Food Writing as Research

Until this morning, I didn't think I was reading food writing for any other reason than just being influenced by my sister, a budding chef who believes that all she does for her deviled eggs is combine such ingredients as cooked egg yolks, mayonnaise, paprika, and whatever else she puts in it. She's too modest. It's not only the ingredients, but also what the person puts into it. She's got talent that I hope propels her to the highest echelons of cooking and food appreciation.

Her influence began with me watching more and more cooking shows, and finding a favorite chef in Nigella Lawson. It's not only how sexy she is (She can order me around with a spatula any time), but how sensual she is about food, the passion she has for it on television and in her books. It almost feels uncomfortably voyeuristic when she's cooking, but I love it. I live that same kind of passion with books.

I also began watching "America's Test Kitchen", "Cook's Country from America's Test Kitchen", and the occasional out-of-the-way cooking show. Not the Neelys or Paula Deen, but just episodes of shows about regional foods, about how various foods are made ("Unwrapped" especially. It's like Marc Summers has been with me throughout my entire life, because I watched him all the time on "Double Dare" and "What Would You Do?" when I was a kid), and some food competitions, but not many.

I thought I had checked out "Best Food Writing 2000", as well as the 2005 and 2010 editions from my library because I was just following what I had done with those shows. I just wanted to read about food.

Not so.

When I read a chapter in "Best Food Writing 2000" of a selection from "Kitchen Confidential" by Anthony Bourdain, I felt like I was being violently slapped around while reading it. But instead of running away, I wanted to drop to my knees and thank Bourdain so much for doing that to me.

I can't write like that. I don't have the temperament that's ultimately required for it. But I know that in my novel, which is partly a love letter to literary journalism, I want it to feel like that at times. The rush of the movements of a kitchen that Bourdain writes about, I want some of my paragraphs to feel like that in describing, I don't know, maybe a rollercoaster or the near end of a long day spent at a theme park, or maybe if I decide to, a carnival-like midway section with all those games. I ordered a copy of "Kitchen Confidential" from abebooks.com last night because I want to read the entire thing. And I put Bourdain's three other books on hold as well.

I know now that I'm also reading these "Best Food Writing" books and soon enough the five "Cornbread Nation" books (which celebrate the best of Southern food writing) for detail, for how these writers describe their experiences with food. A lot of that novel is going to be detailed like that. I want to get in close, to have a reader feel everything going on, especially with the strange slant I have planned. I know how I want my novel to begin, and while I'm not entirely sold on what I wrote yesterday, I know it's the tone I want. I don't know how I want this story to unfold yet, but I've got time. Research breeds ideas. And just like the Bourdain revelation, I'm sure there's more to come in these books.

I don't need my small legal pads yet to jot down necessary information while I read, since I haven't yet reached those particular books. But this research is so much fun! And that's my first and only consideration whenever I start a writing project: It has to be fun. The writing will inevitably be difficult, but I know that it will be fun.