The Gardens of Combray

My father-in-law liked to proclaim that he never ate any vegetables that didn't grow in his grandmother's garden. Said garden was in Mark Brandenburg in Prussia, and no doubt contained potatoes, peas, beans, carrots, tomatoes and the like. No zucchini, no broccoli, just a good German garden. I'm sure there was rhubarb and gooseberries and red currants and strawberries. Sounds good, doesn't it?

Swann has a fancy garden with raspberries, and little backwater Combray has access to pineapple(!) along with asparagus, apricots, cherries and all that good stuff.

I am thinking about this because I remember MY grandmother's garden, but also because I read the New York Times Magazine last Sunday with an article on "Nutrionism." The gist of the article is that if you want to eat "right", then eat what your grandparents or great grandparents ate. Think. No processed foods, or very few. Not a lot of meat. Lots of fruits and vegetables and whole grains. Butter, no margarine. Home made bread. Home made desserts. People worked hard and they could pack away more than we can without getting, well, porky. This is an interesting concept that bears thinking about. In the summer, we made ice cream. Without chemicals or preservatives. I can still taste the fresh peach and the strawberry, a lost taste that resides only in memory.

Rather Proustian, yes? He's still talking about Bergotte and Swann's daughter and the scandalous Mrs. Swann. And I'm thinking of Swann's raspberries and the beautiful woman in pink who ate a tangerine. Are there lessons here?

Perhaps.

Odette

Such a Naive Lad

Lad. Out of fashion word, that. I read the passage where Marcel the narrator visits his roue uncle on the sly, hoping to meet once of his uncle's fancy women. Having a hard time honing in on "Marcel's" age. He is interested (quite interested) in women and girls, yet he seems psychologically very young and not at all astute in relationship to his parents.

As luck and fiction would have it, a beautiful young lady in a pink dress is with his uncle. She is eating a tangerine. Then they smoke, but she only likes the kind of cigarettes the grand duke provides her with.

Dumb Marcel goes home and talks around his visit, thinking himself very sly, but his foxy parents immediately worm out of him where he has been and who was there. The uncle is forever persona non grata. Dumb kid. Really dumb.

He mentions once that something is a hard choice, like chosing between riz a la imperatrice and the chocolate pudding. I'd go for the chocolate every time. The household runs a good kitchen, no doubt about that. Wonder if it was as good as Monet's. The writer Bergotte has finally appeared.

Off to have lunch with former colleagues.

Odette

Food! Food Food! Maintenant Nous Manger.

Now we eat!

Finally hit the comestible jackpot in Swann's Way. Mentions of lobster (!) and asparagus. The aunt ate creamed eggs (Yuck!) for lunch.

The gentle (and hungry) reader is then given a long list of what the family ate for the midday meal, which makes one understand why they were sleepy after the noontime feast. I am assuming that not all this food was eaten at one sitting which would be unbelievably piggy as well as hell for the cook (Francoise). I'm also curious about the preserves and biscuits (bread and jam?) that was listed as a typical lunch with eggs, cutlets, potatoes, preserves and biscuits. Don't think they were biscuits Americaine. Now I know I will have to find a more updated translation and a French copy. Merde! This is going to be work.

What else the family had for lunch: Brill (a fish), turkey (!), cardoons with marrow, leg of mutton, spinach (for a change), apricots (hard to get), gooseberries (soon gone), raspberries (from Swann's wonderful garden), cherries (the first of the season) cream cheese (beloved by Marcel), almond cake, fancy loaf (?)--bread but what kind?
The narrator's father was exceedingly fond of a cream of chocolate pudding (well, duh, who wouldn't be?) and was rather annoyed if anyone at the table refused it. Would not have been me. Nope.

Reading this scene reminded me of my grandparent's house and garden in Hesston, Kansas. We always awaited the first strawberries with excrutiating impatience. When the new potatoes were ready to eat, they were invariably served with creamed peas and the family (but not me) ooohhhed and ahhhhed over how delicious.

To everything there was a season, in the big garden, just like in Proust's Combray. I had great aunts that were as eccentric as his. In other words, I can connecting to this story as never before.

My grandma got heavy cream was a woman on the other side of town. I still remember it. Golden and so thick you spooned it out of the pint jar. I was just a little girl, but I remember. My grandmother never used a recipe, and she baked bread and made pies with her plump, deft fingers. As a young girl she was beautiful, but work and children and worry aged her before her time. That was a saying then, "before her time." One could also die before one's time. Seasons and time. Remembrance of Time Past.

I love Proust.

Odette

Pineapple Salad and Ice Cream

A few more pages of Swann's Way, a few more mentions of food. The aunt's sisters got a case of "asti" from Swann. Obviously "asti spumante." Why not champagne? I hadn't remembered how much humor there was in the book. The sisters attempt to thank Swann for the asti without actually thanking him. The weird reverse class consciousness. The petit bourgeois in evidence. Really good stuff.

