Cooked Up: Food Fiction from Around the World

Introduction

There’s a lot that food can tell us about ourselves – how we cook it, how we eat it, whom we cook for, whom we eat with, how we use it as a symbol. As Amanda Hesser – food editor and columnist for the New York Times for more than a decade – wrote, ‘food is the royal road to the unconscious’.

If food embodies an element of the universal, so does story-telling. Much has been written about why we read short stories, about their vital function of first entertaining then instructing, about narratives grand and minor, about how good fiction – as Salman Rushdie once said – makes us want to stand up and applaud. Well, food beautifully cooked and presented has the feel of temporal art and it also makes me want to ‘stand up and applaud’. It’s in no way reductionist simply to say: these are my two passions – food and fiction – and linking them together in this anthology seemed like the most natural, inexorable and organic thing to do when New Internationalist and I first started discussing the idea of a global anthology. Richard Russo, in his introduction to Best American Short Stories 2010, wrote that stories are like ‘jars full of bees… [They] sting us good’. I’d like to adapt that analogy to say that stories can be like a taste of something new – good stories have ‘bite’, good stories appeal to all our senses, move us, make us think or live through the eyes of another.

As editor, the criteria I had in mind in inviting writers and choosing the stories were twofold. First, I didn’t want stories that basically perform the function of armchair tasting, meaning you eat with your mind, rather than your mouth. There are too many of those already. It had to be, and always has been, about the story. But food has to play an integral thematic role – it has to yield meaning, whether personal or cultural. The second criterion was geographic – I hoped to have a diverse, international mix. I sent out invitations to writers I knew, and they put me in touch with writers they knew. I brazenly wrote formal invitations (the equivalent of cold-calling) to a couple of famous authors. Most of the writers I contacted responded with touching generosity.

Then the stories trooped in. Some came fully formulated, others I helped edit. Some are flash fiction (stories under 1,000 words), others are more traditional short stories. The anthology includes an essay and even a stoku (an amalgam of ‘story’ and ‘haiku’, a form created by Ben Okri). I believe that this variety in format, together with the global nature of the stories, as well as the diverse authorial interpretation of theme, make for a rewarding reading experience.

Interestingly, in seeking geographical diversity, the anthology has grouped together a ‘global’ set of writers – most of whom hail from one country and now call another home, or have worked or lived in yet other unfamiliar settings, and their stories reflect this breadth of experience. Far from our cultural differences driving us apart, in sharing our diversity through stories, increasingly we find common threads of humanity – such as food (universal but so basic) – that link us together.

I am privileged to have worked with the writers whose stories are presented herein. We intend part of the proceeds of this book to go towards two charities — one related to food, and the other in support of writers, to be announced on our anthology website (cookedupfiction.org).

Lastly, I thought about writing an introduction that explains why each of these stories made my heart jump in micro or macro ways, why the food featured in each of them spoke to me, but in the end, dear reader, I will let each of these stories ‘bite’ you in its own way. I hope that you will find that the food connection here appeals to your senses (and not just your tastebuds) as well as to your imagination.

Elaine Chiew

BEN OKRI

The Mysterious Anxiety of Them and Us

A Stoku

We were in the magnificent grounds of our mysterious host. A feast had been laid out in the open air. There were many of us present. Some were already seated and some were standing behind those seated. In a way there were too many of us for the food served, or it felt like that.

There was a moment when it seemed that everyone would rush at the food and we’d have to be barbaric and eat with our hands, fighting over the feast laid out on the lovely tables. The moment of tension lasted a long time.

Our host did nothing, and said nothing. No one was sure what to do. Insurrection brooded in the winds. Then something strange happened. Those who were at table served themselves, and began eating. We ate calmly. My wife was sitting next to me. The food was wonderful.

We ate with some awareness of those behind us, who were not eating, and who did not move. They merely watched us eating.

Did we who were eating feel guilty? It was a complex feeling. There is no way of resolving it as such. Those who were at table ate. That’s it. That’s all.

We ate a while. Then the people behind us began to murmur. One of them, in a low voice, said:

‘The first person who offers us some food will receive…’

I was tempted to offer them some food. But how could I? Where would I start? The situation was impossible. If you turned around, you would see them all. Then your situation would be polarized. It would be you and them. But it was never that way to begin with. We were all at the feast. It’s just that you were at the table, and you began to eat. They weren’t at table and they didn’t eat. They did nothing. They didn’t even come over, take a plate, and serve themselves. No one told them, to just stand there watching us eat. They did it to themselves.

So to turn around and offer them food would automatically be to see them and treat them as inferior. When in fact they behaved in a manner that made things turn out that way.

And so we continued to eat, and ignored the murmurs. Soon we had finished eating. We were satisfied, and took up the invitation to visit other parts of the estate. There was still plenty of food left, as it happened.

