get porny over kidneys and the unctuous experience of pork belly on your tongue. By the way it is required to use the word unctuous at least once if you are a food writer. Extra points if you can employ the word engorged. It is like amateur night with D.H. Lawrence.
A wild unctuous experience with some foie gras and shaved truffles. The truffles were found by a farmer and his dog Cavalcanti. The farmer is a fan of Dante's "La Vita Nuova" and the loyalty of his truffle-hunting dog is much like that of Dante's friend (and fellow poet) Cavalcanti. The foie gras came from geese that were reared by a half-blind woman who had been raising geese for decades as a form of pin money.
But then getting all hot and bothered about foie gras and truffles is kind of easy. I suppose it takes real skill as a writer to make trotters seem like hot stuff.
I suppose at heart I think MFK Fisher would go, "I was doing this back when all of you were making balls out of wonder bread and bouncing them off of the walls."
Ah the state of publishing. If you get one good hit you will repeat until that well is dry and you have to use your remaindered copies of Rachel Ray 97 ways to use cream of mushroom soup as kindling.
So I didn't come home with any books.
I wouldn't say it is dreary but it is obvious publishers are saturating the market these days with snout to tail/look how smug my locavore ways are/Michael Pollan is my God sis boom bah stuff. While I heartily believe and mostly practice a lot of that stuff it gets a wee bit old and tiresome to see nothing but that stuff on the shelves. It is kind of like how ten years ago it was all, "and then I bought a second house in some bucolic location and the natives taught me how to eat now let me wax poetic about a salad I had."
I know I can't lay all the blame on Michael Pollan. He is a nice enough guy. But he is kind of like a preacher and sometimes you want to say, "don't you have a ladies auxiliary meeting to attend?"
I think some of the snout to tail eating books are an off-shoot of the "bucolic living" books. People trying to get porny over kidneys and the unctuous experience of pork belly on your tongue. By the way it is required to use the word unctuous at least once if you are a food writer. Extra points if you can employ the word engorged. It is like amateur night with D.H. Lawrence.
A wild unctuous experience with some foie gras and shaved truffles. The truffles were found by a farmer and his dog Cavalcanti. The farmer is a fan of Dante's "La Vita Nuova" and the loyalty of his truffle-hunting dog is much like that of Dante's friend (and fellow poet) Cavalcanti. The foie gras came from geese that were reared by a half-blind woman who had been raising geese for decades as a form of pin money.
But then getting all hot and bothered about foie gras and truffles is kind of easy. I suppose it takes real skill as a writer to make trotters seem like hot stuff.
I suppose at heart I think MFK Fisher would go, "I was doing this back when all of you were making balls out of wonder bread and bouncing them off of the walls."
Ah the state of publishing. If you get one good hit you will repeat until that well is dry and you have to use your remaindered copies of Rachel Ray 97 ways to use cream of mushroom soup as kindling.
So I didn't come home with any books.
