August 2022
What Do We Eat? What Does it Mean?
In which an 18th-century French gastronome and English poet and a 21st-century American walk into a bar (kinda, metaphorically) and one of us gets Covid.
In 1825, Jean Anselme Brillat-Savarin wrote, “Tell me what you eat, and I shall tell you who you are.”
It’s as true now as it was then.
Writing about food is what I do, and what I love to do, but some stories really come from my heart, like my recent cornmeal mush story in Whetstone. It’s not just polenta or grits or mamaliga or kulesh, it’s about how this food connects us. That’s the whole idea behind Whetstone, which explores food as a means to better understand who we are.
Travel, stepping outside the confines of our usual life, is another way. to do that Benjamin and I are just back from our first trip abroad since the pandemic. We were in London, Bath and the cool, green Cotswolds.
I’ve always felt nothing pretties up a landscape like a cow, so it was my pleasure to come upon a field of placid Gloucester cows. Also fun, discovering a food tradition that’s“quirky and dangerous,” as food historian Emma Kay put it. Can’t wait to share that story with you when it’s published.
London was a weeklong party with family and friends, epic theatre (Mark Rylance, Jerusalem), and one memorable afternoon with fellow Dames exuberant Elisabeth Luard and Johanna Mendelson, and Oxford Food Symposium’s Gamze Ineceli.
My last day in London, I walked across the Millenium Bridge to the city’s historic gustatory mecca, Borough Market, The market sprawls across four acres, and the marquee is so big, I couldn’t even get it all in to photograph — it came out Rough Market.
Borough Market isn’t rough, but it’s hustling, bustling and packed with vendors, shoppers, and noshers, all buzzing around the dazzle of foods. It’s fed the people of London for over a thousand years.
What do you think future historians will say about us in a thousand years? I hope there are future historians, I hope they can somehow look at who we are and feel some compassion towards us. I hope 3022 is a time of more hope and security than we have now.
We flew home, the heatwave promptly hit Europe and the UK and I tested positive for Covid. Sigh. Seems like everyone we met, despite taking precautions, had gotten it at least once. Have you? What was your experience? Are you still feeling it? I’m grateful I had a mild case. Masking and being doubly vaccinated and boosted helps. So does a plantbased diet — studies prove it.
Food is more than what you eat (or Instagram). As I write in Feeding the Hungry Ghost, “Food feeds our hunger now, but more than that, it feeds who we can be.” It’s elemental, it’s a means of transcendence. We could use some.
The pandemic is still with us. So is climate change. They continue to cause enormous suffering. Wishing them away doesn’t work, and we can’t kick this can down the road. I worry we’re out of road.
But I think of “Tintern Abbey,” one of my favorite poems by William Wordsworth. This 1798 poem is an elegant looking back and looking forward. It acknowledges heavy, dark times, yet
in this moment there is life and food
For future years. And so I dare to hope
I dare to hope, too. Every wonderful one of you matters. Nourish your body with plants. Nourish your mind with facts, not fantasy (even the ones you really, really wish were true).
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Calendar
My free, virtual cooking classes through the Pinecrest Branch of Miami-Dade Public Library are back! You don’t need a library card, you don’t need to be in Pinecrest, they’re free, straight from my kitchen into your home, wherever you live.
August 23 Florida primary — Florida peeps, your vote counts. Our democracy depends on you.
August 25 Tapas Table — learn how to make plantbased pinxhos during my free, virtual cooking classes through the Pinecrest Branch of Miami-Dade Public Library
September 8 Beautiful Boards and Focaccia with Flowers
More coming, so sign up and stay tuned.
Nourishment
How I nourished myself during self-isolation:
Sweet Endings
I wanted to end with something sweet. I still have occasional bouts of post-Covid drag-ass, so I’ve revised a blueberry muffin recipe I developed years ago, and made it easier.
Click the link above to get advanced access as a thank you for being a newsletter subscriber! Please use password: summerlove to access the recipe.
Wonderful newsletter, Ellen! It's blueberry season in Vermont, so the timing of the Blueberry Loaf recipe is perfect. Thank you! Also, glad you had a great trip and are on the mend. XoXo.