In Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie writes of a woman whose life's bitterness seeps into the food she makes. Today's focaccia was dry, dry, dry. Was it because I've poured myself, every last bit, into this wretched master's thesis of mine (final draft still pending) and hadn't the moisture to spare, or just because I kneaded too much flour into the dough yesterday? Oh magic realism, so much more inviting than your philosophical cousin.
hi katie. you may like this quotation by rushdie; your blog brings it to bear:
ReplyDeleteI grew up kissing books and bread. In our house, whenever anyone dropped a book or let fall a chapati . . . the fallen object was required not only to be picked up but also kissed, by way of apology for the act of clumsy disrespect. Devout households in India often contained, and still contain, persons in the habit of kissing holy books. But we kissed everything. If I'd ever dropped the telephone directory I'd probably have kissed that too. Bread and books: food for the body and food for the soul — what could be more worthy of respect than that?
That's wonderful and quite apt. Thank you. It sounds familiar. Is it also from Midnight's Children?
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