Food Writing

Brownie Mix

1 box of Duncan Hines

Chewy Fudge

Family Style

Brownie mix

water

Sit on floor.

Cut open bag of brownie mix.

Add water.

Stir.

Eat with fingers.

Repeat when necessary. 

--Eat Joy pp. 55-56.           

Many recipes appear in the book Eat Joy: Stories & Comfort Food from 31 Celebrated Writers. The rather eccentric one that I quoted above is probably the most unusual. It's in short work about "a summer outdoor leadership school" where writer Anthony Doerr experienced hunger and sometimes burned food, felt fear or elation at natural wonders, hated the constant rain, and was absorbed by other delights of early adolescence. This essay was first published in  1843, the magazine of the Economist newspaper; several of the short pieces in Eat Joy were first published in highly esteemed magazines.

Some of the recipes are a bit more conventional. Claire Messud's memoir of her childhood and her mother's unfulfilled life even describes her favorite ordinary brownies. She says "nothing buoyed the spirits— hers or ours— like my mother’s chocolate brownies. They were actually Mrs. Hemmings’s chocolate brownies, though I never knew Mrs. Hemmings. To this day, the recipe, typewritten on a slip of paper, is glued to the back flyleaf of my mother’s battered and stained Fanny Farmer (held together with elastic, the masking tape on the spine having long ago failed)." (p. 28).

Much of Eat Joy is amusing reading. I especially liked the essays by writers whose works I'm already fond of, like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's "Sierra Leone, 1997" describing the "houseboy" who worked for her family, and how he learned his job and did it very slowly. Her recipe, "Fide’s Jollof Rice" has a very intriguing flavor profile, including Nigerian curry powder and a scotch-bonnet pepper (which is way too hot for me). Her essay originally appeared in the New Yorker.

Another amusing essay is called "General Tso" by Lev Grossman, which starts: "When you get divorced, if you don’t get the house or the apartment, what you get is a divorce apartment." His description of his rather makeshift version of this not-so-Chinese dish is not very appetizing. About Tso's tofu he writes:

"The essence of General Tso’s Anything is the sauce: sweet, sour, spicy, salty, unabashedly gluey, studded with nuclear red chilies. Its color is a radiant translucent orange that reminds one of rubies and molten iron. The hot tofu, lightly coated in a form-fitting cornstarch batter, cracks open to reveal a silky slippery interior not unlike a savory toasted marshmallow." (p. 84-86). 

I keep thinking of more of these little gems that I would like to mention, such as "Spaghetti and Books" by Beth (Bich Minh) Nguyen, the author of the memoir Stealing Buddha’s Dinner, a book which I really loved. And "Minute Rice and Other Miracles" by Amitava Kumar. But that's enough for now. I do need to tell you that not all of the essays that come up to this standard. Some are disappointing, but plenty of them are good fun to read.

Just one more observation: I was amazed at how nearly all of the writers, according to the brief biographies at the head of each essay, are professional teachers of creative writing at various universities and writing programs. This fact leaves me with a lot of questions. Are most writers actually employed this way? Or was there a selection bias by the editor?

All in all, it's a fun book. One of my fellow bloggers reviewed it and inspired me to buy & read it, and I'm grateful to her! Unfortunately I lost track of who it was (if you let me know it was you, I'll add your link to this post).

Eat Joy was edited by Natalie Eve Garrett, and published in October, 2019. This review is by Mae Sander, © 2020 for maefood dot blogspot dot com, and if you see this at some other blog it's been pirated.