*Cynthia. S1
1Department of English,
Stella Maris College, Chennai, Tamilnadu, India.
*cynti.official@yahoo.co.in
 |
Abstract:
The
advent of machines and technology has caused nature to take a backseat in terms
of being viewed as a means of production, especially when it comes to food.
Today food is classified into processed, natural and organic; divisions that
did not exist years ago. The reason
for this is the emergence of man-made machines with the ability to create
processed foods in order to meet the growing demands of population and
urbanisation. People have a tendency to view machine and nature as binaries,
for nature existed before mankind and is organic in substance while machine is
non-living and designed to only meet the basic needs and the greedy needs of
humans. This juxtaposition does not necessarily be a binary opposition.
Nature has and continues to be a machine of
production for our daily sustenance. Landscape, water, air, weather and even
animals are all parts of the mechanised nature that work together in order to
produce food. This role of nature which is taken for granted is celebrated in
many novels of culinary fiction where cooking is revered and the food is served
in a farm to fork fashion, giving precedence to the growing of one’s own
ingredients within the domestic space. The primary texts used to study this
characteristic of nature are “BlackBerry Wine” and “Five Quarters of the
Orange” by Joanne Harris. The paper will explore the camaraderie between nature
and home cooks and how they work with nature and so do they with machines in
order to produce food and the destructive potential that is dormant in both
nature and machine.
Keywords
Culinary; Nature; Farmers; Gardening;
1.
Introduction
Nature has made an appearance in many works of literature and can be
classified under Nature writing and Ecocriticism. Ecocriticism can be defined
as the critical study of the role of nature in literature and analysing a text
from the point of view of the treatment of nature in it. The setting and
surrounding backdrop of the text is taken up for analysis and the relationship
between the characters and their natural environment is also taken up for
study. Nature writing on the other hand deals with literature written on and
about nature and nature ends up being the only subject matter of the text.
Travel writing often merges with nature writing such as the works of Isabella
Bird who authored A Lady’s Life in the
Rocky Mountains which is about her trip to Colorado Rocky Mountains on
horseback. While she writes of her travel experience, she also gives detailed
descriptions of nature she encounters on this journey; thus often nature
writing merges with other subgenres of the novel.
The question then arises if Ecocriticism has a place in the culinary
novel and if food and nature have a co-existing role as travel and nature does;
and the answer is yes. Culinary fiction places emphasis on food being prepared
from scratch and to find the ingredients for which one must turn to nature. Before
the actual cooking process takes place the ingredients need to be grown in the
earth and harvested first. The primary texts selected to carry out this study
are BlackBerry Wine and Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne
Harris. These texts don’t exactly qualify as descriptive nature writing (though
other culinary writing may), but nature has proven itself indispensable when it
comes to the food we eat. Such novels can be viewed from an Eco critical
perspective as the actual preparation of a meal starts with the tilling of the
ground.
2.
The Mechanism of Nature
The mechanism of nature allows humans to cultivate varieties of
sustenance such as crops, orchards, rearing animals etc. All of these are done on the common ground of
nature which exists as land; except the landscape has had work done to it by
human intervention in order to produce the desired sustenance. Hence from an
eco-critical perspective nature in culinary fiction follows the philosophy of
earth for human’s sake rather than earth for earth’s sake; and goes against the
concept of ‘Deep Ecology’ which believes in letting nature be as it is while we
peacefully cohabitate with it. “The shift from a human centered to a nature-centered
system of values is the core of radicalism attributed to deep ecology, bringing
it into opposition with almost the entirety of western philosophy and
religion.”(Garrard 21). Nature in order to produce sustenance is not allowed to
exist by itself without being chiseled, in Five
Quarters of the Orange we see that the life of a farmer depends more than
simply existing on nature, for nature has given its landscapes but it is the
working of nature for one’s own personal use that brings forth sustenance.