My wife and I were almost the last to leave the table. As I got up, I looked behind us. I was surprised to see only three people there. Was that all? They had seemed like more, like a crowd. Maybe there had been more of them, but they’d drifted off, given up, or died.

While we had been eating it had often occurred to me that there was nothing to stop them from sticking knives into our backs.

My wife and I filed out with the others, towards the gardens, in the sumptuous grounds of that magnificent estate.

It had been a dreamy day of rich sunlight.

KRYS LEE

Fat

There was only one word to describe me and that was fat. Fat as a melon in its full ripeness, fat as a double-decker hamburger threatening to capsize, fat as a woman’s belly heavy with triplets. My body moved slowly, heavy with itself, unable to trip along as fast as my words.

The irony was, I wasn’t fat enough. I was certainly bigger than I’d ever been, and too heavy to practise or to attend backdancer auditions, but still eight kilos from the deadline. The trouble was, my weight gain had reached a plateau at 90 kilograms despite my arduous daily regime of spicy fried chicken, sweat potato pizza, jajang noodles, hot dogs and ice-cream sundaes. As soon as I woke up, I reached for the mini chocolate bars that I kept stacked in my lower dresser drawer. I ate three portions of french fries a day. I’d sneak in an extra piece of pound cake after dinner.

At first Abeoji hadn’t noticed, then later, when it was harder not to, he’d said, ‘You’ll get tired of it, like you get tired of everything else.’ When he realized that I was determined, he tried to make me vomit out what he called my disgrace. He stood to his full formidable height, a rectangle of veiny muscle, and thumped my back as I stared stubbornly into the toilet water. He said he would turn me in to the authorities. He threatened to dunk my head into the toilet and use my hair to clean it. Thankfully, Eomma was hanging onto his arms from behind so he couldn’t be quite as cruel as he hoped to be. Since she naturally wanted to protect her only son, he had to be satisfied with threats. I told him that my reaction was natural; it wasn’t easy to eat as much as I did. I said, ‘Abeoji, you want me to be a bulimic?’

‘What’s a bulimic?’ he said. ‘I’m trying to make you an upright citizen.’

The thing was, I didn’t think our government really needed me to do over two years of military service. They had nearly 700,000 kids doing that job for them, and that wasn’t including the professional soldiers. I had spent more than a few nights over the figures that Abeoji flung at me every time I sat down to eat, and after I struggled with my conscience that he claimed I didn’t have, I decided that the army could do without me.

At breakfast, over my personal pot of fermented bean paste stew topped with several slices of cheese, I announced that I was less than ten kilograms away from my goal and made Abeoji cry into his rice. Now, Abeoji had the stern face of a prison warden. Only his voice showed pleasure if his favorite baseball team won a game or when a new world map arrived via mail order, or anger when he found out that, once again, I’d burrowed back into the comforter after his six o’clock morning call. He was the kind of man who found it too embarrassing to buy roses for his wife and gave us money so we could pick our own birthday presents. But now a tear slid down the ski slope of this very man’s nose, off his wide chin and disappeared. A genuine tear from a man who’d recited a ten-minute speech without a single pause at his own mother’s funeral.

The entire family stared. I stared. Even if he did care more about his reputation than my well-being, I almost felt sorry. Then he wiped his eyes, and stared back. The weakness disappeared from his face as if it had never happened.

He said, ‘Are you just doing this to infuriate me? Don’t tell me you’ve gone communist.’

But it was clear that I was eating because I didn’t want to be stationed anywhere near the 38th Parallel. He was acting like parents did when their unwed daughters turned 30. That is, hysterical and more than a little unreasonable.

Abeoji thrust his chopsticks at me as if to puncture my eyeballs. ‘We had to forage for food. We’d mix edible roots and leaves into a little bowl of barley and if we were lucky, we got a few spoonfuls of rice. So what if we were hungry? I knew I was serving my country.’

I said, ‘Which country? You mean when you were in Vietnam fighting for the Americans?’

He overturned his bowl of rice on the lacquered table, which would send my mother on a two-day cooking strike, but didn’t frighten me at all. The only thing frightening was his wide pinstripe suit that he would pair up later that day with Nike tennis shoes, like some washed-up gangster.

He said, ‘Do you know what the Americans did for us? Of course we had to be in Vietnam! What kind of history did they teach you at school?’

He turned as red as the Chinese flag. I concentrated on my meal. I was convinced I knew what was important.

Eomma moved the fried mackerel closer to me and said calmly, ‘Let our boy finish his meal in peace before you start in on a history lesson. So he enjoys eating. He’s not hurting anyone. You don’t know kids these days. In fact, you are fairly incompetent at anything outside of military matters. You should be thankful he’s not out robbing banks.’

My older sister flipped her long black hair back from her emaciated face. I called her Vampire when my parents weren’t around. ‘Who’s ever heard of dwenjang jjigae with cheese? If he eats any more, will he fit through the front door?’

