With the Contemporary and Classic Literature Book Club
Jasmine welcomed Alessio, Cali, Noah and Selena to the first meeting of the Contemporary and Classic Literature Book Club. All based in Shoreditch, they planned to take turns hosting the club in their homes over supper with a theme or a twist.
The first supper had a little bit of both and was inspired by the book they had read for the meeting: Fictitious Dishes by Dinah Fried — An Album of Literature’s Most Memorable Meals.
The book ‘serves up a delectable assortment of photographic interpretations of culinary moments from contemporary and classic literature.’ That’s where the group got the idea for the name of their book club.
In the book, each dish is paired with ‘text from the book that inspired its creation.’ That’s where the group got the idea for the theme/twist for their first supper and book discussion.
They each chose a book to suggest reading for future meetings and then prepared the accompanying dish to share over their first supper.
Here’s a flavour of the first Contemporary and Classic Literature Book Club. Featuring Fictitious Dishes by Dinah Fried, accompanied by a selection of literature’s most memorable meals as featured in their individual choice of future books to read.
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WorkLife Book Club
Jasmine had chosen The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald and had prepared harlequin-designed tomato and beetroot salad and pig-in-a-blanket canapés, which she served with glasses of fizz as an accompaniment to her book choice, which the group delighted in as Jasmine told them why she was drawn to the book.
Jasmine: I enjoy books that capture historical moments, and this book does that vividly — the economic boom of postwar America, the new jazz music, the free-flowing illegal alcohol in a time of prohibition. Fitzgerald, when speaking about the era, said it was ‘a whole race going hedonistic, deciding on pleasure.’
I also enjoy books that present contradictions. It can be read as a pessimistic examination of the American dream, but at its centre is a remarkable rags to riches story. It goes deeper into this by raising awareness of the challenges to break into the secret society of those who were born wealthy, and the tensions in society between “new money” and “old money”, and how those who had inherited their wealth frowned upon people who had made their money during the economic boom.
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Noah had chosen The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. He served the group the accompanying avocado and crabmeat salad dish he had prepared, which the group also delighted in as Noah talked about why he was drawn to the book.
Noah: It was a quote from Plath that first drew me to the book when she said, for her, The Bell Jar was ‘an autobiographical apprentice work which I had to write in order to free myself from the past’. And also, Fried mentioning in the chapter footnotes in Fictitious Dishes that ‘Like Esther (the character in the book), Plath struggled with mental illness.’
I was drawn in further by this description from Wikipedia: “The Bell Jar addresses the question of socially acceptable identity. It examines Esther’s ‘quest to forge her own identity, to be herself rather than what others expect her to be.’ Esther is expected to become a housewife, and a self-sufficient woman, without the options to achieve independence.”
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Selena had chosen To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf and served up plates of Boeuf en daube. Jasmine poured glasses of red wine as Selena explained why she was drawn to the book.
Selena: I’m drawn to the book because of the themes:
The Theme of Relationship: between the characters and how the characters are viewed from different perspectives. Also, the relationship between individuals and society as a way of realising the psyche of the characters from different points of view.
The Theme of Art and Nature: How the story begins with the artist unable to complete her painting because there is a lack of harmony between her mind and her canvas to sketch an idea, and how nature helps brings the harmony and the clarity of mind she was seeking to finish her painting by the end of the story.
The Theme of Change: How the character, Mr Ramsay, who loves his family, but at the beginning of the story, often acts like somewhat of a tyrant by being selfish and harsh. By the end of the story, he’s changed to become more patient, kind and diplomatic towards others. It seems he has adapted the attributes of Mrs Ramsay, which has brought about a change in his behaviour.
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Alessio had chosen The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett and served the accompanying dish of boiled new potatoes, which was also the perfect accompaniment to Selena’s Boeuf en daube, which the group savoured as Alessio explained his choice of book.
Alessio: While I’ve seen several tv adaptations of the story, which I’ve always enjoyed, I haven’t read the book. And while it’s a children’s book, I’m drawn to it because of this chapter footnote by Fried: ‘The once wealthy Burnett began writing at the age of nineteen as a means of earning extra money, as her family, which included two brothers and two sisters — struggled financially after her father’s premature death.’
Burnett’s story strikes me as a story of fall, rise, renewal, and transformation, which perhaps mirrors the stories of the characters in the book; Mary, the ill-tempered orphan, her invalid cousin, Colin, and the abandoned garden. I’m drawn to stories of renewal and transformation and also stories about the healing power of nature on the human spirit.
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Cali had chosen On the Road by Jack Kerouac and served the group the accompanying apple pie and vanilla ice cream he had prepared. Jasmine poured cups of coffee as Cali explained why he was drawn to the book.
Cali: Robert McCrum’s description of the book in the article he wrote for the Guardian, titled 100 best novels, describes perfectly why I want to read the book: ‘On the Road pulsates to the rhythms of 1950s America: jazz, sex, drugs, and the desperate hunger of a new generation for experiences that are passionate, exuberant and alive to the heartbreaking potential of the present moment. Kerouac was an artist, but he was not immune to the charms of the American dream. On the Road is perhaps the supreme American romance, a contemporary version of Huck Finn’s longing to “light out for the territory”. Indeed, although acclaimed as a prophet of 1960s counterculture, Kerouac’s own idea of himself and his work was to reclaim the gritty individualism and frontier spirit of the pioneering days of the American past.’
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Epilogue
Words of Wisdom
The group ended the first meeting of the Contemporary and Classic Literature Book Club by saying what they took from the experience — Fictitious Dishes, the featured book, which they had all read, the snippets shared from their individual choices of books to read for their next meetings, and the food they’d shared.
Jasmine: I loved how Fictitious Dishes shares interesting food facts and entertaining anecdotes about the authors, their work, and their culinary penchants.
Noah: I enjoyed learning about everybody’s choice of book to read and why we were drawn to a particular book. It instilled in me a greater sense of interest and curiosity for each book.
Selena: Fried sums up the experience for me, “Just as reading great novels can transport you to another place and time, meals can conjure scenes very far away from your kitchen table.”
Alessio: I relate to Fried’s words, “Some of my favourite meals convey stories of origin and traditions’” I think food is the perfect entree to learn about different cultures and customs.
Cali: I love the work that Fried put into creating the book, which she said brought her deeper into the books she read, and that she hoped her work, particularly the photographs, would spark a memory and transport readers back into the fictional worlds. For me, it did spark a memory for the books I’d read, and it sparked a desire to read the books I haven’t yet read. A desire to be transported to a new fictional world, to create a new memory.
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This story is part of a series of stories that share insights into the characters in my book WorkLife Book Club Volume One Shoreditch. Stories that share insights that aren’t shared in the book to the main characters, the support characters and the behind the scenes characters. While the characters in the stories are not based on real people, they are representative of the people who are an integral part of Shoreditch life, the neighbourhood I live in, which is full of people with different WorkLife experiences.
Shoreditch is a special place, and I believe what makes it so is the incredible diversity of life paths that cross here, spanning the whole globe and many walks of life.
You may also like my Learning Through Reading Series: A collection of stories inspired by real WorkLife struggles and successes presented as case studies for group discussion. The case and the recommended book are the required reading for each book club meeting and help frame the subsequent discussion.