Food for thought

I love food, and if I like you, I'll feed you. If I love you dearly, I'll probably make your little waistcoat buttons suffer, because if you don't eat I'll assume that terribly hurt look. It's easier to eat until you explode than to suffer that, most people tell me. Even if it something I merely think you should like and really you'd kill for a MickyD burger instead of mysterious tentacly bits snurgling out of vicious red soup or things that have entirely too many legs. Ask Kate. I subjected her to a couple of kilos of spiny lobster which she found... um, yes, well. You thought the evil bits in Impaler were from a tortured mind, not indigestion?

So: naturally food finds its way into my books. Yes, I know, terrible habit. Sticks the pages together. But I love my books so I must feed them. This becomes particularly interesting when you're doing historically accurate as possible writing, which, being me I try to do. And of course much of what we think of stereotypical regional food... wasn't once Italian food... pre tomato?(Heirs books) Greek food - pre lemons? What color were carrots in the sixteenth century? (answer - not orange. White or purple.)

As someone who reads recipe books for fun I pick up a lot of this and add it into my mine of useless information, but of course there is also a fair amount of research. Food - particularly in historical books tells you such a lot about the people and the setting. Besides it gets me stimulated to go and cook something. Seriously, food is second only to sex (and the relationships that weave around that)in the interests of most people. No we will NOT discuss combining them or whether sushi should be served off naked human platters. (Sushi is wonderful. If you take it home and fry it it tastes just like fish.) But there are deep psycological and anthropological reasons why men take potential partners out to dinner.

Anyway, that's just my mileage - that good books have good food descriptions. Of course I love food and love cooking it, so there is bias. (I've always thought men who worried about food and cooking being too feminine, may have reason to worry about being percieved as feminine. I'm hairy-faced enough for you to tell the difference.) And like the other tedious bits (technical descriptions of sf weapons that this practical scientist sees large flaws with in concept, let alone calibre) - one can always skip it. Food writing is of course quite demanding on the visual and other sensory inputs being translated into words...
______

The waiter appeared from the smoky kitchen after a spell that didn't even try Benito's empty stomach's patience too far. The man seemed bent on proving that, besides being a waiter in a sky-high priced taverna, he had all the skills of a juggler, or could at least do the balancing act at the local fair too. He carried a carafe of wine, a bowl of bread-rings, a platter of chargrilled baby octopus redolent of thyme and garlic with just a hint of bayleaf, a jug of extra sauce, and some olive oil and vinegar. He brought a plate of Melanzane alla finitese next, the crumbed aubergine slices bursting with hot melted cheese. "Eat up. The cook gets upset if you aren't ready for the swordfish the minute it arrives. And do you need more wine?"

(This Rough Magic)
______

Anyway. Food? Or Micky D?
And does it add to your readng pleasure?

One hell of a night out... the Pizza-man's tale

It was a dark and stormy night, which was about normal in these parts, when suddenly all hell broke loose! At least, part of hell broke loose, cheering and running. Gwaarg, the dog-headed demon in charge of the western perimiter hell-fence maintenance growled "F'kit!" furiously, as he saw the damned souls streaming out of the nether regions toward Taki O'Loughlin's Irish Bar and Grill, Belly-Dancing Tuesday. He groaned as he set out after them. This would be another all-nighter. The only way of separating them from the rest of the patrons would be to listen to the accents, because merely looking for half-naked flayed-alive souls with white-hot scorpions clinging to their genitals was hopeless in that crowd once the Irish-Greek dancing started. Worse, he could hear the escapees practicing. "Begorrah!", "Nancy-Wuskey!", "Banshee!" Whuskey yee'r th'divil!" they bellowed eagerly in chorus, except for the one who was yelling "Mazeltov!" You always got one. No, that wasn't true. There'd be at least three in the pub, and while it might seem perfectly justified, he'd get yowls of outrage from human resources and a ream of paperwork if he took anyone too soon, or, as unlikely as it might seem, someone who wasn't heading for hell at all, but was just delivering pizza. And in a pub with shamrock-covered plastic tablecloths, delivering in pizza (even with anchovies)was considered a penance, as Gwaarg had found out last time.

Heh. Ok so I was taking a few moments to write a prologue to poke fun at Elmore Leonard's 'rules'- except for being Margret Atwood, which, as I am perfectly happy to write science fiction (with or without conversational cosmic calamari) I cannot imitate. They're actually not bad guidelines, just not 'rules'. Before I was so distracted the thing I was going to write about was food. Now, as we sort-of-I-hope proved up there, one man's terrible and boring and another's entertainment vary. One of my own pet entertainments is putting food into my books. It's such fun prising the pages apart later, trying to work out the squished splotches might once have been. It's also a good way of getting roaches to edit out paragraphs that you wish you'd never written or even read.

Actually, on that charming, appetising note... what I meant writing was about food. Now, as the sort of person who reads recipe books for light entertainment, I will admit to being a little biased here. The landscapes of my worlds are colored by food (and occassionally drink. I have come across red wine that permanently stained concrete, let alone the worlds of my imagination). They're a window to fill in on some of that descriptive guff I am (thank you Mr Leonard) generally quite sparse on. I have this odd idea that they appeal to different set of senses than ones involved in looking at scenery - But I could be wrong. What is your take, folks? Do you like food in books to be described, and had you noticed that I do so? (So does Sarah, for what it is worth).