The narrator's aunt asked Swann for a recipe for "pineapple salad." Wonder what that was? Certainly NOT a slice of canned pineapple on a mound of cottage cheese. No-siree-bob, no. Maybe fruit salad? The mystery deepens.

Two references to ice cream, which must have been a stylish elegant dessert. The coffee-pistachio didn't pass muster. No wonder, ick. Another reference to a burnt nut ice cream. Hmmmm. Burnt almond? Burnt nut doesn't sound so delicious.

Now of course, snoopy Odette thinks it might be nice to have a copy in French to ferret out the odd food translation. Are we on to something here? She is also wondering what the words that led to "beef stew" were? And whether Scott Montcrief, translator extraordinaire, was a foodie for his day and age? I'm thinking NOT.

Apropos of pistachio ice cream. A young child in our family, when confronted with a very green pistachio ice cream, said, "Daddy, I don't like salad ice cream." Nothing Marcel would have ever confessed to the old man.

Onward,

Odette

Beef Stew

Beef stew was the first food mentioned in Proust. I started last night with a few pages of Swann's Way. Fell asleep on the sofa while reading, a very pleasant, relaxing experience. Awakening on the sofa is usually disorienting --one expects to wake up in bed, but last night it was rather pleasant.My slumber hadn't become deep and unconscious yet.

My weirdest waking up experience was on an aircraft flying into Phoenix. It was very late east coast time, and I was soundly asleep. When the pilot let the wheels down, I thought the noise was a loud clap of thunder. Thinking I was home in bed, I grabbed my husband's hand, except it was the hand of the woman sitting next to me. She was kindly and we had a good laugh, when I explained what had happened. Normally, I don't sleep that deeply on an airplane. I think Proust would understand such an experience.

This recipe sounded good. Maybe it is similiar to what the narrator and his family ate at Combray.


http://www.thetylers.com/electricchef/recipes/france/beefstew.html

Toujours,

Odette

Désolée

Helas, I have been tres remiss at keeping the blog up to date and reading Proust. The crazy thing is I see Proust references almost every day, as often as Hemingway and more than Joyce. Haven't made madelines, haven't read a single paragraph. I do listen to French pop songs often. Love the names. Zazie, Pascal Obispo, love the sound of the voices, the ambiance.

Now to get down to Proust. Since I am sort of a foodie I thought it would be cool to note all the food and drink in Proust and see if anyone is still eating it anymore. I have a fantastic book, Monet's Table, The Cooking Journals of Claude Monet, which I got out yesterday. The recipes are so simple. Very minimal seasoning. I suspect that the ingredients were so prime, that little in the way of spice and herb was needed.

At Giverney, Monet had the perfect life. He had a beautiful house, a lovely garden, his family was there, and his friends came to visit. He could paint at much as he liked and everything was tuned to HIS SCHEDULE.

Yesterday, while the wind howled outside, I clean out my "idea" file looking for short story ideas. I found Art in the City, a program from Monet and the Marvels of New Orleans at the New Orleans Museum of Art. Now, of course, anything from New Orleans, especially something this lovely has a heartbreaking poignancy and brings tears to one's eyes.

In the New York Times Crossword Puzzle today, Swann was the answer for the clue 'a main Proust character.'

While I've been postponing Proust, I finished a novel and re-wrote (for the umpteenth time,) the beginning chapter of another novel. I plan to do short stories for a while; two for children, and 4 or 5 for adults. How long will this take? No idea. An update of my web site, so old and neglected I won't even publish the URL, if also in the offing.

It is good to have projects and plans, even if they do not include one of the great novels of our time.

Au revoir,

Odette

The Year of Reading Proust

No readings as yet of Proust, but I've been reading The Year of Reading Proust, and it's actually not about Proust when what happens during the year the author is reading Proust. Talk about being several levels removed from reading Proust! But I am enjoying the book because the writer is about my age and speaks to me, again on several levels and I like her sense of humor and sense of life.

Actually, since someone has already been there, done that, I am considering my options. Alain du Bouton also has a similiar Proust book out. That I have even read. Duh! Au revoir, mind.

Standing in line at the supermarket, I'm thinking a much more ORIGINAL stunt would be A Year of Checkout Counter Magazine Diets, as four or five new ones pop up each week.

Could I hack it? Probably not. Would I lose weight? At least a little. The problem is, although I like most foods and am basically omniverous, there is "stuff" I will not touch. Margarine, for one. Non-fat half and half. Total Yuck! Most diet foods. Have you ever seen an "All Natural" label on Egg Beaters, for example? Diet foods tend to be artificial ingredients to the max. Substitue chemicals for calories. Leaner living thru chemistry. Not even a Hobson's Choice? Why poison yourself? Read the labels.

