The raw and the cooked : adventures of a roving gourmand

242 Pages·2001·1.1 MB·English

by  Harrison

Praise for The Raw and the Cooked:
“Harrison is the American Rabelais, and he is at his irreverent and excessive best
in this collection.”
—John Skowles, San Diego Union-Tribune
“There’s nothing false in The Raw and the Cooked. It’s straight to the heart . . .
and leaves you content and full but wanting more.”
—Robert Baldwin, Bloomsbury Review
“What we’re reading about is a life voraciously lived . . . engrossment with the
natural world, engorgement at its harvest plentiful, and engagement with just
about any topic (principles of Zen, the merits of writers as varied as Kierkegaard
and Gary Snyder, the restorative powers of walking). . . . Alternately breezy and
dense, sometimes serious as a crusade and the next second seriously funny.”
—Steve Byrne, Detroit Free Press
“For [Harrison], a great meal is a mindful act, a call to attend the sensual, while
bad food is the least digestible aspect of a puritanical business culture that puts
money, progress and other abstractions before life’s simple pleasures. . . . Such
views have a long history in American letters—read Thoreau and Henry Miller. .
. . His vivid language and comic sense earn him a place near the head of the
literary table.”
—Chris Waddington, Minneapolis Star-Tribune
“Like a fine meal, this book satisfies.”
—Anne Stephenson, Arizona Republic
“Harrison’s passion for food—and sex—are matched by his muscular writing.”
—Janet K. Keeler, St. Petersburg Times
“Calling The Raw and the Cooked a book about food is like calling The Old Man
and the Sea a book about fishing. . . . Harrison’s writing is full of power and
passion.”
—Jim Carvalho, Tucson Weekly
“Sophisticated and earthy . . . impossible to pigeonhole . . . Most of us will never
be lucky enough to share a meal with this ‘roving gourmand,’ but this volume
provides a satisfying alternative.”
—Wendy Miller, Library Journal
“By turns hysterically funny, heartbreaking, meditative, irreverent, mystical, and
more fun than a double portion of ris de veau rotis with a slab of headcheese, a
brace of game birds, and a coney dog.”
—Hour Detroit
“A man of appetites . . . a trencherman of the soul . . . [Harrison] wears his
erudition lightly. Whether musing about the poetry of Verlaine or the joys of
Breton oysters, he never beats you over the head with his knowledge. . . .
Harrison is a raconteur of the first order.”
—William Porter, Denver Post
“To read this book is to come away convinced that Harrison is a flatout genius—
one who devours life with intensity, living it roughly and full-scale, then distills
his experiences into passionate, opinionated prose. Food, in this context, is more
than food: It is a metaphor for life.”
—Wolf Schneider, Santa Fe New Mexican
“A rumination on the unholy trinity of sex, death, and food, this long-awaited
collection of gastronomic essays reads like the love child of M. F. K. Fisher and
James Thorne—on acid.”
—Publishers Weekly
“The Raw and the Cooked provides a tantalizing, scrumptious read, a
smorgasbord of the finest food writing, one that’s entertaining, engaging, witty,
and full of savoir-faire; all in a voice that reveals a man fully given over to the
pursuit of the art of writing (and eating). Bon appetit!”
—Beef Torrey, Lincoln Journal-Star (Nebraska) “One of the most important
authors to emerge from this country in the last fifty years . . . The Raw and the
Cooked . . . is about more than food; it is about being human in a difficult time. .
. . You will not read a book more genuine than this one.”
—Barry Graham, Chattanooga Times Free Press
“You’ll never find a person who savors every kind of foreign foodstuff with
more orgasmic glee than Harrison. In his mind, good food, good sex, and good
literature . . . are the only things that keep a sensible person going in this world.”
—Craig D. Lindsey, Houston Chronicle
“A man of firm opinions and titanic appetites . . . Harrison is in search of the
transcendent, whether in nature (trekking is the only pastime he seems to feel as
passionate about as food) or on the plate. He finds it in intense flavors, the
American landscape, his past, and his family: the subjects of most of his essays. .
. . Delightful.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“To call this a book about only food would be to narrow its scope. Although
Harrison is knowledgeable about all kinds of fare, has read thousands of
cookbooks and eaten in the world’s finest restaurants, he comes across as a man
who simply likes to eat and enjoys his life and the company around him.”
—Parsippany Daily Record (NJ)
ALSO BY JIM HARRISON
Fiction
Wolf
A Good Day to Die
Farmer
Legends of the Fall
Warlock
Sundog
Dalva
The Woman Lit by Fireflies
Julip
The Road Home
The Beast God Forgot to Invent
Poetry
Plain Song
Locations
Outlyer
Letters to Yesenin
Returning to Earth
Selected & New Poems
The Theory and Practice of Rivers & New Poems
After Ikkyu & Other Poems
The Shape of the Journey: Collected Poems
Nonfiction
Just Before Dark
Off to the Side: A Memoir
Children’s Literature
The Boy Who Ran to the Woods
THE RAW AND THE COOKED
THE RAW AND THE COOKED
Adventures of a Roving Gourmand
Jim Harrison
Copyright © 2001 by Jim Harrison
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by
any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval
systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer,
who may quote brief passages in a review. Any members of educational
institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or
publishers who would like to obtain permission to include the work in an
anthology, should send their inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway,
New York, NY 10003.
These pieces have previously appeared, sometimes in slightly different form, in
the, following magazines, to which grateful acknowledgment is made: Smart
(New York): “Eat or Die” (published as “Sporting Food”), “Meals of Peace and
Restoration,” “Hunger, Real and Unreal,” “Then and Now,” “Consciousness
Dining,” “The Tugboats of Costa Rica,” “Midrange Road Kill,” “The Panic
Hole,” “Piggies Come to Market,” “The Fast” Esquire (New York): “What Have
We Done with the Thighs?,” “The Days of Wine and Pig Hocks,” “One Foot in
the Grave,” “Just Before Dark,” “Cooking Your Life,” “Ignoring Columbus,”
“Eating Close to the Ground,” “Return of the Native, or Lighten Up,” “Let’s Get
Lost,” “Principles,” “The Last Best Place?,” “The Morality of Food,” “Contact,”
“Coming to Our Senses,” “The 10,000-Calorie Diet,” “Walking the San Pedro,”
“Back Home,” “Repulsion and Grace,” “Outlaw Cook,” “Unmentionable
Cuisine,” “Heart Food in L.A.,” “Fresh Southern Air,” “Borderlands,” “A Huge
Hunger in Paris” Men’s Journal (New York): “Thirty-three Angles on Eating
French” (published as “Eating French”), “American Food Journal” Revue des
Deux Mondes (Paris) and Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant Newsletter: “Wine”
Beaux Arts (Paris): “Wild Creatures” (published as “Jim Harrison & Gérard
Oberlé Food Correspondence”) Brick (Toronto): “Meatballs” Gérard Oberlé’s
letters to Jim Harrison in “Wild Creatures” were translated by Diana Odasso.
Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in the United States of America
FIRST PAPERBACK EDITION
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Harrison, Jim, 1937-
The raw and the cooked : adventures of a roving gourmand / Jim Harrison.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-8021-3937-X (pbk.)
ISBN 0-8021-3937-X (pbk.)
1. Harrison, Jim, 1937-2. Gastronomy. 3. Food writers—United States—
Biography. I. Title.
TX649.H35 A3 2001
641.3—dc21 2001033464
Grove Press
841 Broadway
New York, NY 10003
02 03 04 05 06 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Terry McDonell and Gérard Oberlé