A Taste of Hate

When our class was assigned to read M. F. K. Fisher’s essay "Once a Tramp, Always..." I was looking forward to an interesting story that perhaps all human beings would be able to relate to. The title promised some kind of life lesson against persecution or, at least, a scandalous tale.  I began reading it optimistically, ready to savor the words and let them move me in some direction like sympathy or laughter. By the time I got to the third page I started to lose hope. This didn’t seem to be going anywhere. If I were reading this for my own benefit I would have put it down and found something else to read, but I stuck it out for the sake of my assignment hoping the essay would redeem itself by the time I got to the end. It never did. I felt... duped. Like I had truly wasted my time. I was not expecting a culinary essay that had almost nothing, whatsoever, to do with tramps. This essay was insufferable.

Perhaps I was disappointed because the title had prepared my palate for one thing and I got something else, like when you hastily grab the glass of soda you sat on the table only moments ago and drink it, only to realize it’s a glass of milk, so your immediate reaction is to spit it out. After giving it some more thought I knew that wasn’t the reason why. It wasn’t that I couldn’t understand some of what Fisher was trying to say in her essay, but that I had to try too hard to understand it, because I could not relate to her tastes or her reasoning at all. For something by an author who is supposed to be a real food sensualist, I just didn’t feel what I think I should have felt. Being a food person who understands the joy of cooking and eating, I was left cold and unmoved. I could not understand Fisher’s choices in refraining from eating things that she loved for years at a time. It seemed like an overly dramatic thing to do. I have a thing for red curry sauce and tofu. I eat it when I want. I don’t wait two years and feel content in the knowledge that “it’s there.” What kind of crazy masochist does that kind of thing? I also could not relate to her choice of food. Potato chips are okay, I guess. I find them too salty most of the time. And I’ve never had caviar, nor am I interested in trying it, so her description was totally lost on me. I tried relating it to the best spicy crab cake I had in Las Vegas that I will probably never have again, but it was no good because that experience isn’t going to stop me from eating more crab cakes whenever I feel like it. And I’m never going to write a story about it to bore you to death with either.

At times Fisher’s writing reminds me of some prim and delicate lady who hangs on too tightly to the past and mistakes her every romantic remembrance as being interesting to everyone. The kind of person I would avoid for fear of not finding an excuse to be able to leave before they start in with some long family history. She gets passionate but in that exaggerated southern belle way that makes you want to gag a little (Your "belle-soeur"? Don’t you mean your “sister-in-law”?). Maybe I’m missing the point and have to look at it from the perspective of someone who lives for food and all the drama it entails. On second thought, I’m pretty sure I hate it.