As Framboise narrates,
There is always plenty to do on a farm. Water to bring in from the
pump, leaving it in metal buckets on the cellar tiles so the sun doesn’t warm
it; goats to milk, the pail to be covered in a muslin cloth and left in the
dairy; the goats then have to be taken to pasture so they don’t eat all the
vegetables in the garden; hens and ducks to feed; the day’s crop of ripe
strawberries to pick;(Harris 103)
The protagonist’s mother works hard on her farm everyday but also
exhibits a love for the trees she grew and even anthropomorphizes them as people
at times by the way she gives her trees names in her journal/cookbook and talks
about staying up with them all night when they are sick. At the same time she
raises livestock and poultry which she doesn’t mind butchering for a meal, nor
does she mind harvesting her other crops. The trees are given special care
because they qualify to be one of those agents of nature that continue to
provide sustenance season after season as Framboise states “Our main source of
income was fruit,” (Harris 66). For the pride of a farmer falls on market day
when every farmer gathers his produce which he/she grows in the farm and sells
it to people in the market. Thus nature does not only provide sustenance but
also livelihood. The products Framboise and her mother sell in the market also
include animal products such as egg and cheese which though aren’t directly
derived from nature, are from nature as it forms the base on which the animals
are reared and is in turn worked in order to make the ground fit for raising
certain livestock. For example poultry cannot be raised in green pastures as
are goats and sheep, while such animals are restrained and denied from
accessing vegetable patches which throw light on the issue of space and
wilderness.
3.
Domestic Space Vs Wilderness
Space in nature has also become mechanised as it comes under the
control of humans. Landscape is worked in order to cultivate vegetation where
the domestic livestock aren’t allowed, but are separated from other feral
animals as they are raised exclusively for consumption. A small plot of land
for instance can be cleared of greenery and used as a poultry farm or a
pig-pen, just as easily as a piece of land is tilled and filled with manure in
order to plant crops. As opposed to the treatment of the mother’s trees in the
novel, there is no anthropomorphism when it comes to livestock for they are
also used as a means of production (for milk, eggs, meat etc.), interestingly
in the novel the young Framboise relies on the local pond in order to catch
fishes for their dinner; it is here that she sets her eye on the old mother
Pike and makes plans to capture it for sport. Earlier on in the novel she also
hunts water snakes and kills them for sport too, hanging them by their heads
near the river bank.
There is a difference in the treatment of the animals in the wilderness
and one’s own livestock, which can be observed from this. “We are rarely
enjoined to prevent the suffering of wild animals because our moral
responsibility principally applies to the animals we use for food, transport
and companionship” (Garrard 149). The mechanism of nature here is exploited as
nature provides the river bed where the fishes and other aquatic animals live
and function, but Framboise by her human intervention is not satisfied with
merely taking her catch of fish for consumption but proceeds to capture snakes
as a sadistic pleasure and hunt the old pike just because it had the audacity
to exist for so long. Framboise’s unnecessary killings are retaliated by nature
in turn by upsetting the farms in the village and destroying their source of
sustenance. “The Hourias farm had been badly hit. A week’s supply of eggs
requisitioned, half the milk, two whole sides of salted pork, seven pounds of
butter, a barrel of oil, twenty-four bottles of wine, ill-concealed behind a
partition in the cellar, plus any number of terrines and preserves”(Harris
121).
4.
The Farmer’s Plight
While the mechanism of nature acts as the provider, it also functions
as a destroyer. Nature can be worked by human intervention only to a certain
extent but cannot be completely controlled by it. This is the difference
between manmade technology and nature. As Jay states in BlackBerry Wine “Other farmers suffered, too, but it was Marise,
with her marshy pastures, who was the worst affected. Standing pools of
rainwater surrounded the house. Two goats were lost in the flood water from the
Tannes” (Harris 269). A farmer can work very hard in order to grow produce only
for it to be taken away in an instant by a natural disaster as in Marise’s
case, who though ran an efficient farm had suffered loss because the weather is
out of her control. Farming is a risky occupation as one can observe from the
tragedy that struck the Hourias’ farm and Marise’s farm. A lot of investment
goes into the purchasing of raw materials such as seeds, pesticides,
fertilizers etc. along with intensive labour which goes to a total waste if
nature decides to give these farmers a bad break.
