The Ritual Master Food memoir or Foodoir is a genre I didn’t know existed, even if I had been reading them for a while. How did I get to foodoirs ? I have absolutely no idea, but I have a suspicion it started with a fortunate coïncidence at the used bookstore where I used to spend my time as a student. Reading memoirs had just started to become interesting to me, so adding stories of food to it could only seem an inspired choice. So I dove into Italian stories and French cooking schools, private moments or great sharing experiences, and the universe that unfolded before my eyes seemed like the best-kept secret of all the libraries I ever visited.
Today I wanted to share three of my dearest food memoirs, and since 3 is a famously magic number, we shall go about it as if it were a classic French menu in a restaurant, talking books and cooking in the rhythm of :
ENTREE – PLAT – DESSERT
Entrée
When you get into the habit of cooking for many, scaling back is quite the challenge. So this book got my attention with the long and visual title : Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone.
Jenni Ferrari-Adler has invited 26 writers to share their experience on dining alone, and the result is as insightful as it is funny. From Ann Patchett to Haruki Murakami, these truthful essays about the joys of a meal in solitude are proof of the healing power of our alone-time. Memoirs are already pretty intimate pieces of writing, but the exercise of speaking about food habits when we have no one else to consider or adapt to is borderline voyeurism. And I think in the age of vlogging, our senses are much more receptive to this type of personal information.
But in the end, I find the book to be inspirational for those uneventful evenings when you don’t feel like much and you open it randomly to get some ideas. Like this :
If you choose to give this book to yourself, to keep it in your kitchen, my hope is that it will give you some company, some inspiration and some recipes that require no division or subtraction. I hope it will remind you that alone and lonely are not synonymous; you will have yourself – and the food you love – for company.
My starter course for this Foodoir Menu is an elegant Jerusalem artichoke soup with truffle oil. The French call it an old vegetable, and in some parts of the world it is used solely for feeding cows, but the Jerusalem artichoke is one of my most precious discoveries of the last decade.
Imagine a love story between a flower not yet in bloom – the artichoke – and one that has lived a whole lifetime in one summer – the sunflower. Their love child has a delicate flavour, sweet and soothing, which makes it the perfect companion for the extrovert that is truffle oil. A simple recipe for a refined palate, and a perfect starter course for any feast.
The full recipe is HERE.
Plat
From eating alone we jump to a relaxing table for two, in The Gastronomy of Marriage by Michelle Maisto. Hidden behind the story of a couple with Chinese and Italian families that are planning a wedding, the book adresses many of our identity dilemmas and real life struggles when we first start living as a couple.
How many compromises are too many ?
Will he who assumes the cooking role in the beginning, end up loathing the task for a lifetime ?
Should a modern woman even want to make dinner for two ?
So many questions we all ask ourselves, and even more answers possible. The book reads more as a diary than a memoir, and I enjoyed that unfiltered sense of every day dilemmas, unimportant drama, and finally easy, natural answers. I found myself in many passages, including this one :
If told that I had only one day left in this world, I would likely spend it throwing a dinner party. I love thinking about which friends to combine. I love the balancing act of devising what to prepare and in what order and to what degree, so that everything can come together in just the right order in the end. I like setting the table and arranging the flowers. And I love the morning after, when there is good bread or biscuits, or a few slices of desert waiting to be eaten with the morning coffee and the details of the night before.
The main course of today’s menu is a mix between a French gratin dauphinois, or potato gratin, and a vegetarian lasagna. Let’s call it a Vegetarian Gratin. A generous bunch of mushrooms will do us the honour of sweating alongside some onion and parsley, before meeting some shy slices of potatoes, a vegetarian version of a Béchamel sauce and some baby spinach. Layers and layers of flavour and texture, that will transform into a comforting dish, perfect for the last chilly days of winter.
The full recipe is HERE.
Dessert
From one, to two, to many ! The dream of becoming a professional chef is often idealized in movies or fiction. But Kathleen Finn’s memoir of her years as a student at the famous Le Cordon Bleu school in Paris, are painfully realistic. The Sharper your Knife, the Less you Cry is a tale of dreams, reality and all the mishaps in between.
Maybe as an adopted parisian myself, I felt a stronger connection than most to her stories, and I even identified with some of her struggles. But what I found to be most pleasant, is the lesson of starting over every single day, no matter how badly you think you failed the day before.
Keeping your passion as your most precious guide and persevering despite every bump and hurdle along the way, in order to become your best self, I think this is what I enjoyed the most. It reads something like :
“Living is like driving,” my grandmother used to say. “You have to pick a lane.” Have I chosen the right lane? It feels like this place, this moment in time, lies exactly halfway between my past and my future.”
We end today’s simple meal with a pineapple mousse, because it’s the right season, and because a desert doesn’t always have to be complicated. Pineapple and coconut milk are a match made in heaven, with or without the rhum, so I’m bringing them together in a refreshing and not too sweet dessert. The hardest part is giving it time, so I’ll make myself busy elsewhere while they set in the fridge. They would have been even better with a slice of flambéed pineapple on top, so I have an excuse to make it again before the end of the season.
The full recipe is HERE.
I’m curious to know if you are a foodoir reader and if some of these titles ring a bell. The list is very long, and I have a suspicion this is not the last time I’ll be sharing food memoirs with you.
Until next time, enjoy your reading and your rituals !
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