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Monday
A former colleague at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, Jennifer Cognard-Black, is out with a beautiful new anthology entitled Good Eats: 32 Writers on Eating Ethically. As the book jacket announces, the essays “seek to understand the experiences, cultures, histories and systems that have shaped their eating and their ethics.”
In her introduction, Jennifer and her collaborator Melissa A. Goldthwaite say that their selections have been guided by four ethical principles. These are protecting and helping others, seeking to do no harm and to limit pain and suffering, respecting rights of choice and self-determination, and furthering justice, “which includes fairness, equitable distribution, and recognition of both need and contribution.” The essays range “from factory farming and the exploitative labor practices surrounding chocolate production, to Indigenous foodways and home and community gardens.”
The book opens with a Naomi Shihab Nye poem that beautifully captures the spirit of the writers. By intermixing food with its natural and cultural setting, “Truth Serum” goes to the heart of ethical eating. When one is intentional and mindful in making one’s food choices, Nye tells us, sorrow lifts in small ways.
Truth Serum
We made it from the ground-up corn in the old back pasture.
Pinched a scent of night jasmine billowing off the fence,
popped it right in.
That frog song wanting nothing but echo?
We used that.
Stirred it widely. Noticed the clouds while stirring.
Called upon our ancient great aunts and their long slow eyes
of summer. Dropped in their names.
Added a mint leaf now and then
to hearten the broth. Added a note of cheer and worry.
Orange butterfly between the claps of thunder?
Perfect. And once we had it,
had smelled and tasted the fragrant syrup,
placing the pan on a back burner for keeping,
the sorrow lifted in small ways.
We boiled down the lies in another pan till they disappeared.
We washed that pan.
I think of how Salman Rushdie once described literature as a “no bullshit zone,” an essential antidote to the non-stop lying and gaslighting we get from various political figures. Nye has a place for those lies on her stove: she boils them down “in another pan till they disappeared.”
A recipe that includes night jasmine, frog song, a mint leaf now and then, “a note of cheer and worry,” and an orange butterfly “between the claps of thunder”–and that is watched over by “ancient great aunts and their long slow eyes of summer”–will stand up to a lot of bullshit.
Jennifer’s book aims to do the same.