Foodfest
 

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Bring forth your menu of culinary poetry. Fill us with your gustatory fantasies. Freshtival ain't got nothin on Foodfest : )

There is not a chance in heaven or hell that this is anywhere near finished, but I'll start things off with this:


White Clam Pizza Dreaming

In New Haven, Connecticut there is a pizzeria that makes the best white clam pizza in the world. I have proof.


Being there, tucked inside the dark green
high-backed vinyl upholstered booth numbered “9”
time slowed to the sound of banter commingling
with the smell of garlic and a coal-fired oven.
Heaven filled the air. I would ensconce myself in it...

...Today my kitchen invokes the ethereal memory
and heaven calls to me. I have everything
I need to create the gustatorial alchemy:
Fresh ball of dough, alive, rising
stretched out to skin with a rim of chub
Chopped canned clams
Anchovies and capers
Parmesan Reggiano
Olive oil infused with garlic
Oregano-dusted
Pepper pepper pepper salt.

Hot stone slab radiating
in a 500-degree oven.
My age-charred peel slips the offering in.
The vigil begins. Hope and dreams
have ferocious appetites when combined.
Alexa says it's done.
I peel it out and place it on brown paper,
dissecting the imperfect circle
into imperfect triangles.
Steam escapes, rises.
Heaven arrives in threes.



...But you can do better than that : ) Pull up a chair. Dig in.



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Thanks, Jim. Your clam sauce version is a winner. I usually prefer a Sicilian slice and diet coke.


Off the bone pile:

Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.
Genesis 1:26

Of God and Eggs

Defeating darkness, an egg’s my paragon,
capable of hatching life again

when bearing from God’s essence seed and ovum,
passed on in progeny of Eve and Adam.

So, when pondering eggs in life or art,
I know that death’s as certain as life’s start,

but grimly smile, since as God’s clone I beg
for grace, bedeviled as a scrambled egg.

Omegas & Alphas

raw & cooked
soft & hard

whole & scrambled
pure & deviled

shirred & coddled
poached & painted

in rebirth baskets
& natal nogs

on our faces
& in our noodles—

eggs are words
& words are eggs

first & last
last & first


from Sonnet Stanzas & Ghost Trees

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These are great Ralph. Especially Omegas & Alphas. Next up: Chicken

I used to juggle eggs. Badly. Intentionally. Successfully.

I taught a creative writing class to kids and each week gave them a plastic egg with a word to break open and play with. The next class we took the words and put them into a sentence or two. (They were allowed to add words.).

I'll come up with something to add to this foodfest menu at breakfast tomorrow morning.

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Here's and old one that I actually looked up and used (I forgot the roasting temperature) when doing this year's Thanksgiving dinner.

A Starter

You take your brussels sprouts
and rub their little snouts
in olive oil and sel de mer.
Then bake at four-five-oh
for half an hour or so –
add some goat cheese, and you’re there.

Another semi-oldie. This (with a shorter "glossary") was in my 2019 collection, Furusato.

The Love of Sushi Sue

I lived near Tokyo’s Hama-Zushi bar
those years I was a seafood sybarite –
would start off there with monkfish caviar
and sweet live shrimp, to set the appetite –
then grab a cab to narrow streets where night
melts into dawn, to hunt for something more.
I’d often wander home about first light
to meet Old Hama, sweeping out the store.
He’d eye the girls I hustled past his door,
but knew my true love was an artful blow
fish broth, or chunks of fatty tuna, raw,
caressed with strands of gleaming herring roe.
Good food was all I worshipped and revered
and women, though amusing, interfered.

In time, the real-life girlfriends disappeared,
replaced by fantasies of Sushi Sue
who, naked as a salmon, commandeered
my reveries - slim sushi ingenue
enshrined behind Old Hama’s bleached bamboo.
She worked like nude quicksilver, with a blade
in each small hand - Hama’s fish swam through
her fingers and in seconds were fileted -
embraced by rice and seaweed, and arrayed
with fat carp’s heads and pouting silver bream,
sea urchin eggs, fresh squid and trout - displayed
as backdrop for my slick, wet ocean dream.
But Sue repelled me when I cupped her breast:
“A sushi girl cannot make love to guest!”

Although all that was years ago, the quest
remains. My thoughts have never wandered far
from Hama’s pickled prawns with lemon zest,
the earthy taste of slow-baked arctic char -
or Sushi Sue’s small room behind the bar -
where I now nibble her hirame, coax
the sweetness from her uni, feel a star
in me explode as she adroitly strokes
my ana-kyu, and whispers private jokes.
At last, with sake sips and salty nips,
I polish off a banquet that evokes
a sigh - and mirugai - from parted lips.
“I’m glad that you like raw fish,” she will coo,
as I finally taste the love of Sushi Sue.


