Granta 52: Food : The Vital Stuff with Graham Swift, J.M. Coetzee, and John Lanchester

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GRANTA, The Magazine Of New Writing, Volume 52, Winter, 1995. Theme: Food, The Vital Stuff. features stories about Food: Meat Country by J.M. Coetzee; People Eaters by Joan Smith; Aphrodisiacs I have Known by Norman Lewis; The Butcher of Burmondsey by Graham Swift; What Bengali Widows Cannot Eat by Chitrita Banerji; Idi’s Banquet by Giles Foden; The Gourmet by John Lanchester; Frozen Fish by William Leith;Attempt at an Inventory by Georges Perec; Men as Chickens by Geoffrey Beattie;Grateful by Jane Rogers; Toffee by Agnes Owens; Nobody Need Starve by Amartya Sen; The Sins of the Flesh by Margaret Visser; Stringhoppers by Romesh Gunesekera; A Mystery by Charles Jones; How it Ends by Andrew O’Hagan; Do Women Like to Cook by Laura Shapiro; First Catch Your Puffin by Sean French. An aphorism: you are what you eat. A second aphorism: the discovery for a new dish does more for the happiness of mankind than the discovery of a star. A third aphorism: dessert without cheese is like a pretty woman with only one eye. The French pholosopher-gourmet Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin wrote all three almost two centuries ago. Like most aphorisms they have the cracked ring of nearly true. Brillat-Savarin was on surer ground, ground as hard as ungrated Parmesan, when he wrote: The world is nothing without life, and all that lives takes nourishment. So: you are what you eat, and if you don’t eat, you aren’t. This issue of Granta examines the vital stuff. Food as indulgence, certainly (gastro-pronography such as blinis with caviar, roast puffin), but also food as taboo, a cruelty, a repulsion, a desparate need, a failed sex aid, and a way of earning your living.