what i ate in one year
I’m going to keep this so so short. Everyone around me has heard my extensive thoughts on the man the myth the words the recipes, the book.
But I’ll leave here my one complaint. And my best praise.
The complaint is one I’ve not seen much of, but I’m just so confused! In the book, Stanley makes a series of jokes about his wife Felicity cheating. When I first read it, I was maybe a bit put off? I kept waiting for a reveal or explanation. Like maybe all those jokes about Felicity going “off on a trip” would lead to a big reveal that she had been planning him an extravagant birthday party. Nope. Nothing. I listened to the jokes on the audiobook. They land a whole lot better there.
Now for praise. Just the best bit, to keep this short.
Where Stanley’s writing shines is not in the description of particular meals and restaurants and people. Although that’s great and the book had loads of it (see title). It’s when he lets his childish love of food enter his language and his older understandings of life.
My favourite example of this in this second book was his retelling of a story about Onion soup. And how this story informed his views on simplicity and sharing. Here it is for you now:
A hungry soldier comes upon a town that is filled with unwelcoming miserly residents. He knocks at a door and asks the old woman who lives there for something to eat. She says she is poor and has nothing to give him and that everyone in town will tell him the same thing and he should just move on. Despondent but not deterred, the soldier finds a kettle, builds a fire in the town square, fills the kettle with water, sets it over the fire, and puts large stone inside it. The old woman looks out of her window and asks him what he is doing. He tells her that he’s making stone soup. Curious, she comes to see for herself and is soon followed by the other villages. They all tell him that it’s impossible to make soup from a stone, but he tells them that he has done it many times and then in fact stone soup is delicious. All the villages stand around the pot waiting to see if he is telling the truth. After a while the soldier tastes it and says it’s nearly there but it could use a couple of onions to improve it. The old woman gets a couple of onions and tosses them into the pot. The soldier tastes it again and says it could use some garlic, and a villager runs to get garlic. This continues with carrots, pasta, celery, beans, herbs, and so on until the kettle filled with a hearty soup that the soldier shares with the villagers. Soon they realise that it wasn’t the stone that made the soup so delicious, but the ingredients they all shared to make it. After this they are no longer miserable and parsimonious, but happy and generous.
A great book. ALSO HE SIGNED IT FOR ME! On my birthday pages because I had already bought it signed on the front. Double signed. Double fun.
if you enjoyed what i ate in one year, you might enjoy my stanley series!
spaghetti aglio & oglio
week 1
sugo di pomodoro
week 8