This "My Reading Life" column appeared in The Record Review in September, 2004 as
one in an ongoing series by Elinore Standard.
Works mentioned in this piece: Longitude, Cod, Salt, Hiroshima, Blues, A Cow's Life,
Secret Life of Dust. Sweetness and Power, Sex, Fried Chicken, Apple Pie, Spam
LONGITUDE, COD and FRIED CHICKEN
Dava Sobel surprised everybody, including herself, when her popular account
of the 18th Century measuring of Longitude (Walker, 1995) became a bestseller.
I remember taking the little paperback version on a cross-country flight and by
the time I landed in California, I had gained appreciation of the marine
chronometer or clock that would keep precise time at sea.
Not far behind “Longitude” came “Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed
the World” (Walker, 1997) ” and “Salt: A World History” (Walker, 2002), both
by Mark Kurlansky. (Notice that Walker appears to have got the early lock on
publishing these successful one-subject books).
Although “Cod” got better reviews, to me “Salt” is more interesting. Think about
salt as a source of wealth, state monopoly and means of exchange. See it as a
preservative: salted fish, cheese, meat, and vegetables (think: pickles) were
main staples in practically every culture. Know that salt is as essential to the
everyday cook as it is to the chef at Nobu. A first century A.D. recipe from
Apicius begins: “Pluck the flamingo, wash it, truss it, put it in a pot; add water,
salt, dill and a bit of vinegar…”
In this genre of one-subject titles John Hersey got there early on with
“Hiroshima” (1946) and then with “Blues” (Knopf, 1987) a loving tribute to
fishing and to the less-than loveable bluefish (around our house known as
“the rat of the sea”). Hersey includes poems about fish and fishing by Homer,
and by modern poets including James Merrill, Elizabeth Bishop, Ted Hughes
and Marianne Moore. Since knowing what to do with a bluefish once you’ve
caught it is important, he provides several recipes (heavy on the garlic,
rosemary and mayo—anything to subdue the nasty taste) that offer hope for
making your bluefish palatable. The real trick to cooking a bluefish is to cause
it happen within minutes of it being caught and gutted.
Maybe try “A Cow’s Life: The Surprising History of Cattle and How The Black
Angus Come To Be Home On The Range” by M. R. Montgomery (Walker, 2004).
This little book traces the evolution of domesticated cattle and, among other
things, walks us through a day in the life of a Montana cow.
Perhaps you’d be interested in “The Secret Life of Dust: From The Cosmos To
The Kitchen Counter, The Big Consequences of Little Things”, by Hannah Holmes
(Wiley, 2001) and dedicated to “My big, fat muse, P. Earth”. Holmes, who says
she grew up in a household with a microscope on the kitchen table, concludes
the universe is growing dustier with every passing million years. She says that
ultimately dust will insulate the stars and the night sky will darken. “And then,
like an old newspaper in the attic, the worn-out universe will gradually disappear
under the thickening dust.”
“Coal: A Human History” by Barbara Freese (Perseus, 2003), takes us into
another dimension, into the seams of coal beneath the earth. This is not so much
a history of coal mining as it is a social, political and environmental history and
explication of the world-changing essence of coal. Freese quotes Ralph Waldo
Emerson who wrote about coal in the mid-19th Century: “Every basket is power and civilization. For coal is a portable climate. It carries the heat of the tropics to
Labrador and the polar circle; and it is the means of transporting itself whithersoever
it is wanted. Watt and Stephenson whispered in the ear of mankind their secret, that a half-ounce of coal will draw two tons a mile, and coal carries coal, by rail and by boat,
to make Canada as warm as Calcutta; and with its comfort brings its industrial power.”
Freese thinks we may go back, someday, to using coal that, “for all its faults,
brought us through a sort of prolonged industrial childhood and ultimately gave us
the power to build a world that no longer needed coal.”
Digging deeper, there are the classic academic works on commodities such as
Sidney Mintz’s ambitious work, “Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in
Modern History” (Penguin, 1985). Most of these one-topic books can be found in
the 500 section at your library, a repository of the esoteric, the exquisite, the obsessional.
