Feb 10 2009
A Taste of One’s Own Medicine
Now we come to my least favorite blog ever–taste. Not because I hate eating… but because I am touching upon the bad and the good. Now, taste has the luxury of naturally occurring in a story, mainly because everybody–except the stray robot or weird alien with unusual nutritional needs–everybody has to eat. One reason I will always have to focus on my eating (to keep from blowing up like a balloon animal) is because I can’t just give up eating entirely. So, your characters, as they go through their daily lives, have to eat.
Why not use what they eat to make a statement? Make what they eat mean something. So today, instead of choosing foods or tastes I personally detest, and then saving the yummy stuff for tomorrow, I want to examine foods that can create meaning for your characters.
1. Foods they hate, but are forced to eat. Imagine having to dig into a large boiled onion (bleccchhh!) or a cup of boiled mushy turnips. Whatever food you choose, it should be something the eater detests: bugs, slimy meatloaf, cold eggs, some new, bloody-looking fruit on a strange planet, etc. Just make it hard to choke down, or make it clear turn the character’s stomach. If it makes them hurl–or want to–the drama only increases. And the person forcing them to eat it, for whatever reason (control, survival, etc.) becomes an automatic antagonist, even if that person is eventually intended as a love prospect. No one likes being forced to eat anything. As children, we were forced (most of us), and we still carry the scars.
2. Traditionally non-food items. Does the strap tied in their mouth (while they are being kidnapped) taste like leather? Moldy fabric? Metal? What does the blood taste like from a victim bitten on the neck? Or when you taste your own blood after an accident? What about other non-food stuff, like boogers (hopefully only kids still do this), dirt, doggie biscuits, tree bark, grass. This one reminds me of Bear Grylls, the host of the show “Man Vs. Wild” on TLC or Discovery (can’t remember which). He’s dumped in some wasteland somewhere, and he has to find his way out, all the while eating bugs and drinking his own pee (yes, really). And it’s great because he describes each thing he eats. Some thing are pretty tasty–”just like chicken”–but others taste, according to Bear, like pus or equally disgusting stuff. Easy to imagine. wouldn’t want his job, though.
3. Foods that are FABULOUS. I especially like this one when the characters have either had to go a long time without food, or had to eat crappy food for too long. My sister uses this in the novel she’s currently working on. The characters get to go from the ship’s provisions to fresh meat and produce on a planet’s surface–SOOO much better. But you can do something as simple as blueberry pancakes, a real home-cooked meal when all a person’s had is McDonald’s. You can also overuse the good foods. People can get sick of anything, believe it or not. Too much sweet stuff, especially, can be overdone enough that readers can gag, so be careful.
Tap into your own memories. What foods held good memories for you as a kid? Which ones had bad memories? The boiled onions really happened to me, along with mac & cheese made with shards of onion, mince pie (can I get another BLECCCCHHH?), several vile medicines, and cauliflower. But I also had dreamy foods I still love, including some of the simplest things: cheese and crackers, fresh apples, homemade bread (hot from the oven, with butter and cinnamon and sugar), and hot apple cider.
What tastes affect you most? What memories from childhood still bring those tastes to mind?
Someone who clearly loved his food was James Herriot from his books about his veterinarian adventures. And that was in England, from his terrifying confrontation with boiled bacon to the heavenly fare on a animal transport (in bad weather) to Russia. He punctuated his stories with (usually) blissful rememberances of food.
I do like to play with taste, though I could do more as well. Have you ever noticed how a good description can make your mouth water for something, even if it doesn’t normally appeal. Or, and this isn’t played on enough in fiction, how a smell can make you crave something even if you don’t necessarily care to eat it (think microwave popcorn or, for me, it was the smell of pecans when I worked in the ice cream shop - I don’t even like pecans!). We can hardly watch Iron Chef without having food in hand else we become starving, often for things we never even considered eating before.
I also detest onions (and Roxy and Stephanie do, too, which makes me wonder if there’s a genetic link) and remember most vividly the pickled onions we had to eat because a guest made them for us. Horrid!
I love fresh snickerdoodle cookies and lasagne (or, in fact, anything with cheese!). Kiwi, clementine oranges, celery and peanut butter, grapes, baked sweet potatoes, crunchy french fries.
After all, the texture of the food can be as important as the taste.