Glossary

hirame: Halibut. Often served as a sashimi style first course, with a ponzu dipping sauce (lime juice, soy sauce and sake). Good hirame should be so fresh and sliced so thinly that you can see through it, and detect the pattern on a plate; and it is often ordered as a first course to enable a gourmet foodie to quickly evaluate the sushi shop.

uni: Sea urchin gonads.

ana-kyu: A conical, hand-made sushi specialty of rice, cucumber strips and ocean eel, rolled in seaweed and topped with a thick, sweet sauce. This is much more elegant than the tight “California roll” style popular in the States, and superb ana-kyu is regarded as one of the criteria of a fine, traditional sushi establishment. (Warning - it’s impossible to eat without having the impenetrable dark brown sauce drip through the bottom of the cone and down your arm; and ana-kyu devotees are distinguished by stains of honor on their wrists and forearms, not unlike the nicotine-drenched fingers of post-war French intellectuals.)

mirugai: A large clam. Analogous to a New England quahog.

(My filing system being virtually non-existent, I can't remember whether either of these has appeared anywhere.)

xxxxLunch with Lewis

Invited to lunch with my friend ‘Lewis Carroll’ –
The Reverend Dodgson – immured in his cloisters,
I thought to surprise him by bringing a barrel
Containing six dozen delectable oysters.

He chatted incessantly, one of his habits,
And wondered if goldfish would grow into sharks,
Bemoaning the shortage of gloves for White Rabbits,
And blaming the dearth on sartorial Snarks.

He spoke of policemen who knitted a truncheon …
His thoughts, it appeared, were beginning to drift.
Believing the moment had come for our luncheon,
I offered my ostreicultural gift.

“How kind, my dear fellow! But – don’t think me selfish –
I eat only salads prepared by my cousin.
Alas! I’m allergic to all kinds of shellfish.”
He nibbled his lettuce. I ate the six dozen.

xxxxDinner with Tennyson

I went for dinner with Lord Tennyson
Expecting that a plate of venison
Would be, as usual, our evening fare.
Not so! “Tonight”, he said, “We’ve something rare;
I caught the creature in a nearby lake,
And trust I can induce you to partake.”
He offered me a glass of hock and soda;
The dish was served; a fishy, gamey odour,
A disconcerting taste, not wholly pleasant,
Half-way between a mackerel and a pheasant.
I murmured somewhat guarded approbation,
And complimented Tennyson’s collation.
He beamed. “Time was, I favoured deer or beef,
But find this succulent beyond belief,
So now, all other meats I have forsaken,
And dine exclusively on roasted Kraken.”

Memories of 1956

Alberts French Restaurant on the corner of University Place and East 11th St was founded in the 1860’s, and turned into a steakhouse in 1946 with the slogan “All the steak you can eat for $2.35,” though the name remained unchanged and the servers still wore berets. By 1955 the steak had climbed to $2.95. Nothing else changed.

At Alberts French Restaurant the slogan was splashed –
all the steak you can eat for just two-ninety-five –
on the menus and posters, the building, the staff.

The key to a business was how to survive,
so what was a French place now sold only steak:
all the steak you can swallow and walk out alive

but the waiter's berets remained firmly in place,
and their accents, well polished, resisted New York.
It still was a French place – except for the steak.

As a penniless student I often would walk
past the restaurant and dream of the glories of France –
though my accent and background were purely New York

and, in truth, what I dreamed of was simply a chance
to prance into Alberts and pig out on boeuf:
all the steak you can scarf was my favorite dance.

So I talked a few friends into sharing a booth,
and we each found five bucks for the steaks, tip and beer –
three schmucks from the Bronx with no class and less couth.

“Bonsoir” said the waiter (was that a slight leer?),
“You’re bright college boys - I could tell it tout suite.”
We agreed with his judgement, and let out a cheer.

With students, and tour groups, and other elite,
we felt right at home there, and splurged on more beer,
awaiting our steaks and an orgy of meat.

The steak, when it came, wasn’t great, just ...sincere –
it was tasty, but tiny – not more than a wish.
“An hors d'oeuvre”, we chanted, demanding much more.

The second was huge – almost covered the dish –
but was basically bone, interlarded with fat;
and the third was half frozen, and smelled like bad fish.

We stared at our waiter; he boldly stared back.
“So, schmendricks, smart college boys, you like the meal?”
The accent had vanished, as quick as a cat.

“Tell you what, little boychicks, I’ll make you a deal -
I'll bring you one more decent chunk of meat each –
but a good one – and you’ll eat it, say mercy – and leave."

Well we talked it all over, and of course we agreed -
after screaming and cursing and all of that jive –
and we did stiff the waiter (the Bronx has its creed).

It was one of those lessons in life young men need:
be good to your elders; don't drink when you drive;
and always be careful of people who preach
all the steak you can eat for just two-ninety-five.

Soon to join its brethren in the bone pile:

My Pizzeria

I’m opening a pizzeria,
calling it Sicilian Slices,
thin crusts made for mama mia’s
sugo with her special spices.

And to make a meal finer,
my Sicilian pizzeria
serenades its evening diners
with singing by my Angelina!

A favorite of Louis Prima! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztzvAiX8ybg

I think this was about the third or fourth poem I posted at the Sphere, five years ago.

On the Decline in Orange Sales

It's true the thumb pressure
is tricky to judge: not too shy

yet not so bold you spray keyboard
or cuffs with sticky mist.

