ars poetica

NOTE ON COOKING

 

Someone has observed that a pig resembles a saint in
that he is more honored after death than during his
lifetime. Speaking further of his social standing, we
have noticed that, when smoked, he is allowed to
appear at quite fashionable functions; but that only
one’s best friends will confess more than a bowing
acquaintance with pork and sauerkraut or pickled
pigs’ feet.

—        The Joy of Cooking

 

One morning language thought me. I collected its thoughts over breakfast and sorted them into loose characters. Were they friends? I copied their words. God helps those who help themselves one said. Did I hear that right? Did I cross it out carefully? Is self-help the opposite of self-reliance?

 

Jacques Lacan liked to think of psychosis as when you don’t quite understand the language you’re speaking.Did I mean other people? I said language. Others thought about me in different ways than I thought about myself. They pointed out what was written on my face. I tried to be coherent, but met versions of me that had been invented by others. Because he doesn’t know who he is, the Tao Te Ching tells us, people recognize themselves in him. They were my teachers. They taught me what I could be. We are real and imaginary.

 

They followed me on the Greyhound bus to Wisconsin. Michael Taussig tells us that the power of the copy is the power to influence what it is a copy of. I studied others’ inventions of me and extracted ingredients from them. Then something about me changed.

 

To experiment, I need to judge what has worked and what didn’t. Taste is a good way to judge. If I don’t have taste, then I need people with taste, to taste. Is it selectivity that makes good art? Tastes tell us about desire. I like reading my tastes: they show me how I consume. They also show how others consume me. A swordsman should not have a favorite sword, Miyamoto Mushashi thought. I like to think that I have no taste.

 

Over time, my characters developed many interesting facts. In a room, I copy down two that are scattered throughout this book. [1] [2] To both of these, I hear my mother think of me. Food is the one thing that you must ensure is good because it gets in your body, she’d say.