Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

I’m not even sure exactly how this one got on my list. But I guess that is what happens when you have something like 300 books on your list that have accumulated over the course of nearly ten years from a variety of sources.

Kitchen is the first novel by Japanese author Banana Yoshimoto (pen name for Mahoko Yoshimoto), written in 1988. It is a fairly short novella, delightfully compact, and achingly bittersweet. Paired with this, in the English translation from 1993, is Yoshimoto’s debut short story, “Moonlight Shadow,” which is also lovely. 

Both the novel and the short story are about grief, loss, and love. In each case, the narrator, a young woman starting out in the world, loses a person close to her, and then must navigate both the trauma of the loss and complicated feelings of love. 

In Kitchen, Mikage Sakurai already lost both parents when she was very young. She was raised by her grandmother, who dies early in the story. She is essentially taken in by a friend and his mother. Except that this is no ordinary family. Yuichi Tanabe is a pretty normal young man, but his situation is unusual. His mother died of cancer a number of years back. After that, his father came to terms with his gender identity, and now lives as a woman. (Sorry about the pronouns, I couldn’t make it make sense otherwise.) So, as Yuichi says, “I’d never lived with anyone but Eriko, she was my mother, my father. Because she was always just Eriko.” 

Eriko is a kind person, with a sense of humor, and takes in Mikage as part of the family. Eventually, Mikage gets a job as a chef (hence the name), and moves out. It is devastating when she learns that Eriko has been murdered by someone who resents his attraction to a transgender woman. 

Both Mikage and Yuichi are devastated, but unsure how to grieve, how to process things. And, to top it off, they are in love with each other, but can’t even admit it to themselves. 

The high point of the novel is a midnight delivery of katsudon as a declaration of love. It’s a fantastic scene, deliciously written. 

The book is so self-contained, so delicately written, it’s a polished gem. It feels very Japanese to me, although I’m probably not much of an expert on that. The emotions are handled with care, with perception, and with grace. It really is a lovely read. 

I want to mention a couple more lines. After Eriko’s death, Mikage comes over to Yuichi’s house, and sends him out with a shopping list so she can cook for him. (That’s both her coping mechanism and part of her bond with Eriko.) 

I heard the door close, and when I was alone I realized I was dead tired. The room was so unearthly quiet, I lost all sense of time being divided into seconds. I felt that I was the only person alive and moving in a world brought to a stop. 

Houses always feel like that after someone has died. 

 And then this one, a reflection by Mikage about her co-workers and their lives. 

Those women lived their lives happily. They had been taught, probably by caring parents, not to exceed the boundaries of their happiness regardless of what they were doing. But therefore they could never know real joy. Which is better? Who can say? Everyone lives the way she knows best. What I mean by “their happiness” is living a life untouched as much as possible by the knowledge that we are really, all of us, alone. That’s not a bad thing. Dressed in their aprons, their smiling faces like flowers, learning to cook, absorbed in their little troubles and perplexities, they fall in love and marry. I think that’s great. I wouldn’t mind that kind of life. Me, when I’m utterly exhausted by it all, when my skin breaks out, on those lonely evenings when I call my friends again and again and nobody’s home, then I despise my own life -- my birth, my upbringing, everything. I feel only regret for the whole thing. 

The catharsis of the ending feels so gratifying because of these earlier moments of raw grief and existential despair. 

“Moonlight Shadow” is a bit different, although it starts with a loss. Satsuki is reeling from the death of her long-time boyfriend. He died in a car crash along with his brother’s girlfriend. (Nothing scandalous about it - he was just giving her a ride.) Satsuki and the brother, Hiiragi, deal with their grief in different ways. Hiiragi wears his girlfriend’s school uniform everywhere. Satsuki takes up running (and probably anorexia as well.) Things change when Satsuki meets a mysterious woman, Urara, at the bridge where she and her boyfriend used to meet. Urara brings her to the bridge again at a certain time where they see a mystical phenomenon, and Urara, Hiiragi, and Satsuki are able to say goodbye to their beloveds. It isn’t as deep (or nearly as long) as Kitchen, but it shares the polished, bittersweet loveliness. It is possible, perhaps, to see “Moonlight Shadow” as a first draft of the themes which Kitchen would explore in more detail. 

