Virginia Woolf on Dining Well

Grocery stores clogged with people - carts crammed with cans and frozen pies, clanking between empty shelves. At home, our cupboards creek beneath bloated bags of oats, and flour. My youngest brother pours an enormous glass of orange juice - we frown, beady eyed, hissing ‘ration, ration, ration.”

With the threat of quarantine looming large, we fixate on food. On its necessity. On its seeming shortage. All around Canada, the term ‘Social Isolation” is inexorably linked to grocery store trips. The universal concern being that we may run out of things to eat - and, thus, fuelled by the need to nourish our bodies, turn to desperate measures. The world may fall apart if we don’t buy enough groceries.

And so, today, I thought about food.

Not long ago, I possessed an ambivalent relationship with this term. My meals were bland - crustless white toast, a bowl of milk, accompanied with just a smidgen of cereal, chocolate bars in lewdly coloured wrappers. I ate when the need struck, probably whilst reading, or talking (with my mouth full,) or else wholly engaged in any pursuit other than eating.

Now, I bake every day. I relish in preparing meals; in flipping through recipe books, pages stuck together and encrusted with sugar. I like to sit down while I eat, preferably with people, and to savour each bite.

The gradual decay of my picky eating habits was spurred not by mother and her tear-drenched sighs, nor the force feeding of my grandmother,- but rather, books. The palatable descriptions. Scents, textures, and flavours; packed into a couple well chosen words. I would read a description of a meal - and request it for dinner that evening. Literature, in short, forged by passion for food.

I never considered by cook book flipping to be a particularly sophisticated form of literary perusal- that is, until this until I stumbled upon this review, published by Virginia Woolf, then Stephan; the formidable literary critique, and my favourite author, who, as I have found, also loved to read cook books.

Here is an expert:

“it is pleasant to think of herbs growing on moors, hares running in the stubble, spices brought with bales of embroidery from the Indies; and the strings of words themselves often have a beauty such as poets aim at.”

I found a copy of this cookbook online. 600 photographed pages - devoid of images, each recipe occupying one, unbroken paragraph, ornamented by notes such as “the best,” or “from Mary-Louise.” Instructions are not numbered, but rather, strung together with phrases like “take extra care too,’ and “watch attentively whilst preparing over the griddle….” Measurements are made relative to the “weight of eggs,” or the “size of a teacup.”

I dwelled chiefly amongst the cakes, cookies, and scones; noting that each recipe was composed of similar ingredients - butter, sugar, flour - yet varied greatly based on preparation. Scorched, needed, warmed, stirred - the descriptions struck me with their inventiveness. And yet, I hesitate to try these recipes - but for the three words I listed above.

Butter. Sugar. Flour.

The ingredients so disparaged by our society. Demarcated as wasted calories - demoted to mere indulgences. The words dwell like villains in my mind - camouflaged killers.

Indeed, the Victorian Diet teems with what modern day culture would deem “unhealthy.” Rich with pastries, and meat, and devoid of salads - raw food being considered “tough on digestion.”

Yet Virginia Woolf managed to observe the beauty in these recipes. Her commentary calls to attention the care, and detail, put into each meal - each recipe rich with expectation.

Food also features prominently in her own novel - functioning as a way to tie people together and facilitate good conversation. For example, the plot of Mrs.Dalloway follows a woman preparing for a dinner party. Similarly, an integral moment in “to the lighthouse” features Mrs.Ramsay meditating into a pot of soup. Virginia Woolf was perhaps partially attracted to food for it’s connotation to femininity- with recipe books a way of telling the oft obscured histories of women. My favorite quote by Virginia Woolf decries the lack of good food in women’s colleges - a tragedy as

“One cannot think well, sleep well, love well if one has not dined well.’

Despite her love for food - its ceremony, and it’s preparation - Virginia Woolf supposedly suffered from anorexia. Thus, I take her advice in pieces. She taught me how to prepare food (with care), but now how to consume it.

For this ad advice, I shall turn to Henry David Thoreau. In his book, Walden, he asks readers to imagine a fire burning within us all - stroked by the necessities of life, among them, sleep, exercise, and, of course food. Too much fuel - and we explode - too little, and we fade to ash. This speaks to moderation. Food is to be enjoyed - to be prepared with care, and shared amongst conversation. Yet, most of all, food should be appreciated for its necessity - and taken not for the purpose of indulging, but rather, nourishing our bodies and minds.

P.S.

I must purchase the “Bloomsbury cookbook”....