How in this sweet
aftermath of everything the mind
should settle on plums
Geri Doran
“Blue Plums”
If poetry is all about the image, then it’s understandable why so many poets have written about food. Writing about food is like writing about a lover. The poet can—and does, joyously—explore all the senses. In “I Chop Some Parsley While Listening to Art Blakey’s Version of ‘Three Blind Mice,’” Billy Collins raises dicing herbs and vegetables while listening to jazz to a whole new level of food prep. Last semester, a student’s poem about warm pita and honey inspired my class to have a party where we drank tea and prepared and ate the subject of her poem.
Of all the food groups, however, it is fruit that has inspired the greatest outpouring. What better object to evoke sensations of sweetness and succulence? What better metaphor for the body? What better metaphor for the pleasures of poetry itself? Diane Wakoski’s “Ode to a Lebanese Crock of Olives,” one of her many food poems and a veritable cornucopia of shimmering ingredients, spills over to include “the gold of lemons” and “the still life of grapes.” In “A Step Away From Them,’ Frank O’Hara’s lunch includes “a glass of papaya juice.” That’s the “lunch poem” that ends with the lines “My heart is in my / pocket, it is Poems by Pierre Reverdy,”
While summer cocktails conjure up a specific image -- usually of tiny umbrellas and slices of watermelon -- autumn brings about libations that are, shall we say, less photogenic. The dearth of the fresh ingredients that make summer drinks such colorful beachside accompaniments force harvest season cocktails into a comparatively substandard role. But this seems wrong considering the other pleasures we gleefully anticipate with first nip in the air. People salivate on line at Starbucks eagerly awaiting their pumpkin spice lattes and delight in slipping on lightweight jackets to compliment the blushing foliage. Why too shouldn't lifting the year's first glass of Apple Brandy be part of the tradition?
Pears have a special place in my childhood. When I was a kid, my family would pick pears from the trees in my aunt and uncle's backyard. They always had more pears than they knew what to do with. My aunt made pear sauce, much like apple sauce, and my mom would can the pears to be eaten as compote. We would also eat them raw, when their so sweet, juicy, and buttery. I love them that way, but often enough the ones you buy in the market are not the best to eat out of hand. That's when I like to poach pears to create a unique dessert.
If I told you that I had a fabulous soup recipe with only three ingredients in it, would you believe me? Leeks, potatoes and water or chicken broth. Oh and a little butter to saute the leeks in, that's it.