Empires, Cannibals, and Magic Fish Bones
Join us as we celebrate food, the dinner table, and quite likely empires, cannibals and magic fish bones!
This recipe begins with Joan Miró’s The Table (Still Life with Rabbit), 1920 with its mix of realistic details and slightly Cubist perspective, and a paragraph from Feeding Hannibal: A Connoisseur’s Handbook by Janice Spoon. On page 181, under the title “Pappardelle Sulla Lepre,” I read, In Contorno, Inspector Pazzi and his young wife, Allegra, … Continue reading Cidered Rabbit
My friend Doug Arno went for a walk with a compound bow in Northern Ontario near Longlac during bear hunting season and brought down a black bear weighing nearly 300 pounds. With one arrow. Bear hunting in North America dates back to the beginning of the Holocene. Bear Hunting at the Pleistocene/Holocene Transition on the Northern … Continue reading “Looking After the Bones:” A Hunt And Bear Stew.
Leroy Campbell’s Table Talk portrays three generations of a family gathered round plates full of corn, greens, tomatoes and rolls. Newspaper articles focused on African-american culture stitch together the tablecloth. Bright, lively colors clothe family, furniture and walls. Two black and white portraits of ancestors watch over them all. Campbell creates his work out of Gullah-Geechee … Continue reading Gullah Cuisine: An Argument And History About Who’s in The Kitchen With A Chicken Bog.
The old stories tell of a bride . . . and then a war, and as always, banquet after banquet. Remember Helen? Daughter of Zeus and Leda. In this Peter Paul Rubens’ version (there are two) Leda and the Swan (aka Zeus) may share a kiss or you could also interpret that she’s asleep, either … Continue reading Thoughts Toward A Lecture In North Carolina: A Swan, Bride, And Fatal Banquet.
The number of guests at dinner should not be less than the number of the Graces nor exceed that of the Muses, i.e., it should begin with three and stop at nine. (Marcus Varro) I have a suckling pig in my refrigerator. Over the next three days I’ll narrate his transformation from corpse to recipe … Continue reading Cochon De Lait For The Three Graces, Day One
Jules-Alexandre Grün knew how to paint a dinner party. All the light, all the wealth, all the joy. Such a beautiful nineteen hundred and eleven, what could go wrong? I think of the word hospitality. Here’s a Walter Arnold photograph of the old Marine Hospital in the French Fort area of Memphis, Tennessee. … Continue reading The Dinner Party: Do I Amputate, Change Out, Or Kill The Guests?
Why would this episode of Empires, Cannibals and Magic Fish Bones begin with Jacques-Louis David’s The Death of Socrates? Ah, just you wait–death, drink, friends, and something sacred are all in the air. The Odyssey, so much eating, so much time: sacrifice and feasts, strangers walking in the door and feasting, sailors feasting on cattle … Continue reading Ancient Cuisine Philosophy For 500, Jack! The Odyssey To Yum Yum Cha To Nineveh To Cajun Country.
Much like Odysseus’ ship ploughing through Mediterranean Sea, my rented white Toyota Corrolla sails along the navigable waters of I-75, heading straight toward my meeting with the dead. An exact simile, maybe not–but it’s the spirit of metaphor that counts. I took the above photo while driving near or right at the speed limit of … Continue reading A Journey North To The Underworld Via The Cattle Of The Feedlots and Madonna’s Vine
