Weaving Together the Right Words

Within the past six months I’ve felt paralyzed by the idea of sitting down to write. I’ve spooned golden sardine oil onto steaming baguettes. Words like tre bonne and magnifique spilled from my grandmother’s lips while I fed her tiramisu. I got the family drunk on punch. All things I want to write about yet can’t seem to get the scene just right. 

I stumbled upon the best gnocchi of my life at Uva in New York last week and I’ve been thinking about how to capture that moment ever since. The ricotta gnocchi themselves were bathed in a rich, buttery truffle and chive sauce and served simply with a good crack of black pepper and parmesan. They were soft and pillowy in the mouth, good for a second, third, and fourth bite without feeling too heavy. But the experience was also intensely affective. Researcher Ben Highmore explains it this way:

“The experience of eating is also dependent on the haptic sensitivity of tongues and mouths, on our olfactory abilities, and on sight and sound (the cacophony of crunching might actually be part of the "flavor" of potato chips, for example).” 

So maybe I was also tasting the animated discussion of the couple sitting behind me– their energetic hand gestures crackling in my mouth. The heated, enclosed patio gave subtle notes of fire and smoke. The staff’s un-American attitude of forgoing intermittent “check-ins” to ask if the food was alright was a velvety blanket on my palate. And yet these details still fall short in delivering you the full extent of that moment of gourmandise.

Evenings later, I read author Rebecca May Johnson’s Small Fires, a beautifully thoughtful collection of musings, cultural analyses, and personal reflections. In it, she writes, “cooking does not take place within the medium of language” and I’d argue that eating and drinking don’t either. I see now that much of my frustration about my writing stems from this fact, yet reading it so plainly in front of me last night felt strangely restorative. Reading confirmation that I simply cannot (and perhaps should not strive to) replicate the entirety of my food experiences in writing is an odd, but welcome comfort.

After I took that first bite of gnocchi I actually reached out for my mother’s hands and tightly shut my eyes while I finished chewing. It was a profoundly exciting moment, to be moved by a dish so much as to reach out for physical grounding. It was so exciting that I wanted all of you to feel it as well, but if Johnson’s words hold any meaning, I’m making an impossible wish. 

Clearly, though, I’m still writing– despite what Johnson has to say. I’m accepting the gaps in my inescapably incomplete account, and I’m enjoying the process. As all the pieces are now almost together, it is obvious that I’ve never written only because I want to replicate my experiences for an audience.

Primarily, I write because I love the art of telling the story. I like words; I like wielding them while also knowing that they are necessarily restrictive. I like sharing my feelings. My passions. 

I choose to share my passion for food with you and keep many more interests tucked away in my journal pages.

What I experienced that night in New York is not the scene you imagined while reading my account, but the images my words help create in your head are far more powerful than the precise tastes and temperatures of gnocchi. I may lay the groundwork, but it is you who finds the little gems I never thought of while writing and it is ultimately you who makes the meaning. Take those gems and let them make you feel. Feel whatever my words dig up in you. Selfishly I hope that at least one of those feelings is hunger. 

As for me, I will continue the supremely difficult task of weaving together the right words. I’ll do it because I love it, and I’ll do it because the food was so good that I had to tell you about it. 

References:

Johnson, R. (2022). Small Fires: An Epic in the Kitchen. Pushkin Press. (129).

Highmore, B. (2010). Bitter after Taste: Affect, Food, and Social Aesthetics. In M. Gregg & G.J. Seigworth (Eds.), The Affect Theory Reader (120).