Saturday 8 March 2008

Gunter Grass and The Flounder: a voyage into mythical culinary history

“I write about superabundance. About fasting and my gluttons invented it. About crusts from the tables of the rich and their food value. About fat and excrement and salt and penury. In the midst of a mount of millet I will relate instructively How the spirit became bitter as gall An the belly went insane”

Gunter Grass, The Flounder, (Penguin, 1978, p.8)

In this intelligent and hilarious novel, the legendary German writer, Gunter Grass takes us on a bizarre culinary journey across centuries. While his wife is pregnant, the protagonist tells her 9 stories of 9 cooks that he claims "live inside him". He takes us from the Stone Age to the 20th century, guided by the Flounder, a mythical fish whose magic powers and knowledge have been responsible for male predominance. We are told various legends of creation, of sex and food. Grass indulges us with recipes from matriarchal tribes of the Stone Age through to European cuisine of the 1970s.
The narrator, that switches from protagonist to mysterious Flounder, observes: "...the whole flatfish family is tasty. The Neolithic Awa roasted his fellows in moist leaves. Toward the end of the Bronze age, Wigga rubbed them on both sides with white ashes and laid the white underside in ahses strewn over a bed of coals. After turning, she moistened the flatfish either in the Neolithic manner, from her always overflowing breasts, or modern-style, with a dash of fermented mare’s milk. Mestwina, who already cooked in flameproof pots placed on an iron grating, simmered flounder with sorrel or in mead. Just before serving, she sprinkled the white-eyed fish with wild dill.”(p.31)

Apart from the unusual breast milk option, these ancient recipes sound plausible and delicious. Mead, dill and milk are perfectly acceptable ingredients, and delicious zesty sorrel is back on the farmers' markets.

From meals by Awa, a mythical three breasted goddess , we are taken to the present day when “…the sole, the brill, the plaice, will be simmered in white wine, seasoned with capers, framed in jelly, deliciously offset by sauses, and served on Dresden china". The fish "will be braised, glazed, poached, broiled, filleted, ennobled with truffles, flamed in cognac, and named after marshals, dukes, the prince of Wales, and the Hotel Bristol.”(p.31)

These are only two tiny extracts of one of the best literary treatises on food. Even Grass' Medieval recipes sound absolutely scrumptious, bar the breast milk of course. In fact, a real foodie will surely be tempted to check the credibility and authenticity of the given recipes by testing them. Some would even be tempted to look for books on culinary history.

I will be grilling some sole with Monolithic sorrel salsa verde and a dash of honey instead of mead next week. Meanwhile make sure you get your hands on Gunter Grass' The Flounder, a fascinating literary ode to food.