I very much enjoyed this book, and can definitely recommend it as worth the time. Only a handful of Banana Yoshimoto’s books have been translated into English, but I may have to seek them out. 

The Zen of Fish by Trevor Corson

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

From time to time, I read a book just because one of my kids checked it out and it looked interesting. This one was selected by my second kid - the one who loves Japanese food and culture. And sushi. 

The book is mostly about a class of students at a sushi-chef school in Los Angeles, particularly Kate, who starts out as a hopelessly bad (and inexperienced) cook. But the story that binds the book together is just one part of it. Corson takes the time to tell the history of sushi (which is both fascinating and very different than I expected - it has more in common with lutefisk than fresh cuisine) and also give details on the various aquatic animals which are served. Plus, there are sections on the history of sushi in America, sushi culture, the restaurant business, and giant Hollywood parties. It is quite a bit in one, but it actually works pretty well. 

Corson actually sat in on the classes he describes, so that part of the book comes from first-hand knowledge. Kate makes for an interesting protagonist. On the one hand, she is sympathetic, and it is natural to root for her to succeed. On the other, as someone who has been cooking since I was a kid, her mistakes are pretty horrifying. It just seems weird to me that someone could grow up and not know his or her way around a kitchen enough to get by. But, I suppose I was raised differently. (Seriously, some of this stuff my 11 year old is competent at - it just takes practice and experience.) 

While most of the students remain nameless, there are a number of memorable personalities. Toshi, who runs the school, is obsessive about correct technique and cleanliness - something my daughter, who has her food safety certificate, appreciates. Toshi’s assistant, Zoran, is unexpected. An Australian of Yugoslav descent, he is both jovial and demanding. One of the more interesting students is Takumi Nishio, who was once famous (in Japan at least) as a singer and actor. In addition to being the hardest working and most competent student, he is obsessed with Italian cuisine, which is unexpected for everyone. Teenager Marcos also gets some space in the book - he is interested in leveraging his skills to meet girls. 

Corson thoroughly researched the book, I must say. The information presented on everything from history to biology is just on the edge between understandable and scientific. Likewise, he writes about culinary technique really well, making it come alive while preserving accuracy. In particular, I found the descriptions of fish gutting and boning fascinating - I may have to try some techniques myself. Likewise, the section on Bluefin Tuna was enlightening. I was not aware of how much they function like warm-blooded creatures. 

I will also be a better-informed sushi eater now. Corson spends a decent bit of time explaining the different types as the students learn to make them. I did smile a bit at the rolls Takumi came up with: a “domino roll” with two square sections. And the classic “Russian Roulette Roll,” with the cucumber in one slice replaced with wasabi. Spin the plate and pick…

This was definitely a fun random read. I noticed that this book is also found under an alternate title, The Story of Sushi, so if you can’t find it as The Zen of Fish, try the other title. Trevor Corson also wrote The Secret Life of Lobsters, which our library system does not have, alas. I may have to look for a used copy somewhere. 

Reclaiming Halloween

Somewhere in my parents’ photo archives there is a picture from when I was about 7 years old and my brother was 5. We are dressed up in costumes. I had a large box over my shoulders, with hand drawn buttons and stuff. I’m pretty sure I was a robot, but maybe a computer. It is hard to tell - my artistic ability wasn’t top notch at that age. My brother has a mask made from a paper bag and a printed frog face. I believe it was a promotional thing at the grocery store in our neighborhood. To go with it, he had aluminum foil on his arms, legs, and body, and a cardboard sword my mom made. I remember that he was a “Famous, Fierce, Fighting Frog.” (My mom was and is skilled at wordplay, including alliteration.)

We were dressed up for Halloween, for trick-or-treating. I remember this specifically because it was a year I really worked on my costume. (We never did commercial costumes - that wasn’t in the budget. I still love the idea of using creativity rather than lucre.) I also remember it because soon afterward, my family stopped trick-or-treating all together. For a couple of years, we did “harvest festivals” at a church. Then we stopped that, and my mom just bought candy for us to enjoy. Eventually, as we got older, that went away too, and we just spent Halloween with the lights off and the curtains closed, ignoring any kids that came to our door.

