Recipes and Writing
They tell you to use all your senses in writing, and taste is often a hard one to remember. After all, most of the time we’re totally unaware of what we’re tasting. Then we cook. Some books, such as Tales out of School, by Shirley Ann Howard, include detailed descriptions of all the delights of the kitchen without reading like a recipe book. Others make me jump out of the story with sudden inserts of spaghetti sauce made from scratch. (Yes, I do make spaghetti sauce from scratch, but not with carefully laid out ingredients all measured and carefully remembered; more likely with a quick raid of the fridge and a bit of whatever I find there plus tomatoes and herbs.) Which leaves me wondering, what makes the difference between writing with taste and writing with recipe book? Tales out of School was a really enjoyable, leisurely read. It’s not just cooking that the author describes in great detail. There’s the mating rituals of rabbits (plus Latin name), and the cost and rarity of coastal ...