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June 6, 2013 | Blog |  No comments

Literary Mama Rewind: Food and Family

By Amanda Jaros

Welcome to Literary Mama Rewind!  Every few weeks we’ll round up some of our favorite essays, stories, poems, columns, and reviews from the Literary Mama Archives relating to a particular theme.  This week we’re looking at the Food that ties the Family together. All you have to do is click and read….

 

  • The In-Laws for Christmas Dinner by Laurie Kruk in Poetry

Thou Shalt Not leave the table until bellies groan and spouses frown.

  • Africa or Disney World? by Rachel Pieh Jones in Creative Nonfiction

No, no human being should be walking in the searing, suffocating heat of this mid-afternoon hour. And yet, my family of five has set out for a stroll.

  • You’re Next by Michelle Brafman in Fiction

I keep mum when my daughter Maggie tells me that she’s baking a sugar-free birthday cake for my five-year-old granddaughter. She’s reaching out to me for the first time in years, and I sure don’t want to muck things up.

  • There are No Blue Foods in Nature by Norah Piehl in Fiction

“What do you want him to do, starve? Eat nothing but blue raspberry popsicles from now on?” Julia screeched at him then. Maybe not screeched exactly, but that’s how she sounded to Kevin all the time lately, borderline hysterical. “There are no truly blue foods in nature,” she reminded him for the thousandth time, as she peeled the potatoes that she’d mash (for all of them) and dye blue (for Howie).

  • Tales of Food and Family: A Review of Quarter-Acre Farm, Eating for Beginners, A Tiger in the Kitchen, and Maman’s Homesick Pie by Lisa Catherine Harper in Reviews

Food stories can be aspirational; they can tell of a cuisine, culture, or community. They might be about sourcing ingredients, a family dinner, a dessert. Sometimes they’re prescriptive; other times, they offer a vicarious thrill. But the best food stories, as writers like M.F.K. Fisher proved decades ago, aren’t just about food. Instead, they tell us something about ourselves and the world we live in.

  • Of This Fantastic Peach by Katherine J. Barrett from the Column “Of This Fantastic Peach”

Nourishing our children is a mother’s most primal instinct. The urge to provide begins at conception with the awareness that what feeds our body also builds our child, and continues through breast or bottle, first sweetpea purees, and full knife-and-fork family meals.

  • A Chicken in Every Pot by Erin White from the Column “The Hen House”

The chickens in question were the five chickens we had raised and “processed” with Meg, our neighbor up the road. And by “we” I mean Chris. When Meg asked if we wanted to raise chickens with her I said, “No way,” and Chris said, “Sure.”

  • Cravings by Amy Mercer from the Column “Chronic Mama”

“Mom, can we go to Old Macdonald’s for dinner?” Will asked as the golden arches loomed in his back seat window. I never corrected him. I liked that he associated a childhood song about animals and farms with the fast food giant.

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