Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food, by Paul Greenberg, will be discussed at the next meeting of Slow Food South Bay's Food Literature Group on May 23, 2011 at 7:00 PM.

The Food Literature Group meets five times per year to discuss books relevant to Slow Food and the food movement. Along with wonderful conversation, we also often share a potluck dinner at the meeting.

The Food Literature Group is open to current Slow Food South Bay chapter members. Please email me if you have an interest in joining this group at:

literature [AT-SIGN] [OUR-DOMAIN].

Linda Collery

Slow Food South Bay Food Literature Coordinator

Endless Feasts: Sixty Years of Writing from Gourmet

edited by Ruth Reichl

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Submitted by Linda Collery

Photo by Chris Holt

Slow Food South Bay's Food Literature Group ventured forth on its first field trip to attend Ruth Reichl's recent talk "The Intersection of Food, Culture and History" at Stanford University. As the title suggests, Reichl's presentation was wide-ranging and eclectic in scope. She began and ended her talk by reading from two very different female food writers whose books span a sixty-four year period - first from MFK Fisher's book The Gastronomical Me (the first selection to be read by SFSB's food literature group) and then concluding with a passage from chef/writer Gabrielle Hamilton's new book, Blood, Bones and Butter. In between, Reichl's lecture touched on Apicius, Allen Ginsburg, the Ming Dynasty, Chef Antonin Careme, the first edition of the Joy of Cooking, writers AJ. Leibling and Joseph Mitchell and the wonderful poem by William Carlos Williams, "This is Just to Say." Reichl stated that food is a reflection of its time and when one reads about food, one learns about the history and culture of a place.

Andy gave a wonderful reading from his chapter on maple syrup. He then led us in a maple syrup tasting. The syrup was predominantly from River's Edge Sugar House, a small, artisanal producer located in Connecticut, a state where Twain lived during one of the happiest periods in his life. We tasted several River's Edge Grade A syrups, ranging from Light to Dark Amber as well as their Grade B syrup. We also tasted one of Trader Joe's house syrups. The difference in quality was truly astonishing.

Twain's Feast

Andrew Beahrs

Reviewed by Peter Ruddock

Twain's Feast. by Andrew Beahrs

The Penguin Press, 2010

Like most Americans, I've read some of Mark Twain's books. I've read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huck Finn, of course. And I've read some of Twain's travel writing, including Innocents Abroad. I never would have thought of Twain as a food writer.

Fortunately, author and Slow Food Berkeley member Andrew Beahrs thinks differently. Then again, he has apparently read more of Mark Twain's writing than most and he knows that Twain was serious about food. He illustrates this most explicitly with a quote from Twain, using a line that he attached to a letter from his wife to a friend of hers as a postscript: "Dear Mrs. H - If I have a talent it is for contributing valuable matter to works upon cookery."

In the Introduction to Twain's Feast, his third book and first work of non-fiction, Andy tells us about a list that Mark Twain made while living in Germany and missing home. It described a meal, a "modest, private affair" just for himself. This meal included about eighty items of American food, from things as simple as radishes and new potatoes, to more substantial fare, like "Blue points, on the half shell" and "Canvas-back-duck, from Baltimore." Many of the foods were prepared "Southern style." The meal finished with apple pie, pumpkin pie and other American sweets, of course.

Out of this list for a meal sprung Andy's idea for a book. He pared his literary feast to eight items, some of which are no longer eaten much in America: prairie hens, raccoon, Sheep-head (a fish common in Louisiana) and terrapin (a kind of turtle from the east coast); others of which are still common: trout, cranberries and maple syrup. And probably of most interest to readers in the Bay Area: San Francisco Bay oysters. Substitute Tomales Bay for San Francisco Bay in the twenty-first century and you know, pretty much, what he's talking about.

For each food, Andy takes us on a tour, showing us the food as Twain would have known it, telling us about its geography and culinary uses at the end of the nineteenth century. With a mixture of history, biography and natural science we are introduced to the plant or animal as an American would have recognized it after the Civil War. Using recipes, similarly to the way that Mark Kurlansky does in his books, we are also introduced to how the food would have been prepared and served in an American house, such as Mark Twain's.

Andy then brings us into the present, contrasting the foods as they are now known with how they were known in Twain's era. The differences can be shocking - while we don't eat raccoon mostly based on sensibility, we would likely eat prairie chicken if there were enough of them to eat. In the twenty-first century, the tale often becomes one of the environment, illustrating what we've lost in the last century and a half and why we've lost it.

But this is a book by a Slow Food member, so the cautionary tale is leavened with celebration. Andy's love of food and cooking comes through when he talks about his own experiences with food and meals he ate and cooked while writing the book. And he had some wonderful experiences in the process - for each food he traveled somewhere in the United States to meet someone who is working with the plant or animal, often in a sustainable manner, and often with great passion. The descriptions of these individuals and their projects are some of the strongest passages in the book.

The book has just been released, but you ought to be able to find it in your local (independent) bookstore, or in your library. Do look for it. This is a book that all Slow Food members will enjoy reading. Slowly, of course.

The Gastronomical Me

M.F.K. Fisher

Monday, June 28, 2010

Submitted by Allison McElwee

We would like to thank Linda Collery for hosting the first meeting of Slow Food South Bay's quarterly book group at the Mountain View Community Center. The book of the evening was MFK Fisher's memoir, The Gastronomical Me. It describes her travels and experiences with food as a woman in the early 1900's. The meeting consisted of a themed potluck and discussion. Attendees all brought food items that were mentioned in the book. Some even used Fisher's recipes. While munching on treats like gingerbread, the group had a fun discussion about Fisher's experiences, Fisher herself, as well as their own experiences with food.