Food Writing

I recently read Chang-rae Lee's piece about his father's face in The New Yorker. Lee also wrote a short piece that I love about mixing Manhattans. Both are so simple but so lovely, rich in sensory detail, and I especially love the one about the drink and the design of a ritual that can become profound. So, inspired by Lee and recalling our luscious time with bread and lobster in Maine, here's a food prompt:

Spend a few moments remembering experiences you have had with food or drinks. What stands out as provocative or extraordinary? As charming or disgusting or maybe vexing? Your topic can be about making food or drinks or sharing them, actually eating or drinking, or whatever else you might do with rituals related to consumption and nourishment. Make a quick list of 5-7 of these experiences that resonate. Then choose one that seems hot and in need of some more story. Write a short essay about the food/drink experience focusing initially on sensory detail - the smell, taste, feel, sound and look of the food or the drink. Like Lee does, relish the specifics and just get it all down on paper. After you've written a draft, let it sit for a while. Then, if you feel like it, go back and see if there's another story there. For Lee, mixing a Manhattan put him into an entirely different way of life; it let him see the world differently. In a similar way, is there a metaphor or allegory lurking somewhere in your essay? Can you bring that forward, very gently? Then - this is the DesignInquiry part, right? - consider the design of the essay in some way. Maybe it's the visual design of the piece on the page. Maybe it's the design of the sentences, from long to short, or the punctuation, with a profusion of lines (|||||) or something like that. Mess with it. Rewrite it.

In addition to Lee's "Manhattan" essay here, here's another one , about sausage, by Eileen Myles. It's not beautiful at all - it's disgusting - but it suggests another way to go with the food thing...

One more thought: Aimee Bender wrote a piece about how good it feels to memorize a poem . It relates vaguely to eating - she talks about how memorizing makes you really notice the words on your tongue and in your mouth; this act of memorization is nourishing, she says. That might be a nice thing for August, while you're writing about food, right? Savoring language, finding sustenance? Maybe after you've memorized a poem you could record it and share it?