Go in there and you’ll emerge with an armful of books on subjects you never thought
for a minute about and then spend happy hours reading about cows or coal, or maybe
even dust.
One book you probably won’t find in the 500 section is “Sex” by Madonna,
a coffee table-sized book (Ediciones B, 1992) whose first printing sold out in a week.
A photo album about Madonna’s sex rather than, well, just sex, the book is long out
of print and now collectible with prices at Amazon starting at $125 and going to more
than $350. The only copy in the my local library system was, no big surprise, listed in
the catalogue as “missing.”
You might want to try, “Fried Chicken: An American Story” by John T. Edge
(Putnam, 2004) which lists 34 “favorite chicken houses” in 14 states with commentary
on their specialties. You can read about Cape May Onion-Fried Shore Chicken,
for example, and even try out a recipe for it. KFC, eat your heart out! For something
to go with your chicken, Edge has also written “Apple Pie”.
Perhaps you’d care to dig into “Spam: A Biography” by Carolyn Wyman (Harvest, 1999).
This is spam the ham product in a can, not the junk e-mail waiting for you when you
fire up your computer.
Try to think of something nobody else has done, which is about as tough as
finding a subject for a biography or a dissertation. I can think of a couple of topics I
wouldn’t mind spending time writing about – amber, for example. Amber is so Baltic, so organic, so ancient. It might be interesting to write about boxcars. Yes, boxcars might
be good.Think of all the logos on those long lines of boxcars, hundreds of them, that took forever to trundle through the railroad crossing as you watched from the back seat of
your father’s DeSoto. I Googled “boxcars” and found 99,000 entries, so figure it has,
alas, as editors are so fond of saying, “ been done.” For the fun of it, go to www.nonotuck.us./kens/boxcars / and you’ll see pictures of all sorts of railroad
freight cars, a handy reference for all your trainspotting needs.
Then, I Googled “amber” and found myself on Page One of 6,420,000
entries. Pretty daunting for the would-be writer of a small book on a single
interesting topic.
Elinore Standard is the editor, along with Laura Furman, of
“Bookworms: Great Writers and Readers Celebrate Reading."
(1997. Carroll & Graf)
one in an ongoing series by Elinore Standard.
Works mentioned in this piece: Longitude, Cod, Salt, Hiroshima, Blues, A Cow's Life,
Secret Life of Dust. Sweetness and Power, Sex, Fried Chicken, Apple Pie, Spam
LONGITUDE, COD and FRIED CHICKEN
Dava Sobel surprised everybody, including herself, when her popular account
of the 18th Century measuring of Longitude (Walker, 1995) became a bestseller.
I remember taking the little paperback version on a cross-country flight and by
the time I landed in California, I had gained appreciation of the marine
chronometer or clock that would keep precise time at sea.
Not far behind “Longitude” came “Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed
the World” (Walker, 1997) ” and “Salt: A World History” (Walker, 2002), both
by Mark Kurlansky. (Notice that Walker appears to have got the early lock on
publishing these successful one-subject books).
Although “Cod” got better reviews, to me “Salt” is more interesting. Think about
salt as a source of wealth, state monopoly and means of exchange. See it as a
preservative: salted fish, cheese, meat, and vegetables (think: pickles) were
main staples in practically every culture. Know that salt is as essential to the
everyday cook as it is to the chef at Nobu. A first century A.D. recipe from
Apicius begins: “Pluck the flamingo, wash it, truss it, put it in a pot; add water,
salt, dill and a bit of vinegar…”
In this genre of one-subject titles John Hersey got there early on with
“Hiroshima” (1946) and then with “Blues” (Knopf, 1987) a loving tribute to
fishing and to the less-than loveable bluefish (around our house known as
“the rat of the sea”). Hersey includes poems about fish and fishing by Homer,
and by modern poets including James Merrill, Elizabeth Bishop, Ted Hughes
and Marianne Moore. Since knowing what to do with a bluefish once you’ve
caught it is important, he provides several recipes (heavy on the garlic,
rosemary and mayo—anything to subdue the nasty taste) that offer hope for
making your bluefish palatable. The real trick to cooking a bluefish is to cause
it happen within minutes of it being caught and gutted.