The tragedies of the two farms in the novels are not something new for
often in the news one hears about farmer suicides due to lack of yield that
season such as the farmer’s protest in South India in 2017, with skulls of the
deceased who had committed suicide due to the drought which killed their crops
making them unable to pay their debtors. “
‘Temperature was
more powerful at explaining crop yields and suicide rates,’ explained Carleton
in an interview with National Geographic. The data suggested that for regions
over 20 degrees Celsius, a one degree increase in a single day's temperature
caused an average of 70 suicides” (news.nationalgeographic .com).
Culinary fiction helps bring to light such issues concerned with
farming seen in the character of Joe stating “All it takes is for one year to
be bad, and then you’re taking out loans from the credit Mutuel so you can
plant next year”(Harris 260). Farming therefore or any profession dependent on
the mechanism of nature is a gamble for there is not always a reward for the
work and investment put into it; but nature is the only doer of machines one
can go to for the production of our daily sustenance. Thus one needs to
sympathise with farmers for farming is indeed the first stage when it comes to
food and since its workings are with nature, tends to be unpredictable. The
only other alternative for this is processed food which produces a lot of short
term and long term side effects; even genetically modified organisms (GMO)
which a lot of farmers are fighting against should be of concern even to the
layman for its potential health hazards. To sum it up, farming shouldn’t only
be left to the farmers but a profession supported by the entire community.
5.
Role of Gardening in Traditional Cooking
Another feature of culinary fiction that one can observe is the
emphasis given to home cooking and making meals from scratch. All cooking is
done with an emotional element attached to it along with a lot of care taken to
select only the finest quality of ingredients. Culinary fiction this way, acts
as a foil to the fast food society where meals are also commercialised in the
growing markets. The reader develops a fascination for the kind of effort taken
by the cook in order to produce a decent and decadent meal on the plate.
Therefore a good cook works to produce a meal in the farm to fork fashion as
opposed to depending on commercialised ingredients or even GMO produce. “You
bloody won’t, though,’ exclaimed Joe. ‘Buggerin everything up with chemicals.
That’s not what you came here for, is it?”(Harris 185). Joe believes in
gardening without the use of chemicals or anything unnatural even if it
provides a lucrative promise of better yield because ultimately what can be
grown is for consumption. Joe didn’t just garden but also harvested what he
grew and made wines, preserves and other edibles.
Culinary fiction is a genre which focuses on the relationship between
food and man and since in today’s world food is classified into
organic/natural/processed, it deals with this distinction as well. The culinary
novel without a doubt supports traditional cooking methods that rely on
traditional farming.
Environmental groups such as
Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth played a major role in successfully
demonizing biotechnology in Europe in the 1990s and have imported their
anti-GMO campaigns to Asia and Africa. These campaigns have rested, in part, on
claims about adverse human health effects that are groundless. The other main
pillar of anti-GMO campaigns is built on anti-corporate and anti-big business
philosophy (Kloor 70).
It can be observed that
Framboise, cooking and serving in her café with produce from her own land.
Joe’s interest in gardening also stems from a primal need as he uses the
harvest from his garden to sustain himself and also make wines and preserves
which he sometimes shares with the others in his community. Technically
speaking Framboise, Joe and Jay aren’t farmers by profession, but it is their
personal dedication to their craft which yields high quality ingredients which
are natural and tasty. Neither do they cater to mass market but are supported
by their small communities where the people eat local food.
Working with nature also requires a lot of patience as cooking a meal
from scratch does. In our fast paced techno savvy world everything is expected
to happen quickly and be value for money; it is proving to be extremely hard to
be able to put together a meal which one can say is natural/organic as most of
the ingredients come off shelves from the supermarkets which are processed and
have preservatives added. Cooking devices have also changed as microwaves and
air fryers replace traditional stove tops and ovens for convenience.
Simultaneously there is a boom in food and nutrition blogs such as thehealthyhomeeconomist.com and wellnessmama .com that endorse healthy
eating and cooking done from scratch as an appeal to go back to healthier
living by traditional cooking methods. As part of the endorsement, the authors
here advocate the practice of growing one’s own produce as part of traditional eating.
Katie from Wellnessmama.com has a
section on her website on organic gardening for one’s home culinary purposes.
She states,
Gardening was once a normal part
of life for most people. Not so many generations ago, neighbours exchanged
fresh produce over fences (too many zucchini again!) and most people knew their
local farmer. Most of us too probably have fond memories of grandmothers
opening a can of homemade pickles or jam.
