Recipes
When, late from France, I introduced
quiches to the campus, they became so common
I felt compelled to change my specialty.
It couldn't be cassoulet; you couldn't get
the Toulouse sausages. It couldn't be langoustines.
How often I wish
Americans could learn to grow crawfish.
Of course I gave my recipes away.
Last night I gave Esterlee
the zucchini casserole, and she'll give it to Jessie,
and so it goes. No keeping a secret. I may revert
to Maryland chicken and angel cake. The fit survive,
and the raw materials
don't change much in a lifetime, but they change:
there was no tea at Stonehenge. It's hard to think back--
no beans, no wheat--
but somehow there was always something to eat.
So much is fixed, but how it's mixed
with foreign influence, like wars,
weather, and trade winds, genes
and genius, who's to tell?
I poach the flounder in my mother's dish.
The scholars say my mother was a fish.
The strict constructionists say man
strutted on two legs of his own
all around Eden. Maybe he did,
sharing his recipe with only God, and his spare rib
with woman.
She found apples
good eating. Naturally she shared.
She discovered blood,
guts, seasonings; how to make stock; how best to grow
salads and sesames; and how to raise
bread. One son discovered how to rais the dead
but he never told.
Now she grows old, beyond experiment.
The harvests shrivel; hands are obsolete
in the modern kitchen, simples in the sickroom.
Her traveling grandchildren have much to learn
in secret space, where the bright planets turn
ocean, perhaps, come shore, come kitchen garden.
The
...
Read Full Article
|
