Reichel, Ruth Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table. New York : Random House 2010. Print.
This is a true story. Imagine a New York City apartment at six in the morning. It is a modest apartment in Greenwich Village. Coffee is bubbling in an electric percolator. On the table is a basket of rye bread, an entire coffee cake, a few cheeses, a platter of cold cuts. My mother has been making breakfast -- a major meal in our house, one where we sit down to fresh orange juice every morning, clink our glasses as if they held wine, and toast each other with "Cheerio. Have a nice day."
Description:
I seem to be in a bit of "immersion reading" recently regarding memoirs of chefs and all things food (e.g., Kitchen Confidential and Mostly True). The latest interesting, fun, and insightful food memoir I just finished is Ruth Reichel's Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table.
Reishel recounts her early childhood before college in a home where her mother served anything that was in the fridge, odd items on expired sale at the market, and anything else that just plain old looked intriguing. These quirky choices came with a fringe benefit for Reichel:
I was the first person in my class to taste mussels, cactus fruit, sea urchins, and lychee nuts.
Her mother had no idea how to combine these various elements, once the mold was scraped off or the expiration dates rationalized away. Reichel took to standing in front of her mother's buffet table during frequent parties to warn people away from most of the "food" that was being offered.
Fortunately, her mother did not cook that frequently, a task which fell to young Ruth who had learned her cooking skills from their live-in maid, Mrs. Peavy. She taught Ruth how to make every dish possible, including her father's favorite wiener schnitzel, and let her know to make extra pastry when serving beef Wellington in case (as actually happened) the original dish was dropped just steps from the serving table. In that instance, Ruth and Mrs. Peavy simply retired to the kitchen, patched up the broken course, and returned it to the family.
As a child, Ruth once mentioned to her mother that it would be fun to learn French. Very soon after, at age 13 and speaking not a word of French, Ruth was shipped off to a five-month French immersion boarding school in Paris. A lonely, sad experience faced her until, left alone in the school on weekends, she discovered she could sneak out to visit local bakeries and shops. She soon made friends with several ambassadors' daughters who had joined her in her escapades. These friends eventually started taking her home on other weekends to their fabulously wealthy homes whee she sampled other unknown and delicious meals.
During her college years, she lived in communal house with several Eco-conscious friends, cooking for them and random droppers-by before later waitressing at a fine dining restaurant. There she learned the deliciousness and importance of high-end food and elegant service. She became chef at the Swallow restaurant, a co-op healthy dining establishment where every worker was an part owner, taking on all duties from mopping floors to waiting tables to making decisions as a group on the menu, hiring help, and service...a disorderly but somehow successful process.
And on she goes, learning more cooking styles, traveling to France to learn about fine wines, (an important skill since as a restaurant critic she knew nothing about wine beyond cheap stuff she could afford). Recipes for each dish mentioned in the
chapters are presented in full, a new concept in food memoir writing at
the time which has since become the standard format for cooking
memoirs. And, boy, they all sound mouth-watering.
- Pork and tomato stew
- Lemon souffle
- Show-off salad
- Clarita's fried chicken
- Coconut bread
- ....and on and on and on, each recipe sounding better than the last.
In the postscript to this book, Reichel refers to this concept which led to the creation of this unique memoir style:
...food memoirs [at the time this book's writing] were not part of the general landscape....the genre did not exist. As I was trying to think about telling my story through food, it occurred to me that the recipes could function the way photographs did in other people's books. I wanted readers to get to know the characters through the food they cooked and ate, to be able to taste the time.
It's fascinating, humorous, and intelligently written, recounting stories about the variety of people, places, and learning that contributed to her successful career. Even non-foodies like me will enjoy her experiences in this book.
[If this book interests you, be sure to check out:]
O'Neill, Molly. Mostly True: A Memoir of Family, Food, and Baseball
Really insightful, funny memoir from the author who learned to cook and become a world-famous chef and food author, as she grows up in a family with five athletic brothers. (Previously reviewed here.)
Happy reading.
Fred
[P.S. Click here to browse over 500 more book recommendations by subject or title and read the introduction to The First Sentence Reader.]