There were a couple of reasons why we did this. The first was the 1980s panic about tainted candy. (Good lord, the 1980s were full of panics, moral and otherwise…I think I have spent a lot of my adult years deprogramming from all the crap I was taught that stemmed from these panics.) Unsurprisingly, the panic was based nearly entirely on a myth. (And the one documented poison was the murder of a child by his father looking to collect life insurance - not a stranger.) Yep, “alternative facts” are nothing new.

But the other reason was based on a panic of a different sort. A moral panic. Despite the previous generation’s enjoyment of the whole trick-or-treating experience, the 1980s brought with them the beginning of the Culture Wars™, and that meant a new focus on cultural separation from the unwashed masses, and the discovery of a demon lurking behind every door. And that meant that Halloween (which actually has a Christian origin) now became “the devil’s holiday,” and thus verboten. Crucial to the acceptance of this myth in my own family were the tracts by Jack Chick (who among other things, was virulently anti-Catholic). His tracts condemned all kinds of things, from rock music, to belief in an old earth, to Dungeons and Dragons. (The last I realized was false the first time a fellow law student explained the game to me, when it became clear it was mostly nerdy in the extreme.)

My memory fails me, but the latest we would have actually gone trick-or-treating in our neighborhood would have been when I was 9, and it may have ended a year earlier. After that, no more. (My wife grew up even more Fundie than I did, and is younger by a few years, so she too missed out on a lot.)

Now, nothing against “harvest festivals.” They can be fun. I remember a few with cool games and bounce houses and stuff, and going with friends or cousins was a blast. However, I think something is missing compared with the trick-or-treat tradition.

That something is engagement with the community. Even in comparison with my childhood, neighbors do not know each other as well. Some of this is due to the ever-expanding extra-curricular activities that prevent kids from playing in the street like we did. Some is the very way our homes are constructed these days, with everyone’s car in a huge garage and nobody out in the front yard. With those changes, it is already harder to meet the neighbors and their kids. The shift from going door to door to a “safe” environment with a more exclusive group is significant, in my view. This isn’t the only cause, but it is a factor in the shift from finding a social group from those one lives next to, to finding it in those with similar theological and political beliefs, from one’s own socioeconomic strata, and often mostly with one’s own race.

The other thing that I think has been lost in the transition is the embrace of the spooky and macabre. One near-universal rule of “harvest festivals,” at least in my experience, is no “scary” costumes. Or, perhaps, no traditional death or terror related costumes. While I do not necessarily chose macabre costumes for myself, and my kids have been all over the map on this, I do think that part of the point of a holiday like halloween is to enjoy some good clean fun at the expense of our fears. I mean, death sucks enough as it is: might as well learn to laugh at it once in a while. Likewise, we defuse our monsters when we make them part of a silly ritual. Humans have done this since the dawn of civilization. If we could not laugh at terror and death, we would be paralyzed by our mortality. On the flip side, it is good to look death in the face seriously too. I am reminded of the many old portraits where the subject has his hand on a skull - a reminder that we all die. So both of these are represented in human culture, in our rituals and observances. We soberly remember our mortality, and make light of it in turn. 

For what it is worth, my kids seem naturally a bit macabre, as evidenced by their love for Neil Gaiman. 

During our kids’ youngest years, we didn’t observe Halloween. Mostly, when we had infants, we were too tired to want to add yet another thing to the list. We also lived on a busy street, so we didn’t have kids come to our door much at all. Also, I often had a rehearsal that night, so it just didn’t happen. Once life got less crazy, though, we decided to go back to trick-or-treating. Often, with friends. The kids, naturally, loved getting dressed up - and planning their costumes well in advance. My wife is a fantastic seamstress and fabricator, and can make pretty much anything.

Because of what we didn’t get to do, my wife and I have also dressed up for fun. The candy is just for the kids, but there is a lot of fun to be had in going out in costume. I have noticed a lot of parents are doing it these days, which is a positive development. Fun doesn’t end with adulthood, and kids should see their parents let their hair down once in a while.

Along with our decision to have fun trick-or-treating, we also have decided to let the kids have significant discretion in choosing - and creating - costumes. So, one daughter and one son have gone with vampires over the years. My eldest the last couple of years has gone as a Dia de los Muertos skeleton. My wife made me a Victorian outfit - originally used for a party in which we went as Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. Fun for my wife to create stuff, fun for all of us to wear them.

