Soup and sensuality
What the language of recipes can do
Dear friends,
Last night I made soup. Vegetable soup. There was no recipe. There were just onions and peppers and salt and two types of squash and sweet potato and bay leaves and roast garlic and herbes de Provence and some vegetable stock and some time (thyme, too). There was a friend to share it with — the most vital ingredient. And there was bread. And then — oh glory be to the father and mother of soup — there was some leftover.
That’s what I’m having for lunch. Right now. Between me and my keyboard, there is a bowl of vegetable soup that has been luxuriating in its own self overnight. There was a squeeze of lemon at the end (I forgot that above), and there was also a little dollop of something on top: onion-briefly-fried-in-butter, roast garlic, salt, avocado, all left to cool, mixed with a little sour cream and a dash of black pepper.
It’s still going, even as I’m typing — the taste of thyme and lemon at the end and edge of every mouthful.
I’m no chef. But I’m a half-decent country kitchen cook. Hearty soups. Tasty curries. Shepherd’s pie that once resulted in my friend Cary going back for THIRDS.
In the world of poetry, we are often talking about the effect of language on the reader as they are going through the text. To my mind, recipes and poetry have much in common: they evoke something beyond simply the language. They evoke association, improvisation, modification, and anticipation. There is a pleasure in reading a recipe (even one as quantity-less as mine; my friends joke about my lack of quantities when I describe cooking) that speaks to the reader, even if they never end up making the food.
We featured a poem of Amanda Gunn’s — titled “Ordinary Sugar” — a while back on an episode of Poetry Unbound, and it contains stories about what her matriarchs could do to make things sweet. I adore this poem, for its delicious language, its wisdom about poverty and pleasure, its reflection on what food can mean, and its sensuous intelligence.
Here’s an excerpt from it:
Aunt Mary made graham cracker cake without measuring cups, divided one pound light brown sugar with a knife, half for the cake and half for the pearlescent hand-beaten, double-boiled icing. Aunt Earline made yellow cake with frosting of real fudge—234 degrees and all, slow cooled, poured just before the rapid and irrevocable hardening. Ordinary sugar coaxed to its epiphany.
From “Ordinary Sugar,” which appeared in Amanda Gunn’s collection Things I Didn’t Do with This Body (Copper Canyon Press)
I’m wondering what you can do with language and pleasure and evocation and memory, without consulting your recipe books or the back-of-the-envelope measurements you have pinned on a corkboard in your kitchen. This week I invite you to turn the heart and tongue to the pleasure of your language, friends, and share your memory of a recipe. I am guaranteed to try a few of them, and I’m guessing many of you will also. Recipes, too, are a form of love, and do to the reader what a poem can do.
Poetry in the World
A list of events: Online; in the US (New York City and Rhinebeck, NY; Kent, OH; Norfolk, VA; Durham, NC ); in Canada (Hamilton); and the Scottish island of Iona
September 17, New York City, New York, US, and Online
The brilliant Palestinian American poet and medic Fady Joudah has won the Jackson Poetry Prize, and I’ll be interviewing him at at The Greene Space at 7 pm. The fee for in-person tickets is $16, and online attendance is free. Info and registration here.
September 19–21, Kent, Ohio, US
I’m looking forward to being part of the 40th anniversary of the Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University, alongside Naomi Shihab Nye, Jane Hirshfield, and Adrian Matejka. You can register here, and find more information about the celebratory events here.
October 6–11, Rhinebeck, New York, US
I’m back for a week at Omega (just two hours north of NYC) for a week of reflection on poetry, poetry prompts, and group discussions. Expect lovely people, gorgeous surroundings and food, and conversations about how poetry opens your world. Learn more here.
October 26–27, Norfolk, Virginia, US
I’ll be giving some readings, a class, and a reflection, hosted by the good people of Christ & St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. Details will be on their website shortly.
October 30, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
I’ll be giving a lecture on literature and health at the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University as part of the Hooker Lecture 2024 series. Details are coming soon.
November 3, 10, 17, 24, December 1, Online
Fill your Sunday evenings with peculiarity, poetry, and ancient literature: I’ll be giving new online lectures on “Strange Stories of the Bible”. You can register here.
November 18–19 Durham, North Carolina, US
I’m giving the William Preston Few lecture at Duke University. I’ll share details here as they emerge.
March 10–15 and March 18–23 2025, Isle of Iona, Scotland
I’m holding two Poetry Unbound retreats on the gorgeous Scottish island of Iona; each retreat is the same. Both retreats are booked up, but you can get on the waiting list by contacting the folks at the St. Columba here.
My goodness, what a treat to read of your hearty soup. Such goodness, such heart, such delight. I could smell the aromas and taste the garlic and thyme. Thank you Padraig for your story, Amanda's poem and the prompt.
Last night, I had my two grandsons stay over. A few days ago, I found a cookbook of 'easy to make foods' in the local street library. They flipped through the pages in the back seat of the car as I drove them to my home. The 10 year old made a shopping list of ingredients and, as we unpacked the groceries onto the bench they confidently declared, 'we don't need the recipe, we know how to make this'. So it was we made the pastry with flour dusting the floor and their t-shirts, and the 7 year old asking, with his hands mixing the flour and butter, 'is this like breadcrumbs?' The older one broke half a dozen eggs into a bowl and picked out the errant shell. I chopped the spinach and parsley from the garden and we sang it all together. Three small pies sung into the hot oven. Next came the lemon delight dessert. Soft butter, castor sugar, egg yolks and grated zest of lemons picked fresh from the tree. I took out the old egg whisk, like the one that my mum, and her mum had in their kitchens. Like the one I used in my year 8 home economic cooking class five decades ago. 'Wow, they both marvelled, this is old fashioned.' and both wanted a go. They watched the peaks arise like snow crested mountains. They snuck a finger in to taste. Their faces wrinkled up and they laughed and beat it some more until it was smooth and shiny. Gently folding the whites into the mix, our cake was ready to bake. Out came the spinach pie and in went the cake into a 'bain-marie' a tray of hot water. The boys thought this strange and wanted to know why and what happens to the water.
We set the fire-pit in the garden, served the pie and sat under the new moon and ate dinner watching the flames reach up into the dark as two kangaroos sat in the shadows.
Lemon delight was served with ice cream. Yum.
Cooking with my grandsons, a recipe of love and connection, creativity and confidence.
Thanksgiving Mashed Potatoes
-1 bag of potatoes, hastily peeled
-1 son in law given a knowing nod to fix them, quietly
-bring to a boil, percolate tension in the kitchen, strain
-Some butter, a splash of milk, salt, cracked pepper
-1 cup of debate, honor grandpa or please the kids?
-Honor tradition, add the sour cream.