Abeoji said, ‘The commie men up North serve a full ten years; their women, seven.’

His attempt to shame me had no effect; after all, our compatriots in the North had no choice.

‘And you! Serving less than three years and with three solid meals a day! It’s like being in a five-star hotel for free.’

His face had descended into the shade of red apples so I poured him a glass of water.

With her usual helpfulness, Eomma winked and said, ‘Your Abba’s always been prone to a little exaggeration.’

I said, ‘And it’s different now – it’s not like we have to worry about North Koreans attacking.’

Abeoji said, ‘You don’t know what they’re capable of doing.’

‘They’re starving up there! We’re the least of their worries. Besides, they were just trying to unify the country.’

‘How can you say that about the Reds?’ The grey fluff that stuck out like wings over his ears visibly sagged. ‘You don’t sound like my son. And you certainly don’t look like my son.’

I was glad to hear that, though I pretended to be hurt.

‘Wonsu,’ my sister said as she rose for work, ‘When you get a job and everyone’s exchanging their service stories, what are you going to do? Share weight-gaining strategies?’

It was easy for her to say. She was allowed to become a sales manager straight out of college without giving up a few years of her life. Just because she and my oldest married sister didn’t have a penis, they didn’t have to wear a uniform that made you look like a Galapagos tortoise or shave their hair, or run up mountains carrying an M16 in boots that weighed as much as a newborn baby. Besides, we were sending rice to the starving North, paying premium prices to watch their circus, even building a glittering resort on their side of Geumgang Mountain. And still, everyone expected me to run until my toes bled and practise firing at targets as if they were North Korean commies when all the news was about peace and starvation and the Sunshine policy and new friendships. It didn’t make sense.

But it made perfect sense to Abeoji, who took me aside to show me, once again, his photos and medals. He went on about responsibility, integrity, sacrifice. He sounded like he’d been programmed by the government, and in a way, he was. He’d retired from the Incheon naval base two years ago and still walked in measured steps as if life had to be lived by a manual. He commanded people instead of talking to them even if every civic organization he joined (and he was on many) consisted of 100 per cent volunteers. Still, old people called him ‘the only honest civil servant,’ which he loved, and my younger cousins buzzed after him like mosquitoes because he distributed the fattest envelopes of New Year’s money. But I knew him better. He was a springer of math problems over steak when I cared more about my hairstyle than the amount of air pressure in an igloo. He was a paduk player who didn’t understand my music or the dancing that he compared to an epileptic making love. He made me wear a cap when I grew my hair out and warned me that if I pierced my ears, he’d make me wear pink dresses to school. And he certainly didn’t understand my mission. His problem was that he’d been in the army too long and, while the army hadn’t changed, Korea had.

Three clothing changes later, I was lumbering out the door when Abeoji stepped on the edge of my jeans. To be precise, he nearly pulled them down. He said, ‘You’re going out again?’

I desperately wished he was still working and couldn’t track the minutes of my day. ‘Abeoji, can you get off my jeans? Do you know how much they cost?’

He studied a hole in my knee before saying, ‘I’ve tried it your Eomma’s way, but there’s no talking to you. It’s not like you go to college or have a job. You’re just going to meet your washed-up friends and you’re going to eat. That’s what you’re going to do, eat.’

‘I do have a job.’

‘Delivering Chinese food is not a job.’

‘The pay’s double on weekends!’

I tried to dash past him but he gripped my arms and forced me into my room. He was nearly 60 but still twice as strong as me.

He frisked my drawers, collected my hoard of chocolate bars, SPAM cans, deep-fried persimmon cakes, and dumped them into an empty ramen box. I helplessly watched him confiscate my things the same way he’d done when I was younger and he’d thrown out my black-market Japanese comics. He’d said, ‘So Korea’s not good enough for you? You want the Japanese back so they can steal our women and destroy our language?’ And all I’d wanted was to be a comic-book artist.

‘Eomma!’ I shouted, but she didn’t come.

He said, ‘I’ll bring you lunch, not that you’ll need it.’

I said, ‘Is there no free speech? If you were president of this country, would I get a vote?’

‘What is free speech?’ He closed the door.

I pulled at the doorknob with both hands, but it opened less than an inch. Abeoji had chained the outdoor doorknob to something I couldn’t see. I threw my body against the door but it didn’t move. I shouted, ‘Eomma! Eomma!’

The door stayed shut.

I was abandoned, alone, locked up like a political prisoner tortured for expressing myself. My skin would go sallow without sunlight, my teeth would fall out, and Abeoji would be sorry when I came down with scurvy. I stared at posters of the great Seo Taeji, greatest rapper of all time, tacked to my ceiling, Will Smith’s socks that I’d managed to beg straight out of his shoes hanging unwashed and signed, over my desk. I flipped through photos of when I was lean and could spin and move with the best. Then I did what I’d promised myself I wouldn’t