Basically, we decided to reclaim Halloween. Reclaim it from the falsehoods propagated by Fundamentalism and the Evangelical-Industrial Complex. Reclaim the fun. Reclaim the thrill of safe fear and horror. Reclaim the reminder of our mortality. Reclaim the truth that fiction helps us understand that the real dragons and monsters in our world can be defeated.

***

This year, we also did something rather different. Our local Hispanic Chamber of Commerce puts on a Dia de los Muertos festival at the Kern County Museum. My eldest daughter has adored the Muertos aesthetic for years, and talked my wife into making her a dress for it last year. (See pictures below.) The date worked for us this year, so I took the kids.

Let me start with a caveat: my parents both grew up overseas (in Mexico and the Philippines), and, depending on where you are, both the Hallows Eve and Day of the Dead celebrations can be somewhere on the creepy/disturbing/superstitious continuum. (My dad and his siblings used to dress up in sheets and flashlights and scare the crap out of people coming back from mass. It runs in the family. His dad used to pull real pranks on Halloween, and he and his buddies would tip outhouses over. He really caught it, however, when he tipped his own over - with his mother in it. Considering my genes, it is a marvel that I am such a square…) How one experiences Day of the Dead does vary, depending on how devout (or superstitious - depending on your worldview…) the celebrants are.

Here in Bakersfield, at least, I don’t find much to object to. One of the ways the festival is financed is through family memorials (“altares”) displayed in a designated area. These were surprisingly (to me) touching memorials with poignant snapshots of what was important to the families honoring their departed. Family and community were central to many of the displays, and I felt a human connection through them, even though all of them were for perfect strangers.

The kids got to paint sugar skulls, and we listened to a local mariachi group, Mariachi San Marcos. (The Bakersfield Symphony did a concert with them last year. They are fine musicians - one of the members used to play in an orchestral group I played in 20+ years ago - and a microcosm of Mexican-American immigration and assimilation, from the elder generation who mostly speak Spanish to the grandchildren who are totally Californian.) My kids didn’t grow up with mariachi like I did. The neighborhoods in which I was raised were predominantly minority, with lots of Latino immigrants. On big occasions - weddings, quinceaneras, etc. - live mariachi bands would be hired. And the whole neighborhood could hear them. It was a beautiful thing. Even though I never did learn Spanish - I know some words, and that is about it - I know music, and mariachi is music.

Although it wasn’t the only reason, one reason I did want to experience Muertos this year was that, in our nation these days, immigrants, particularly Latino immigrants, have been in the crosshairs of a reinvigorated white nationalism. Bakersfield is a weird town. On the one hand, we have a large Latino population. (Agriculture is big here, so migrant farm labor, but also, we have many who have been here since California was part of Mexico…) On the other, we had an active KKK well into the 1980s, and we still have certain parts of town infested with white supremacist gangs. We also skew very Republican - the whites at least - compared to the rest of California. Unfortunately, this has meant that many shockingly racist things have been said before and since the election. A number of my Latino friends’ kids have been subjected to racial slurs and threatened with deportation (including kids at school), never mind that their families have been Californians longer than many of the creeps threatening them.

So I wanted to show a little solidarity with the local Hispanic community. My kids mentioned that we were the only white people there. That wasn’t really true, but we were in the, ahem, minority. I think it was good for my kids to experience that. (Hey, I grew up that way…) Experience of other cultures is good for everyone. Also, street tacos. Need I say more? Okay, tamarind sodas. Which my kids love almost as much as street tacos with all the goodies. Dang, they were good! I pity the poor folk elsewhere in our country who do not have access to street tacos.

Anyway, also Aztec dancers, traditional Mexican dances, plenty of people in imaginative costumes, and a fun afternoon.  

***

I know our parents, like most, were acting as they thought best. The sad thing is that in so many areas, from the horror of Halloween to the cults we suffered through in our teens, the decisions were not based on sound evidence or an embrace of Christ’s radical message of love. Instead, they were based on fear, which is the opposite of love. It has been sad - and sobering - to realize that pretty much everything negative from my childhood - and even long afterward in dealing with my family - that I look at seems to be rooted in this fearful cultural Fundamentalism. So many avoidable conflicts, lost opportunities, and so many hours spent in needless worry. It makes one wonder what might have been. Fear is a powerful motivator, particularly when it is a fear for one’s children combined with a call to “purity.” It so quickly becomes a fear of contamination by “undesirable” people. (See e.g., the last election…)

***

I won’t duplicate all of this, but an Orthodox Christian blog has a fantastic set of articles on all things Halloween related. When my wife and I started seriously reexamining our beliefs after the kids were born, this was a crucial resource in understanding just how much modern Fundamentalism/Evangelicalism has engaged in historical revisionism.

