Food has always been present in autobiographies written by men . Worth remembering is the story of the pear tree in the Confessions of Saint Augustine (2008) and the pleasure he derived from stealing the pears from his neighborâs vineyard with his friends, when he was sixteen (2008, p. 29). The memory of the theft stayed with him through his life as an image of the frailties of the flesh and the spiritual weaknesses of men. When Augustine became a Saint the sensualist Epicurean that he had been settled into an ascetic Stoic, which placed manâs supreme good in the mastering of carnal desires. For his part, Jean Jacques Rousseau, who was no saint, admitted that his inclination was also to sensualism, but took care to underscore that he was not given to voracious eating: âI am a sensualist but not a glutton,â he affirmed in his life narrative (1953, p. 43). To prove that his pursuit of the pleasures of the table was in check he added that he only âenjoy[ed] eating with a friend,â as if when shared, gluttony was no longer a vice (1953, p. 43). When he is by himself Rousseau takes no pleasure in his food, in fact, âit is impossible [to even appreciate a morsel], because my imagination is always busy with something elseâ (1953, p. 44). Mostly, then, it was solitary âfood for thoughtâ (1953, p. 435) that the French philosopher was greedy for.
Apparently, Henry Adams shared Rousseauâs Enlightenment rationality in his passion for loneliness and spiritual rather than material sustainment. When in his Education (2000) he affirms that â[h]unger, whether for food or for the infinite, sets in motion multiplicity and infinity of thoughtâ (2000, p. 476), he gives readers to understand that by hungering the body the mind was fed. Benjamin Franklin agreed with this logic, but took so much pleasure in his food thatâgoing by the account of his life (1996)âhis âresolution of not eating animal foodâ almost evaporated upon looking at a cod that had just come âhot out of the frying-pan.â Steadfastly he tucks in, making the definite and serious decision to return âonly now and then occasionally to a vegetable dietâ (1996, p. 27). Just like Franklin , Henry James broke down âhis good resolutions about foodâ whenever he had the chance, or so we are induced to believe from reading Notes of a Son and Brother and The Middle Years (2011, p. 123). Despite his well-known dyspepsia and recurring constipation, albeit his many attempts to control the appetites of his unruly body through Fletcherism,1 Henry James could not help rejoicing in the juiciness of the â[f]ish, roast, veal, cutlets, pigeons!â served on Miss Uphamâs table (2011, p. 103) as much as he did in the less refined fare of an eating house in London (2011, p. 431).
In the autobiographical texts cited, canonized as master narratives of masculine identity, food is used to illustrate a feature of character and add local color. It is easily absorbed by the narration and brought under the main theme of the book as a mere anecdote or as a metaphor for lack of intellectual knowledge and corruption of will, means for pleasure or excuse for transgression . It is at the end of the twentieth century that the things that we eat are elevated in status to achieve the rank of central motif, impacting the overall development of the narrator and the advancement of the life plot. This involved a change in the rhetorical arrangement of the autobiographical text that gave rise to a new genre, the food autobiography , whose literary value was soon consolidated by the popularity of its authors and the interest of readers. I return to food autobiographies later in this chapter, for now suffice to say that they narrate the identity of a self through the memories of what he ate in the past, the foods he is tasting in the present and the dishes he is planning to savor in the future. This book is concerned with food autobiographies written by men from the 1980s to the present. I am interested in how food has transformed autobiographical narratives and how these define the ways men eat and cook nowadays. But, why food? Why autobiographies? Why men? Three factors contributed to the emergence of the genre in the 1980s and menâs practice of it.2
The first factor relates to a series of food scandals taking place in the 1980s, which âopened peopleâs eyes to the way their food was being producedâ (Pollan 2010), and directed the attention of consumers to what they put in their mouths. Mad cow disease, meat contaminated with E. coli and ârepeated outbreaks of food-borne illness linked to new antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteriaâ alerted the population to the risks of âadministering antibiotics to food animalsâ and eroded their trust that governments could assure the safety of what they ate (Pollan 2010). A series of groups emerged that campaigned for animal welfare, sustainable agriculture, equal distribution of food around the world and environmental protection. The organic, fair trade and slow food movements consolidated the consciousness that it was important to know where our food comes from and that its production and consumption affects the global population (Counihan and Siniscalchi 2014).
Carlo Petrini , founder of Slow Food, proposes that consumers eat ordinary foods, locally grown and cooked simply, according to Italian tradition in order to preserve national culture (Schneider 2008, p. 384). Significantly, he goes further than other food activists in associating increase in consumption of industrial foods with the dissolution of community and family ties (Leitch 2008, p. 384), calling us back to domestic cooking while reassessing the private kitchen as a site of public responsibility. Slow foodism also differs from other movements in the role it gives to pleasure . As Valeria Siniscalchi explains: âThe founders of slow food introduced terms like pleasure that had been set aside in the years of political and social tension and made them the pillars of their philosophyâ (2014, p. 225). Their emphasis on pleasure led to accusations of incompetence and immorality, as if they were just âa bunch of good-timers interested only in stuffing [themselves]â (Petrini 2001, p . 10). Petrini writes: âFor a long time [at the end of the 1980s] we still had to worry about justifying a choice that was often portrayed as purely hedonistic and a political retreatâ (2001, p. 12). Although âdelight in lifeâs pleasures and social awarenessâ no longer appears to be incompatible (2001, p. 12), the idea persists that pleasure must serve a higher purpose to be admitted to the table.
Running parallel to food activist movements there is a gourmet trend of high-end chefs capitalizing on the pleasures of art . Even though interested in âecologically friendly foodsâ (Johnston and Baumann 2014, p. 25), concern with justice is secondary to aesthetics, incidental to the primary purpose of art , which is to secure perfection of technical execution, originality of taste and visual interest. Followers of this trend dine out in fabulously expensive restaurants, bask in complicated exotic flavors and reflect on the symbolic and artistic qualities of the dishes they eat. This book addresses both ordinary and artistic, domestic and high-brow food and the ways they interrelate. Although it deals with autobiographies written by chefs, they include recipes to be prepared at home, intended for readers who do not cook for a living.
On another level, the interest of the media in the topic of food is manifest. The proliferation of cookery programs, documentaries and movies mirrors the increase of internet sites, blogs and webpages devoted to food. The large number of festivals around the world celebrating culinary difference (Getz and Robinson 2014) is a sure sign that, to paraphrase Samuel Johnson, we mind our bellies very studiously (Boswel...