What We Eat When We Eat Alone - Deborah Madison [0]
Deborah Madison
and Patrick McFarlin
WHAT WE EAT WHEN WE EAT ALONE
Digital Edition v1.0
Text © 2009 Deborah Madison and Patrick McFarlin
"How to Eat Alone" from SEASONAL RIGHTS by Daniel Halpern, copyright © 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982 by Daniel Halpern. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of PenguinGroup (USA) Inc.
"Spy Girls" on page 201 reproduced with permission of the author
Art © 2009 Patrick McFarlin
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except brief portions quoted for purpose of review.
Gibbs Smith, Publisher
PO Box 667
Layton, UT 84041
Orders: 1.800.835.4993
www.gibbs-smith.com
Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publishing Data
ISBN-13: 978-1-4236-0496-9
ISBN-10: 1-4236-0496-2
1. Cookery for one. I. McFarlin, Patrick. II. Title.
TX652.M2255 2009
641.5'61-dc22
2008035669
This book is dedicated to all who find themselves alone at the table.
May your solitary meals be delicious and the company just as good.
What We Eat When We Eat Alone
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: What We Eat When We Eat Alone
Chapter 2: The Gestalt of Eating
Chapter 3: Foods for Me and Me Alone
Chapter 4: Getting the Body Fed with Rough and Ready Foods
Chapter 5: Saved by Sardines, Rescued by Pasta
Chapter 6: Men and Their Meat
Chapter 7: Alone at Last
Chapter 8: Alone Every Day
Chapter 9: What Every Boy and Girl Should Learn to Cook Before They’re Men and Women
Chapter 10: Meals with a Motive
Metric Conversion Chart
What We Eat When We Eat Alone
“It seems to me that eating alone is about having something satisfying, like all corn and tomatoes, without having to follow the rules the way you do when you have to consider someone else. Though I suppose that if I ate alone all the time, I’d be the opposite, making swell little meals in a committed way.”
Fran McCullough, cookbook author
For a number of years we traveled frequently to Mediterranean countries at the invitation of Oldways Preservation and Trust. During these eye-opening—and mouth-opening—journeys, we met many producers and tasted their olive oils, wine, ouzo, breads, cheeses, and countless other foods made according to ancient ways. There were enough chefs, importers, scholars, and food writers to fill a couple of buses on each of these trips, and inevitably there were long rides across dry lands that afforded hours for conversation. On one of those trips, artist Patrick McFarlin found his amusement not in watching a blindfolded camel in a Tunisian village pulling a stone over rancid olives to press a very singular-tasting oil, but in asking people what they cooked for themselves when they ate alone.
“I started to inquire into the habits of other people’s private culinary lives on these trips,” Patrick explains.“The research was entirely unscientific. I simply asked people about their behind-closed-doors food practices. Some were ordinary, some quirky, and others credible and civilized.”
People rolled into Patrick’s research inquiries as if they were on an afternoon televised exposé—throwing open the secrets of their cloistered cupboards and refrigerators.
The stories people had stashed up their sleeves were so surprising that we continued asking others on a regular basis what they eat when they eat alone—and writing down their answers. What emerged is a portrait of human behavior sprung free from conventions, a secret life of consumption born out of the temporary freedom—or burden, for some—of being alone. There are foods that are so utterly idiosyncratic that they would never, ever, be shared with another, and there are some very ambitious undertakings. “I pour sardine juice onto cottage cheese while standing on one foot in front of the refrigerator, not putting down the other foot because there’s been a meat leak from the vegetable drawer,” said one shamelessly, while another admitted to eating while lying on the couch with a newspaper spread over the chest to catch any drips.