***

Pictures, of course:

 

Fritz, 2017. Costume by my amazing wife.

 The kids, 2016. Lillian as a penguin (costume off the clearance rack), Ella as a Muertos girl (costume by Amanda, makeup by her friend Marina), Cordelia as a vampire - she is my macabre child (costume by Amanda), Fritz as a mad scientist (costume cobbled together from stuff we had), Ted as Uglydoll "Wedgehead." (Costume by Amanda.)

 

The kids, 2015. Cordelia as a Dalak ("Exterminate!") (costume by Amanda), Ella as Princess Leia...plus cat ears for reasons I forget (costume by Amanda), Ted as Wedgehead (Costume by Amanda), Fritz as an explorer (a rare commercial costume - it was on clearance...), Lillian as Anna from Frozen (costume by Amanda - her Disney princess costumes are mostly designed freehand by her - did I mention she is amazing?)

 

Amanda and me, 2016. She made my costume originally for a Valentine's Day party in which we went as Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett (from Pride and Prejudice) - I even shaved the beard down to mutton chops for that occasion.) The hat is from The Village Hat Shop. Amanda is a Tardis (from Doctor Who.) Yes, she made that costume too. And the shawl, which is a fairly accurate representation of the star chart for the northern hemisphere.

 

Ella in her Muertos costume. I just had to include one of her alone, because the dress and the makeup are so perfect on her.

The Taste of War by Lizzie Collingham

Source of book: I own this. This was a gift from my brother-in-law. (See my post on Dharma Bums for more about our mutual love for hiking and literature.)

I have been putting off writing this for a few weeks. First, I went camping, and that kind of got in the way. Then, I had a crazy Symphony week, so there just wasn’t time to sit down and sort out what I was going to say. The problem, in large part, is that this is a really big book, with a fairly broad reach, and that tends to make it hard to focus on a few core ideas. The book is 500ish pages long, plus extensive endnotes. 

Let me see if I can distill this down a bit. Lizzie Collingham tackles the role that food played in World War II, from the role food played in why the Axis powers started a war in the first place, through the difficulties the various players encountered in keeping their own populations - and armies - supplied with food, through the way starvation was used as a weapon, to the way the war changed forever how food was grown, processed, and consumed throughout our modern world. So yes, a huge scope, and far too much information to put in one review. Collingham is British, so she sometimes focuses on the British experience, but she does an excellent job expanding the view to a global one.

As a basic summary, I would say that this book is well researched, marvelously detailed, and sheds a light on World War II that augments and in some cases revises the dominant narratives.

First, while the causes of most wars aren’t exactly singular, there are some common threads. No doubt the economic hardships to Germany after the first World War were a significant trigger. But there was also a political philosophy which went beyond that of the Nazis which led inevitably to the war.

Germany decided that its goal was to become self sufficient when it came to food, rather than import food from elsewhere, like Britain. And not just Germany, but Japan too adopted this ideal.

There was a major problem, however: neither had enough land to be able to support their populations. In Japan’s case, it was at least arguable that had they embraced modern farming techniques, they might have been able to do it, but Germany simply didn’t have enough fertile land or a long enough growing season. Britain, for what it is worth, was even worse off, but chose to embrace a global marketplace and import food in exchange for other goods. Come to think of it, this is what Britain had been doing for the past several hundred years, so it came easily to them.

The solution to the problem? Well, since population shrinkage is rarely a popular suggestion, particularly since someone gets the task of dying, Germany and Japan decided that they needed more land. In Germany’s case, it is clear from internal documents that they always intended to invade Russia, and take part of the Ukraine in addition to Poland for themselves. For Japan, this mean Korea and Manchuria - and an empire in Southeast Asia.

This begs the question, naturally, of what was to happen to the people who already occupied these “new” lands that would would be conquered. Where would they go?