What amuses me no end is that for years all the lipophobes were scarfing down margarine which turned out to be FAR worse for you that butter.

Maybe I should do food in Proust? Besides tea and madeleines is there any? There sure were enough receptions and dinner parties. Maybe that would work. And maybe old Marcel never says a word about what was actually served? Is that even possible with All Those Words.

We shall see.

Odette says, "If you diet, don't eat a lot of artificial foods with chemicals for ingredients. Eat less of everything except fruits and veggies. Eschew trans fats. If it ain't all natural, don't eat it. Bon Appetit!

Little Miss Sunshine

The character of the brother who attempted suicide in the movie is the self-described "best Proust scholar in the U.S." At one point in the story, he bemoans the fact that no one reads Proust anymore and also states what a great writer Proust is. Amen. One finds Proust mentioned in the damdest places. The screenwriters obviously honed in on an author well-known but little read. That would be our boy Marcel. I have been doing my own writing of late, and haven't gotten into Total Proust Mode. But winter, and January cometh. Alors!

The Year of Reading Proust

Phyllis Rose wrote The Year of Reading Proust. It arrived today from an Amazon seller, and I am liking it already. Rose is an academic and a scholar, while Odette is a former computer programmer who once could have been a scholar and chose Another Path. Getting back to the scholar seems impossible. So there are regrets and a certain gnashing of teeth. It's amazing the pull that Proust still exercises. Books, movies, discussions, reading. We ask ourselves why? Maybe an answer will come. This is my hope. There is no point in nattering on about Proust for a year. Is there? I think not. So we'll hope this doesn't degrade to nattering.

Odette

Sonata CD arrived

I am underwhelmed by the Saint-Saens sonata. It's going to require my sitting down and listening with concentration a few times. Not that it's bad. I just didn't find it as riveting as Marcel did and wasn't even sure I correctly identified the petite phrase. Oh well. Must be a problemo with my tin ear.

Off to a writer's conference which mayhap will inspire.

Odette

Proust Receives Prix Goncourt in 1919

Today the NYTimes announced that Jonathan Littel, an American ex-pat won the 2006 Prix Goncourt for a 913 page book, Les Bienveillantes.

Proust's 1919 prize swirled in controvery for several reasons. The prize is supposed to go to a young writer, and Proust was 48, and the feeling was that the prize should have gone to a war novel or at least to someone who had served in the Great War. Proust had asthma and was excused from service. What a disaster that would have been!

When I read the article in the Times, I realized that a) I would never win the Prix, b) I would never win any great literary prize, and c) I probably would not win any MWA or Agatha awards either. Won't climb a tall mountain or cross a great desert on a camel. Like Proust, I was never adventurous, except in the mind which is the best and safest place to have adventures.

It was fitting that France awarded Proust his prize. If they had done it sooner, then 1919 would have been open for another writer. Windows of opportunity open and slam shut.

Odette

In Search of Something Original

Merde! I'm still smarting from my new knowledge that the the idea of blogging a reading of Proust is so yesterday. Makes me want to skulk around and forgot the whole project.

Being in IT (Information Technology, 'computers' for you Luddites) for 20+ years has left its mark. I'm no longer a scholar or even a thinker in the academic sense. Instead I'm more of a logician. Me? How could this has happened? Of course it helps cut through the crap and the bullshit. Leading the sacred cows to the slaughterhouse , however, wins won no medals. I confess to a competitive bent, so unattractive in a young lady of my generation, or even a grown woman.

Nonetheless, ladylike, I stop and smell the flowers. Maybe the hawthorns? For sure the linden trees. Will I even have patience with Proust? What if I hate him now? Can I even be honest about the whole endeavor?

We will find out all these things down the road in Foxborough.

Alors,

Odette

Not terribly originale. . .

Merde! I thought I was the only person ever to devote a year to reading Proust and blogging it and the world is full of us. There is indeed, nothing new (nouveau) under the sun except maybe the first Beaujolais.

So here are some links to other Proustians.

http://www.readingproust.com/

http://www.amazon.com/Year-Reading-Proust-Memoir-Time/dp/1582430551

http://www.waggish.org/proust/

Odette will be generous with links to others and citing opinions of others. We're all in this together, right?

C'est Bon!

Odette

Proust, The Early Years

I got out George D. Painter's Proust biography, astonished that it was written in 1959. He provides photos and maps and good references. If Proust were writing today, he might publish his great work as memoir instead of a novel, as he used his life but he synthesized and shaped and molded like some of today's memoirists, except he called it fiction. Too bad others don't always follow his example.

The Sonata has been shipped, and I am chomping at the bit to listen to it. Any number of classical "tunes" are sort of like a cheapy pop songs. If you can hum it, does that make it cliched and sentimental. I don't think so.

But then, I used to like Rod McKuen. Way back when God was a boy. I like to think that my tastes are catholic.

Odette