Paksworld

On occasion I’ve written about writing in cooking terms–stirring the pot, things bubbling up from below, flavorings that must not over-dominate the final meal, something cooking so long the story goes mushy, etc.    But there’s another relationships between cooking and writing that not many people have mentioned.

Writers at white heat burn dinner.    They also burn dinner when they’ve stayed up too late working on a difficult scene and then fallen asleep  (“I was only going to lie down for a minute…”)  only to wake up to the smell of something scorching hours later.

This may be why so many books (other than cozy mysteries with recipes)  have someone cooking stew or soup, because it’s harder (not impossible!) to burn those.   That fantasy stew that Diana Wynne Jones wrote about in The Tough Guide to Fantasyland just might be the result of fantasy writers’ own cooking experience.

For me, today, it was lamb curry.    The bread came out OK, but the lamb curry scorched on the bottom because I fell asleep and my husband (busy on his own things) didn’t check on it.    (The unburnt part was delicious, by the way…)

Aside from the occasional scorched curry, overdone roast,  mushy potatoes, and bread dough that rose right out of the bowl and crawled across the counter like a science fictional alien monster when the writer wasn’t attending, cooking has other relationships to writing.   Trimming up meat before making that stew, for instance, has a kinship with trimming a story that also has gristly, fatty bits you don’t want in the meal.    Making stock is rather like work done on the setting and cultures–making a flavorful background base on which the more distinctive “front” flavors will act.   Sauteeing the shallots and garlic and mushrooms…slicing and dicing…measuring and mixing…squeezing the juice from limes and lemons and oranges…sweating the spices…all have writerly analogies both in the actions and in the use of the ingredients.

Philosophically speaking, in both cooking and writing there’s a lot of leeway for personal taste.  There is no one right way to make bread.  There is no one right way to make soup.  And there’s no one right way to write a story.  If the bread, the soup, the roast, the salad taste good to those eating it–that’s a success.  If readers enjoy the book–that’s a success.    Similarly, in both cooking and writing, there’s a broad range of  nutritional value  in the content.   Just as there are “empty calorie” foods, there are “empty calorie” stories…and far worse than a sugar cookie, there are foods (and books) with toxic ingredients that make body (or mind) less healthy if not actually sick.   The old saying “You have to eat a peck of dirt before you die” is now turning out to be true of your immune system (too clean isn’t good for it) so this is not an argument for eating (or reading) only those things approved by nutritionists.   (She says with a mouthful of dark chocolate…)

Writing has an advantage, in that the book equivalent of scorched curry or rice on the bottom of the pot can be quietly removed before readers see it…whereas the family always notices (and the scrubbing of burnt rice or potatoes off a pot is a lot harder than highlighting and hitting “Delete.”)   Cooking has an advantage, in that you can eat the results of the work the same day (or within a day or so, anyway.)   This morning’s work made today’s bread, much of which is where it should be…inside us.

I’m glad I can do both, but wish I didn’t even scorch things, burn things, or overcook things because my nose is on the other grindstone.    (The lamb curry was really, really good.   Luckily–since I fell asleep–I hadn’t also put the rice on.)