The answer to that is as ugly as it comes. Germany had long considered the Jews to be mere “useless eaters,” and intended for them to starve or flee. In fact, the “final solution” wasn’t really a surprise to many within the regime. If anything, execution was a better death than starvation. But it didn’t stop with the Jews. Not at all. Collingham pieces together documents from the Nazi era that paint a pretty clear picture.

The people occupying the land would be deported and enslaved - around 70 million people. It was fully expected that at least 30-60 million people, primarily those of the “undesirable” Slavic race, would starve to death. And that was fine.

Japan does not seem to have been as realistic. It appears that they expected that somehow they could “merely” enslave the Korean and Chinese populations, feed them less, and still have lots of food left over. In practice, of course, one would have the same result. Those deprived of their food would die of starvation.

One of the most shocking things in this book, though, was that these intended (and partially accomplished) atrocities didn’t just happen out of the blue. In fact, there was a clear blueprint for them which was cited by the Nazis as a great example of how they foresaw the plan unfolding:

The expulsion of the Native Americans from the United States.

Ouch.

Think about it: as we expanded into North America, the native populations were enslaved, deported en masse, and eventually succumbed to starvation and disease. (The numbers are staggering: 20-100 million for the entire new world, and easily 80% of the original populations. Even with the lower number, it comes in at the 7th worst death toll for conflicts in history once adjusted for world population.) The Nazis recognized this as a viable template for genocide.

On a related note, I do not want to create the impression that the evil was all on the side of the Axis powers. With the exception of the United States, no major player could feed itself, so hard decisions had to be made. Even for the US, how much to share and with whom was a question which was not necessarily answered in a just manner.

For England, the decision was made that hunger would be “exported.” That is, the colonies - particularly in India and Africa - would be cut back far more than for the homeland, with the result that starvation became rampant. India was hit the worst, because Africa was both closer to self-sufficient, and better able to conceal foodstuffs from requisitioning by the British authorities.

Although I admire Churchill, I must say I was repulsed by his statements on India. He considered Indians to be subhuman savages, and blamed them for their own starvation. In a sentiment that even now is echoed by the right wing here in America, he claimed that they would have been fine had they not “reproduced like rabbits.” As if reproduction were just a privilege for the wealthy or white.

As Field Marshall Wavell (one of the true heroes in the war) after he was appointed to oversee India (having commanded the forces in North Africa previously) bitterly said, “A very different attitude [exists] towards feeding a starving population when the starvation is in Europe.”

I won’t spend too much time in this review on the extensive discussion of battlefield logistics other than to say that it is fascinating reading. Truly battles may be won on tactics, but wars are often won by logistics. Whatever the contribution in weaponry and soldiers the United States made to the war, it was the logistics of supply that were its forte.

Likewise, the sections on how the various countries managed their own supplies through rationing and other means is worth reading. Any economist would recognize the problems caused by black markets and unfair apportionment of resources.

I do want to focus a bit, though, on some of the interesting points the author makes about malnutrition. There are plenty of tales of people dying in the streets of starvation. (Google the Siege of Leningrad, if you have a strong stomach.) It wasn’t pretty.

But I hadn’t realized the severe secondary tolls taken by malnutrition. It’s one thing to die from lack of calories - it’s ugly. But for far more, they died from the effects of insufficient nutrition. Diseases like tuberculosis, malaria, and cholera are far more deadly for the malnourished. Likewise, one of the early signs of malnutrition is an elevated maternal and infant death rate. Thus, even as millions starved, even more millions died of disease as a direct result of malnutrition, and more mothers and babies died as well.

Before and during the war, scientific research turned to the requirements of nutrition. Many of our current standards derive from this era and the research which was done. The war itself served as a research study on a grand scale. Because of rationing and subsidies, for the first time in recorded history, some poor populations actually had enough to eat - and nutritious food.

The result of this research has been revolutionary. It turns out that, as the author put it, “It was clear that ill-health among the poor was directly related to deficient family income. The poor quite simply could not afford to buy enough good-quality food.” All it took to reduce maternal death rates, and rates of many diseases was to ensure that women got sufficient and good quality food. Who knew? Well, this was revolutionary in its time.

There were other interesting findings. Often the poor would consume enough calories, but they lacked other nutrients. Due to the gulf in income, the wealthy were able to afford meat, fish, dairy products, and fresh vegetables which were out of the reach of the poor.