Maybe try “A Cow’s Life: The Surprising History of Cattle and How The Black
Angus Come To Be Home On The Range” by M. R. Montgomery (Walker, 2004).
This little book traces the evolution of domesticated cattle and, among other
things, walks us through a day in the life of a Montana cow.
Perhaps you’d be interested in “The Secret Life of Dust: From The Cosmos To
The Kitchen Counter, The Big Consequences of Little Things”, by Hannah Holmes
(Wiley, 2001) and dedicated to “My big, fat muse, P. Earth”. Holmes, who says
she grew up in a household with a microscope on the kitchen table, concludes
the universe is growing dustier with every passing million years. She says that
ultimately dust will insulate the stars and the night sky will darken. “And then,
like an old newspaper in the attic, the worn-out universe will gradually disappear
under the thickening dust.”
“Coal: A Human History” by Barbara Freese (Perseus, 2003), takes us into
another dimension, into the seams of coal beneath the earth. This is not so much
a history of coal mining as it is a social, political and environmental history and
explication of the world-changing essence of coal. Freese quotes Ralph Waldo
Emerson who wrote about coal in the mid-19th Century: “Every basket is power and civilization. For coal is a portable climate. It carries the heat of the tropics to
Labrador and the polar circle; and it is the means of transporting itself whithersoever
it is wanted. Watt and Stephenson whispered in the ear of mankind their secret, that a half-ounce of coal will draw two tons a mile, and coal carries coal, by rail and by boat,
to make Canada as warm as Calcutta; and with its comfort brings its industrial power.”
Freese thinks we may go back, someday, to using coal that, “for all its faults,
brought us through a sort of prolonged industrial childhood and ultimately gave us
the power to build a world that no longer needed coal.”
Digging deeper, there are the classic academic works on commodities such as
Sidney Mintz’s ambitious work, “Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in
Modern History” (Penguin, 1985). Most of these one-topic books can be found in
the 500 section at your library, a repository of the esoteric, the exquisite, the obsessional.
Go in there and you’ll emerge with an armful of books on subjects you never thought
for a minute about and then spend happy hours reading about cows or coal, or maybe
even dust.
One book you probably won’t find in the 500 section is “Sex” by Madonna,
a coffee table-sized book (Ediciones B, 1992) whose first printing sold out in a week.
A photo album about Madonna’s sex rather than, well, just sex, the book is long out
of print and now collectible with prices at Amazon starting at $125 and going to more
than $350. The only copy in the my local library system was, no big surprise, listed in
the catalogue as “missing.”
You might want to try, “Fried Chicken: An American Story” by John T. Edge
(Putnam, 2004) which lists 34 “favorite chicken houses” in 14 states with commentary
on their specialties. You can read about Cape May Onion-Fried Shore Chicken,
for example, and even try out a recipe for it. KFC, eat your heart out! For something
to go with your chicken, Edge has also written “Apple Pie”.
Perhaps you’d care to dig into “Spam: A Biography” by Carolyn Wyman (Harvest, 1999).
This is spam the ham product in a can, not the junk e-mail waiting for you when you
fire up your computer.
Try to think of something nobody else has done, which is about as tough as
finding a subject for a biography or a dissertation. I can think of a couple of topics I
wouldn’t mind spending time writing about – amber, for example. Amber is so Baltic, so organic, so ancient. It might be interesting to write about boxcars. Yes, boxcars might
be good.Think of all the logos on those long lines of boxcars, hundreds of them, that took forever to trundle through the railroad crossing as you watched from the back seat of
your father’s DeSoto. I Googled “boxcars” and found 99,000 entries, so figure it has,
alas, as editors are so fond of saying, “ been done.” For the fun of it, go to www.nonotuck.us./kens/boxcars / and you’ll see pictures of all sorts of railroad
freight cars, a handy reference for all your trainspotting needs.
Then, I Googled “amber” and found myself on Page One of 6,420,000
entries. Pretty daunting for the would-be writer of a small book on a single
interesting topic.
Elinore Standard is the editor, along with Laura Furman, of
“Bookworms: Great Writers and Readers Celebrate Reading."
(1997. Carroll & Graf)
No comments:
Post a Comment