Even though times have changed (Wal-Mart, anyone?), we still have the
ability to grow some of our own food at least part of the year in almost all
parts of the world. Yet statistically many of us don’t (especially in the US).
Conserving a local food source is important and working in a
garden is good for the body and the soul (Wellnessmama.com).
6.
Nature – A Mindful Machine
Through the texts taken for study we find that nature is romanticised
in some ways such as Jay on moving to Lansquenet and purchasing a farm, finds
solace and mental clarity in order to complete his book and finds his happiness
in working with nature and farming. Framboise as well returns to Les Laveuses
as she couldn’t stay away despite the reputation she and her family had earned
while they were last there; had to return and start farming once again and even
opened a café where she cooked from her produce. But that is just one part of
the perspective for nature isn’t always ‘Mother Nature’. “The ancient
mythification of nature as a “benevolent female,” Carolyn Merchant argues,
“contained the implication that nature when ploughed and cultivated could be
used as a commodity and manipulated as a resource” (Buell 215). Nature though
can be worked by humans as machines, still manages to retain an identity of its
own for the mechanism of nature is such that it can submit to human adaptation
while performing on its own as well.
The difference between manmade machines and nature is that the latter
are synthetically produced and built out of sterile non-living equipment such
as steel, iron etc. While nature is organic and a living entity; hence man
cannot control nature as he is able to control his own man-made machinery. All
machines in general have a certain percentage of unpredictability which may
cause it to act in undesirable and unproductive ways, but while in synthetic
machines man adjusts the technology to suit himself; he cannot accomplish this
with nature. Nature as a living being cannot be altered past an extent to suit
just one species. “All creatures process their environment subjectively and
seek to modify it in the process of adapting to it. It is not a question of
whether we can evade this ground condition but how to make it sub serve
mutuality rather than propriety self-centeredness” (Buell 267).
7.
Conclusion
While reading such texts of culinary fiction, the readers are
encouraged not only to take on cooking from scratch, but also to grow their own
produce to use in their cooking. Hence such novels play an important role
socially in acting as a co-text to traditional food diets which are making a
comeback with such blogs and books such as Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions. Such texts also simultaneously function as a
co-text to the green revolution as they endorse gardening and traditional
farming methods in order to procure the ingredients for cooking. The books
contain a setting where the protagonists have moved out of their capitalist
environment and into a more natural setting in order to rediscover food, hence
bringing to light the inextricable connection between sustenance and nature,
also getting the reader’s attention towards nature through his palette.
Nature ends up playing an interesting character in culinary fiction
because of its role to serve as machines for humans to work them for their
sustenance, while at the same time retaining its own individuality to function
on its own. This often ends up upsetting people whose lives are grounded in the
agriculture sector. Nevertheless, human beings are created as part of nature
and need to learn to negotiate and co-exist with it as opposed to trying to
control it. The practice of farming cannot be thrust onto farmers exclusively.
Nature is impermanent which makes farming a difficult profession. It is in
everyone’s vested interest to eat healthy that the community as a whole should support
farmers and traditional-farming practices while undertaking gardening
themselves in their domestic space for their consumption.
8.
References
[1]
Harris, Joanne. Five Quarters of the Orange. Black Swan ed., Black
Swan, 2002.
[2] Harris,
Joanne. BlackBerry Wine. Black Swan ed., Black Swan, 2001.
[3] Garrard,
Greg. ECOCRITICISM. Routledge, 2004.
[4] Buell,
Lawrence. THE Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and
the Formation of American Culture. The Belknap Press of Harvard University
Press, 1995.
[5] Gibbens,
Sarah. “Why These Farmers Are Protesting With Skulls.” National
Geographic, 8 Aug. 2017,
news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/08/study-farmer-suicides-india-climate-change-spd/.
[6] "Wellness
Mama", Katie. “Organic Gardening 101: How to Start Your Own Backyard
Garden.” Wellness Mama, 5 Apr. 2018, wellnessmama.com/2328/organic-gardening/.
[7] KLOOR, KEITH. “The GMO- Suicide
Myth.” Issues in Science & Technology, vol. 30, no. 2, 2014,
pp. 65–70. Academic Search Elite.
