Tags
I’ve been away. From here, I mean. Though you may not have noticed, quite rightly. It’s been an interesting month, of reading books, one sometimes after the other, like the courses of a meal. And books that aren’t remotely about food or eating still contain passages that made me stop and want to write them down or pause. Logan Mountstuart, the writer in William Boyd’s novel Any Human Heart, eats dog food. First by mistake and then by choice, because it’s cheap and he’s now poor; he particularly likes the rabbit (‘especially with the liberal addition of some tomato ketchup and a good jolt of Worcestershire sauce’). This precipitates his move from London – leaving just as Margaret Thatcher becomes prime minister, 1979 – to France. A ‘rich haul’ of ceps and girolles, an occasional mushroom omelette, two meals a day and wine and potato crisps at night. He dies, I believe happily, his body discovered in the garden by a friend ‘who had come to Cinq Cypres with the gift of a basket of apples’.
I was relieved when he left England, his cramped basement flat in Pimlico, and spent his last years in a ruin with a dog and a cat in France burning cherry logs, avoiding the spitting acacia, with pine ‘bringing up the rear’ and eating proper food. The end of a wild journey through the century.
This meal, the one pictured here, was largely taken up with talking about books. We ate at Rochelle Canteen in Shoreditch. I bumped into Ralph Fiennes picking over some oranges outside Leila’s Shop on the way there. It’s that kind of place (you can make your mind up what I mean by that…I like Ralph Fiennes. I like oranges. Perhaps it was the dark splendour of the interior of the shop itself that scared me). I felt more at ease with the van on the corner selling bacon baps and cups of tea the colour of malt. I don’t know what that says. And the old lady serving had yellow hair, like the colour of crayons. I’ve had more bacon baps in my life, and stewed tea (bag in) than hake, and laverbread butter, and apple galettes. I suppose that might be it.
Anyway, we ate the very refined food, as pictured, and talked about food writing. Or rather we rasped over the clamour of voices and general scraping of chairs, reduced to occasional semaphoring. What was that about Diana Henry? etc.
I am old, longing for quiet. And dare I say it, I’d rather read an actual book – a novel, or a memoir, a biography – than a cookbook, however learned. We all have to eat; a brilliant book will have stuff in it somewhere, about food, about the time, all in context and memorable.
I have no idea how Andrea Ashworth recalled with such detail the food of the 1970s, of her childhood in Manchester, in Once in a House on Fire. Terrible things happen to her, to her sisters and mother. Sometimes the bleakness and violence feels too sad to bear, but the details are poetry and she is a child again in the telling – Asda versus Kwik Save (Asda infinitely superior – ‘Kwik Save smelled of the weather’ ). When times are hard they eat boiled potatoes under ‘an avalanche of salt’ or Rich Tea biscuits sandwiched by ‘a glance of marg’ and wrapped in newspaper. When there’s a windfall there’s Country Life butter, real milk, ‘half a pound of white Cheshire cheese…grainy brown bread, Weetabix’. And then there’s whatever they’re given to eat or drink at the places they pitch up to in the middle of the night, on the run from a crazed stepfather – hot Ribena in Auntie Pauline’s caravan.
Or this about her favourite refuge: ‘I found myself falling in love with the edge of Auntie Vera’s toast, where the crusts were always slightly burned and butter caught without melting, so you got a glob of it on your tongue’.
Or there’s this, for beautiful words, all on their own: ‘I missed our daytime television and the haunting half-whistle of The Clangers, hiding in moon craters, singing circles to each other through the big black – echoing without words.’ I could go on. Anyhow, it’s better than a cookbook in my view and leaves you feeling full. I hope you read it. The end.
William Boyd is brilliant. I haven’t read Any Human Heart yet, but A Good Man in Africa may well be the funniest misadventure I’ve ever read, and Waiting for Sunrise is a capitvating, if odd, WWII entertainment. I’d read anything he wrote. Andrea Ashworth is new to me, but from the snippets you quoted she sounds like the sort of observant, resourceful child you want to follow through her travails. Why is it that some people are crushed by such experiences and other survive – and even thrive – on their memories of buttered crusts? A great essay – you’re not old! (if you are, I’m ancient, ergo, you’re NOT old) accompanying a trio of great photos (although I wondered if I were witnessing a dessert in media res, or diners in surrender). I always feel so satisfied after reading one of your posts. Thank you. Ken
P.S. Real Cooking finally arrived. From England! So many things I want to revisit.
Hi Ken. I feel old. You’re definitely not old. I think it’s my first English winter in a while and the fact that everyone told me it was mild didn’t help. I’m glad you like WB. It took me a while to get into it and then I surrendered. I will read those other ones you mentioned- I always like to follow your lead x
I have a post-it on my desk saying Once in a House on Fire which I look at least three times a day and wonder if I have turned off the stove (it is dodgy). I really enjoyed reading this, it has made me think about several woman I’ve known with hair the colour of yellow crayons. You write beautifully. Please lets have a quiet bacon butty next time I am back. xx
Yes let’s. And I just got the joke about your stove xx
I just recently read The Reader on the 6.27 by Jean-Paul Didierlaurent. I think you might really like it if you haven’t read it already. And it is true, there is usually something about food in all books. Even in the one I mentioned, although his fare is very simple…almost bare to be exact.
I like simple fare, so will seek it out. Thanks Laila x
I loved this – and it me hungry. The end made me laugh. Very vivid food images. Just like yours. Some Italians cheered when I sang this week. Here’s one for you – ‘Brava!’
It’s always good to be cheered by Italians. Brava to you too, Becky xxx
Welcome back with wonderfully inspiring snippets. I long for good books to read in a quiet hour and here is another one for you: The thousand autums of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell in case you have not read it. I am not entirely put off by the odd crime story with a little cooking thrown in (Martin Walker), mmm. Nicole
Thank you for the recommendation, Nicole. I have been resisting David Mitchell, not sure why, but will give him a go.
Yeah, me, too (I did not get Cloud Atlas) but got the Thousand autumns as a present and after a few hiccups, I got really drawn into the story, quite a rare occurence these days. N.