This month, I’m launching a series of great reads from around the world – novels set in far-flung places, written by authors who should be read more often by Americans.
So to kick things off, I’m bringing you a foodie fiction challenge from another land. I’ll describe the ingredients and history of this delectable dish and you’ll puzzle over what the dish is, which book it shows up in and who put that dish in their novel.
These ingredients, staples of both ancient and contemporary civilizations, appear in this story again and again. They sometimes symbolize temptation and sometimes the comfort of home.
They appear on the tables of lavish banquets and in the homes of the simplest people. And this particular dish is resonant with the herbs and other natural bounty that grow wild in this land.
To make this dish, your ingredients will include the fruit of that bounty with the freshly picked herb and you’ll blend in, among other things, flour, salt, pepper and water.
To do this dish right, you’ll need to add a little elbow grease and make it in two stages. When it’s ready to be baked, it will perfume your home with a scent that has been drifting through kitchens for millennia.
In the text in which this food appears, a great feast is laid out after the guests have “rinsed their hands” over a “silver basin.” A housekeeper brings them food, including this dish as the hospitality of a great meal begins.
Does this scene ring a bell? If you can guess what I’m describing and who wrote it, Tweet me @KerriMPR.
— Kerri Miller | MPR News