Furthermore, the research identified three causes which still today are at the heart of the malnutrition problem: lack of proper kitchen facilities to prepare food, a lack of time to cook from scratch, and insufficient income to afford the more expensive but more nutritious foods.

Prior to this research, there was a general sentiment that malnutrition was the fault of the poor. They weren’t frugal enough, they were ignorant of nutrition, they were lazy and didn’t want to cook. Oh wait. That’s still how we talk about the poor. My bad.

This is still an issue today. A great example of how this plays out can be seen in McDonalds’ attempt to show that one can live on the current minimum wage. It has been pointed out - and indeed, it is completely obvious to anyone who can live on budget - that the plan for living on minimum wage has serious flaws. First, it assumes that the person receives government health care and food stamps to pay pretty much all of their food needs. Second, it requires a 70 hour work week. Third, the amount allocated for rent wouldn’t actually allow a person to afford real housing - at least in California. So, one could see all three factors: lack of total income for needs, probably no kitchen facilities, and a work schedule that leaves insufficient time to prepare nutritious food.

This research had a secondary effect. Because rationing and nutrition subsidies had a positive effect, leading many to experience a lack of hunger and malnutrition, a fundamental shift occurred. Maternal and infant death rates declined in England and the United States. Malnutrition related deaths of all kinds dropped. And people noticed.

Throughout the western world, the wartime introduction of planned economies, which accepted responsibility for the health and welfare of all a nation’s citizens, marked a decisive break with the past. In post-war Britain it would no longer be possible for a government, whether Conservative or Labour, to turn away from abject misery, declaring that it was the result of ignorance and, by implication, beyond the means of the government to rectify.

Perhaps the only movement in the western world that hasn’t accepted this is the current version of the right wing in the United States. (Even the Right, when I was a kid in the Reagan years, didn’t see the dismantling of the New Deal and the safety net to be a goal. But now, it appears that Ayn Rand economics has become the cause celebre - one of several reasons I left the GOP.)

The problem is this: prior to these programs, people really did starve, and people really did die of malnutrition-related diseases, and things got better once government stepped in and did some redistribution. For those who wish to reverse that, I have to wonder, “what is your plan to keep the gains?” Or do you, deep down, hope to return to the days of malnutrition for those who “don’t deserve it”? Just asking…

One final bit that I found interesting - and a bit humorous. Hitler was well known to eat an austere diet that would faze even some paleolithic sorts today. Not so for some of his underlings. This book tells of a feud between Goebbels, who wished to see the leaders embrace austerity in the name of victory, and Goering, who was legendary in his extravagance. His love for Horcher’s, a luxury restaurant infuriated Goebbels enough that he arranged for a mob to attack the restaurant. Goering, naturally, dispatched soldiers from the Luftwaffe to guard his favorite dinner spot. Ah, the politics of food…

This is an intriguing book on many levels. It isn’t an easy or light book, but it is well worth the read. Doubly so for anyone interested in history, warfare, economics, nutrition, or politics.

But I think what will stick with me the most is this: we still act in accordance with the worst of our human nature all too often. We can be generous only until our own luxury and privilege is threatened, and then we are all too eager to export hunger and poverty and turn a blind eye to the suffering of our fellow humans. World War II was ugly on so many levels, but we should not forget that much of its evil wasn’t unique. It existed before the war, and remains afterward.

Gourmet Rhapsody by Muriel Barbery

Source of book: I own this

A few years back, I took a chance based on a review, and read The Elegance of the Hedgehog, also by Muriel Barbery. I enjoyed it so much that I put Gourmet Rhapsody on my list as well. My wife found a (barely) used copy for me as a gift, and I got around to reading it this last month.

Muriel Barbery is a French author, and professor of philosophy. Although Gourmet Rhapsody was written first, it wasn’t translated into English until the year after The Elegance of the Hedgehog became a runaway success in its English translation. Sadly, these two are the only novels Barbery has written. I hope she has a few more stories in her, because these are both gems.

Gourmet Rhapsody isn’t quite as good as The Elegance of the Hedgehog, but it is still delightful. It shows some signs of being a first novel. Only the main character is really developed, in large part because of the format and the short length of the book. (It is more of a  novella than a full length novel.) By her second book, the author seems to be more comfortable, in a way that I can’t really put my finger on, but can feel. The characterization is also better in the second book, more subtle and complex.

