Category Archives: Food Writing

Chew. Spit. Ferment.

Posted on June 24, 2009 by Francois Lachance

A worldwide tour of the powers of mastication. To make liquor from grain or other starchy foods, the enzyme action of a substance such as malt or saliva must be used to change starch to sugar. When a very starchy … Continue reading →

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Sleeping and Thinking

Posted on June 21, 2009 by Francois Lachance

Brillat-Savarin in Anne Drayton’s translation of the The Philosopher in the Kitchen (La Physiologie du goût) offers the following words in the midst of a meditation upon sleep. What of the mind in the meantime? It lives its separate life; … Continue reading →

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1492-1992

Posted on April 21, 2009 by Francois Lachance

Ours and not ours. This is how I summarize the take on Columbus found in a smart little volume by Stefano Milioni about the foodstuffs that were adopted by Italians post contact. The volume is entitled Columbus Menu: Italian Cuisine … Continue reading →

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Inhaling

Posted on February 28, 2009 by Francois Lachance

Bonnie Marranca in her preface to a collection of food writing entitled A Slice of Life offers this anecdote. [T]wo summers ago in Nova Scotia, we stopped by the side of the road to have a picnic lunch with our … Continue reading →

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States of Salt

Posted on February 17, 2009 by Francois Lachance

In what I consider a tour de force Adam Mars-Jones gives us in The Waters of Thirst a narration with a single point of view for pages and pages. From beginning to end of this novel, our author animates a … Continue reading →

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Policy

Posted on January 20, 2009 by Francois Lachance

Michael Pollan in the introduction to his Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual has a take on policy that can be generalized from the case of rules applied to eating. He writes: Policies are useful tools. Instead of prescribing highly specific … Continue reading →

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Food and Sex

Posted on January 16, 2009 by Francois Lachance

The blog Baguettes and Butterscotch in one entry gives the eel-evoking “congers” for “conjures” and this is worth juxtaposing with Joanne Kates, the Globe and Mail food critic who reviews a pizza line up thus […] the scent of truffle … Continue reading →

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Gather ye Poesies

Posted on December 19, 2008 by Francois Lachance

Terry Pratchett has invented a most marvellous entity call L-Space. Its properties are magical and of course textual. Even big collections of ordinary books distort space and time, as can readily be proved by anyone who has been around a … Continue reading →

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Squiggle Jiggle

Posted on November 23, 2008 by Francois Lachance

Jean Rennie Every Other Sunday: The Autobiography of a Kitchenmaid (1955). An excerpt is found in Food: An Oxford Anthology (1995) edited by Brigid Allen. [The Chef] used to come in with the game or rabbits in his hands, throw … Continue reading →

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Solitary Recollections via Preserves

Posted on November 18, 2008 by Francois Lachance

The poem acts in a way as food put by. It acts as a container for memory whose fragrances unroll at the touch of sensitive mind. Or so I believe after reading, Minnie Bruce Pratt’s poem which gives the title … Continue reading →

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