the mind. She looked wan and tired in the winter. Her eyes had a beadiness in candlelight late at night over backgammon and grappa. Her voice squawked like a magpie's. She was a bit of a magpie, Sonia. Always looking for glittering objects and secreting them away. Sometimes I miss her in my bones. Knowing her is not the same as loving her. But people have layers like onions and planets, and Sonia's obdurate, complex, alien shell cracked to reveal something else entirely, like a crustacean smashed against a rock to free an ermine, something ineffably soft, rare, shy, and tender with a quivering little face. I knew that. I can't forget it. But I'm loath to believe it, nostalgia being the trickster god it is, the Loki of the emotions.
I must have been born under the sign of that trickster god, and have been ruled all my life by nothing more than his whims and illusions, his mischief. Maybe it's not only me. My generation is a sudden tail-end-of-the-Boom dip on the population-explosion graph, the unprepossessing trough characterized only by a shared generalized nostalgia for some America that almost but never quite existed—I envision us as a tiny tribe of isolates scattered around the coasts, clinging to the edges like aliens yearning for some golden, decadent, hot-browed era of martinis and Louis Prima and Harlem midnight suppers, apothecaries selling morphine-laced beverages, wooden dice rolling on deep-green baize, that zingy old New York pulse and fizzle, sad gas stations out west we drive up to in our roadsters and Thunderbird convertibles, to refill our tanks for fifteen cents a gallon and move on from, leave behind in red dust, Shell signflapping in hot wind, on our way to Palm Springs to shack up in some turquoise geometric motel with intergalactic decor and a butterfly-shaped pool, drinking gin and fresh orange juice and smoking Luckys and solving murders and eating ham sandwiches at 3 a.m…. We live in our own romance stories, detective novels, noir films, all that jazz.
It was another bad night. It's either generalize about my generation, or dwell self-pityingly on the electric demons in my leg. The instant I give in to self-pity, I'll shoot myself.
This is my garum mood. My rib cage is filled with a strong, caustic brew, and my bones are turning to jelly, my guts likewise liquefying, digesting themselves, giving rise to these thick, pungent, unspeakably reeking private thoughts.
Garum was the Roman delicacy that cost the earth and played a role in historical conquests and gourmandise alike, recipe as follows (I think, anyway, but am too lazy to get up and check my reference books): Take fish guts, add salt and water, let stand and rot in the sun. It will literally digest itself; rather, the intestinal bacteria will digest the intestines themselves. Strain the resulting effluvium, add fragrant dried herbs, let rot some more, put a cork in it, and use a few drops of this fish-gut liqueur (called alec, the animal equivalent of marc) to flavor everything from cereal to stew. The Romans used garum in almost all their recipes. No wonder they vomited so much. It's an ancient recipe; Greek colonists used it when Rome was still a caravansery and it played a role in the conquest of Gaul, because of all the garum-prospering trading posts up and down the coasts of France and Spain. Add water to it and you have hydrogarum. Add oil: oleogarum. Vinegar: oxygarum. Sanguine garum: made with tuna guts and blood.
There's a modern dish, a descendant of garum, called pissala-dière, a Provençal delicacy made of whole cheap strong-tasting oily fish like anchovies and mackerel, whatever is too tiny or bony or garbagey to eat on its own. Smash them all together ina big earthenware jar with coarse salt and herbs, in layers, finishing with a layer of herbs. Let it sit under a heavy flat stone in a cool place until all the salt dissolves. This takes a while, so be patient. Days, even weeks. Then strain it, purée it, and store it under
I must have been born under the sign of that trickster god, and have been ruled all my life by nothing more than his whims and illusions, his mischief. Maybe it's not only me. My generation is a sudden tail-end-of-the-Boom dip on the population-explosion graph, the unprepossessing trough characterized only by a shared generalized nostalgia for some America that almost but never quite existed—I envision us as a tiny tribe of isolates scattered around the coasts, clinging to the edges like aliens yearning for some golden, decadent, hot-browed era of martinis and Louis Prima and Harlem midnight suppers, apothecaries selling morphine-laced beverages, wooden dice rolling on deep-green baize, that zingy old New York pulse and fizzle, sad gas stations out west we drive up to in our roadsters and Thunderbird convertibles, to refill our tanks for fifteen cents a gallon and move on from, leave behind in red dust, Shell signflapping in hot wind, on our way to Palm Springs to shack up in some turquoise geometric motel with intergalactic decor and a butterfly-shaped pool, drinking gin and fresh orange juice and smoking Luckys and solving murders and eating ham sandwiches at 3 a.m…. We live in our own romance stories, detective novels, noir films, all that jazz.
It was another bad night. It's either generalize about my generation, or dwell self-pityingly on the electric demons in my leg. The instant I give in to self-pity, I'll shoot myself.
This is my garum mood. My rib cage is filled with a strong, caustic brew, and my bones are turning to jelly, my guts likewise liquefying, digesting themselves, giving rise to these thick, pungent, unspeakably reeking private thoughts.
Garum was the Roman delicacy that cost the earth and played a role in historical conquests and gourmandise alike, recipe as follows (I think, anyway, but am too lazy to get up and check my reference books): Take fish guts, add salt and water, let stand and rot in the sun. It will literally digest itself; rather, the intestinal bacteria will digest the intestines themselves. Strain the resulting effluvium, add fragrant dried herbs, let rot some more, put a cork in it, and use a few drops of this fish-gut liqueur (called alec, the animal equivalent of marc) to flavor everything from cereal to stew. The Romans used garum in almost all their recipes. No wonder they vomited so much. It's an ancient recipe; Greek colonists used it when Rome was still a caravansery and it played a role in the conquest of Gaul, because of all the garum-prospering trading posts up and down the coasts of France and Spain. Add water to it and you have hydrogarum. Add oil: oleogarum. Vinegar: oxygarum. Sanguine garum: made with tuna guts and blood.
There's a modern dish, a descendant of garum, called pissala-dière, a Provençal delicacy made of whole cheap strong-tasting oily fish like anchovies and mackerel, whatever is too tiny or bony or garbagey to eat on its own. Smash them all together ina big earthenware jar with coarse salt and herbs, in layers, finishing with a layer of herbs. Let it sit under a heavy flat stone in a cool place until all the salt dissolves. This takes a while, so be patient. Days, even weeks. Then strain it, purée it, and store it under
Similar Books