Food critic Pierre Arthens is dying. As he lays on his deathbed, he reflects on his life, and searches his memory for one taste that he longs for, but cannot recall.

I am going to die and there is a flavor that has been teasing my taste buds and my heart and I simply cannot recall it. I know that this particular flavor is the first and ultimate truth of my entire life, and that it holds the key to a heart that I have since silenced. I know that it is a flavor from childhood or adolescence, an original, marvelous dish that predates my vocation as a critic, before I had any desire or pretension to expound on my pleasure in eating. A forgotten flavor, lodged in my deepest self, and which has surfaced at the twilight of my life as the only truth ever told - or realized. I search, and cannot find.

The book alternates chapters narrated by Arthens with ones by various people in his life. His children and wife. His cat. A couple of his mistresses. Renee, the concierge at his apartment building. (She would become one of the main characters in The Elegance of the Hedgehog.) Each has their own perspective on the man and his legacy.

Perhaps the best analogue to Arthens is Anton Ego in Pixar’s film, Ratatouille. In fact, I wonder if the writers on the film were familiar with Gourmet Rhapsody because the parallels are striking. Both are huge egoists with a biting writing style, eager to bring down establishments that fail to meet their standard. Both, though, are transported back to their childhoods by certain flavors. Unlike Ego, however, Arthens may have his epiphany, but never finds redemption. 

The problem is that he has lived his life solely for himself, and has treated others as mere means to his ends. He may re-live his gustatory past, but he no longer is able to feel the love and connection he once did.

One particularly heart-rending passage comes when Arthens speaks of his children.

I caused them to rot and decompose, those three children who emerged from my wife’s entrails, gifts I had negligently given to her in exchange for her decorative wifely abnegation - terrible gifts, when I think about it today, for what are children other than the monstrous excrescences of our own selves, pitiful substitutes for our unfulfilled desires? For the likes of me - people, in other words, who already have something which gives them pleasure in life - children are worthy of interest only when they finally leave home and become something other than one’s own daughters or sons. I do not love them. I have never loved them, and I feel no remorse on that account. If they expend all their energy hating me with all their strength, that is no concern of mine; the only paternity that I might lay claim to is that of my own oeuvre. And the buried flavor that I cannot find is beginning to make me doubt even that.

It is strange to suppose that because one already has something that gives one pleasure that that would exclude the pleasure of relationships, but this is sadly all too common. Many a man or woman has chosen a career or an obsession to the exclusion of human connection, and some, like Arthens, never seem to regret it.

Despite this rather depressing theme, the book isn’t all darkness, particularly for a foodie. I have a great love for food, I’m afraid. My determination to keep physically active is only partially driven by my enjoyment of exercise. If I am honest, I want to be able to eat without guilt, and without swelling to unhealthy horizontal proportions. Barbery’s descriptions of food lead me to believe that she too shares this passion. To a non-foodie, they might seem a bit over the top, but to a true believer, they are almost as delectable as the real thing. (It is my understanding that they aren’t quite as over-the-top in the original French, perhaps because of the French foodie culture.)

There are so many, but I will limit myself to one: the description of the tomato fresh from the garden.

And yet I had always been acquainted with the tomato, since the time of Aunt Marthe’s garden, since the summer when an ever more ardent sun kissed the timid little growths, since the moment my teeth tore into the flesh to splatter my tongue with the rich, warm and bountiful juice, whose essential generosity is masked by the chill of a refrigerator, or the affront of vinegar, or the false nobility of oil. Sugar, water, fruit, pulp, liquid or solid? The raw tomato, devoured in the garden when freshly picked, is a horn of abundance of simple sensations, a radiating rush in one’s mouth that brings with it every pleasure. The resistance of the skin - slightly taut, just enough; the luscious yield of the tissues, their seed-filled liqueur oozing to the corners of one’s lips, and that one wipes away without any fear of staining one’s fingers; this plump little globe unleashing a flood of nature inside us: a tomato, an adventure.

I could not have captured it better myself.

If you are going to read just one book by Barbery, go with The Elegance of the Hedgehog, but this one is worth a read as well.