The Reader Travels

A friend asked me when I was going to stop dwelling on the morbid and start talking about something lighter, perhaps the erotic aspects of food. The problem is that I have a certain goal in mind, and I’m just not there yet. There are two more books to cover on the topic of cannibalism before we reach the climax, and yet, we need some sort of release, a breath, before we can go on.

I just finished reading Chocolat by Joanne Harris, so it only seems right to flow in the wind with Vianne. She blows through town bringing a little taste of joy and freedom. From the first words of the book, everything is delicious. “We came on the wind of the carnival. A warm wind for February, laden with the hot greasy scents of frying pancakes and sausages and powdery sweet waffles cooked on the hot plate right there by the roadside…”

Her air infects the ascetic with temptation. His thoughts become beautiful even as he rails against their ugliness, “I feel the insidious creeping of doubt in my mind, and my mouth fills at the memory of its perfume, like cream and marshmallow and burnt sugar and the heady mingling of cognac and fresh-ground cocoa beans. It is the scent of a woman’s hair, just where the nape joins the skull’s tender hollow, the scent of ripe apricots in the sun, of warm brioche and cinnamon rolls, lemon tea and lily of the valley.”

Ah, this one is worth tasting, again and again.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 6th, 2010 at 9:23 am and is filed under food travels. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.