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Lone
Wolf
Howl: WRITINGS GET TO HEART, OR STOMACH OF THE MATTER
(Originally
published
in
Cochrane Times :
July 19, 2006)
for the Cochrane Times —
Maybe it’s the summer heat, but this time of year usually gets me thinking and talking about my most beloved writers. Last summer in the Howl, I mentioned one by the name of Jim Harrison. Since that column, Harrison has been a constant voice in my rattled heart and head over the past 11 months, having spoken to me more than any other writer in the massive amount of pages I’ve read of his to date: five novels, nine novellas, dozens of poems, and dozens upon dozens of essays, interviews, and general non-fiction. Baker’s dozens, really. Any and all food-related metaphors are fair game when discussing the belles-lettres of Harrison because of how he writes about our most primal impulse: food (He writes unashamedly about one of our other primal impulses too, but out of discretion for the virginal innocence of some of my readership, I’ll refrain from quoting those passages directly). Food. The hunting of it, the preparation of it, the eating of it, and the wine best opened and poured for the washing down of it. So much and so effectively so, that for the last five months I’ve had a non-stop, unprecedented appetite for all things garlic and red. Most writers aim for your heart or your head (or other unmentionable organs), but Harrison, unlike any other I’ve encountered, goes most often for the gut. Literally. He’s the very antipodes (in literary terms) to the Atkins and Craigs and every other best-selling ‘author’ (please!) advocating the latest and greatest way to curb the natural inclination – as Harrison himself likes to say – to ‘Eat or Die’. When I read James Joyce I want to go to Ireland. When I read Alice Munro I want to visit with my dear old aunties. When I read Jim Harrison, I want to eat and drink. Roast quail stuffed with leeks and sweetbreads, served on a polenta pancake with a heavily truffled woodcock sauce; tomatoes expertly cored and filled with minced garlic, soft cheese, and fresh basil then roasted over an open fire; foie gras steamed over Sire de Gouberville cognac. I’ve only attempted one of these culinary curiosities, but I want to try them all one day. And of course, many a bottle of Côtes-du-Rhône (the cheaper variety) has been laid to rest in the funeral home of the Cochrane Bottle Depot by my corkscrew. After an afternoon of reading dear old Jim, if the weather’s good, I’ll clip the leash on my one-year-old pooch Addie and the two of us will go in search of ingredients for the perfect meal. Cochrane’s come a long way in this regard… I remember 20 years ago, packing groceries at the Cochrane Foodmaster. There were us, IGA, and the Alberta Liquour Control Board across the street with kooky 9-5 banking hours (that’s right kids… it was closed on Sundays). If it was after 6 in the evening and you were in search of something fresh or red (or both), your only option was to slit your wrist in the middle of Main Street and siphon the lifeblood out. Either that or drive to Calgary. Now we have three major grocery stores (including the stalwart survivor IGA), a Bavarian bakery, a brand new online organic food order and delivery service, and plenty of coffee shops and wine peddlers boasting a bevy of beverages both bottled and brewed. And its high summer… the season of haut cuisine in Alberta… the few weeks out of the year when men stop doing the laundry and cleaning toilets and take over the meal prep duties. Therefore I’ll let the granddaddy of gourmands have the final word here. Taken from Harrison’s essay "What Have We Done with the Thighs?" (found in the 2001 release ‘The Raw and the Cooked’ – order a copy from George at Westlands and have a honeymoon with your tummy), wherein the author laments our preference for one cut of fowl over another. You may have to squeeze a few breasts in Cochrane to find them, but each of our grocery stores always have a fine selection of thighs on hand. "I think chicken breasts are the moral equivalent of a TV commercial. I make Bocuse’s poulet au vinaigre only with thighs… … Would the ghost of D.H. Lawrence suggest that we fear thighs because of their proximity to the organs of reproduction and evacuation? Is it because we are still mummy’s children and crave the anonymous, tasteless breast? Is it a subconscious fear of AIDS? Probably not, as 60 per cent of those under 30 in America have never seen a live chicken and couldn’t tell a thigh from Jon Bon Jovi’s chin." Bon appétit! (www.lonewolftheatre.com) |