They won't be missed by those
who want an easy time with tangerine,

who strips with a shrug, twirls
in your fist, her single garment

looping to the floor. Instead,
you gouge and cajole, pick and pore

over your prize, consumed,
all conversation stopped. Still,

you will find a certain space when
you peel an orange,

earning the flesh that breaks
against your teeth. The pips

that press and roll around your mouth
will feel like yours to spit.

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I do remember that one Mark.. The peel curling around the N's hand and twirling to the floor in a seductive striptease dance is what I remember best...


Here's one I caught on the New Yorker Poetry Podcast a year or so ago. I liked it so much I remembered it. That's saying a lot.


Eggplant
By Peter Balakian

I loved the white moon circles
and the purple halos,

on a plate as the salt sweat them.

The oil in the pan smoked like bad
days in the Syrian desert—

when a moon stayed all day—

when morning was a purple
elegy for the last friend seen—

when the fog of the riverbank
rose like a holy ghost.

My mother made those white moons sizzle
in some egg wash and salt—

some parsley appeared
from the garden

and summer evenings
came with no memory

but the table with white dishes.

Shining aubergine—black-skinned
beauty, bitter apple.

We used our hands.


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Speaking of eggplant...this was in Life in the Second Circle, my first full lengther.

Aubadergine

Awakening, I still can taste your flesh,
the soul contained within the supple
skin you wear, voluptuous and purple.
I have been warned you are the path to madness
and yet, despite the crumbs and salt that kiss
and linger on my lips, there is no brutal
morning-after sting; but just the sweet and subtle
whisper of a roasted scrap, a speck of crust;
a bitter lemon and the scent of thyme;
the rapture of the olive grove, and you as mine.

This is in my first book "Of Course," -- page 20 (108pp on Amazon now, $19; type "Allen Tice" in the search line), and I'm cheating fair by including it even though there's no food directly mentioned. The restaurant was on a nearby street & closed for retirement just before Covid-19. With a shock I realize I have no poems about food as such. What's wrong with little Allen? I'm so visual, auditory, aroma, and way tactile centered: food must be ahead. Come to me and I will bite. Back to reality:


               PolyAnna

The waitress at the Metropole Café
Spoke Polish with her eyes, and walked in Greek
With feet that were entirely built in France
On shoes of fine Italian leather under
Subtle Japanese, as was the dance
Behind the menu. What language did she speak?
Sometimes English. Sometimes, I couldn’t say.


PS Stop kraken those jokes!

Correction! On page fifty of the same book, of course, is this in stress-built dactylic hexmeter:


                         Tabletop Thoughts

Luminous kitchen, confecting this morning a savory sunrise.
Silvery pots hum, apple slice wedges are brilliant as half-moons.
Saturday spoons: gold oranges, nutmeg or cinnamon, bread, drink,
Fragrant and bright. This meal is just what I needed, now. Thank you!

This one won a little weekly poetry contest a while back.

What’s for Dinner?

My parents entertain a klatch for dinner.
Ma makes everything from scratch for dinner.

She bakes potato kugel, simmers goulash,
and pan-fries blintzes (a large batch) for dinner.

A mallard leaves her eggs for just a moment.
Gulls snatch a few before they hatch (for dinner).

They’re generous as all get-out, my parents,
inviting even big Sasquatch for dinner.

While lovebug larvae nibble thatch for dinner,
wolves spot a moose they’ll try to catch for dinner.

As Rover cleans up fallen bits of strudel,
my parents stage a shouting match for dinner.

A praying mantis gnaws her lover’s noggin
somewhere in a cabbage patch for dinner.

As ma and pa begin to eat each other,
I slip out of what they unlatch for dinner.

Ginger and Horseradish’s Quarrel

I irritate men’s sinuses and eyes,
making them weep as if they suffer pain,
as if they have been beaten with a cane,
as when they toiled beneath Egyptian skies.

Well, I can feague a sick or hoary horse.
My rhizome in its tuchis makes it hold
its tail up nice and high. However old,
it dances, though my tactic’s cruel, of course.

It is! I’m far more ethical than you.
The Oracle at Delphi said I’m worth
my weight in gold. Folks placed me on the earth
and horses hoofed me for mankind to chew.

Come, let me sample you, a little taste.
You make me weep! And you cause me to cough!
(They ceased their squabbling when I took them off
the counter, blending them into a paste.)

_________

An 1811 dictionary states: “to feague a horse is to put ginger up a horse’s fundament, and formerly, as it is said, a live eel, to make him lively and carry his tail well. ... In the past, the purpose was often to make an older horse behave like one that was younger, or to temporarily liven up a sick or weakened animal.”

It’s not the most attractive root on the block, but allegedly the Oracle of Delphi said, “The radish is worth its weight in lead, the beet its weight in silver, the horseradish its weight in gold.”

Dinner?

If soy production were to terminate?
Termites beneath a log can be your dinner.
If you’re an entomophagy beginner,
then start with crickets; render them sedate

by placing in the fridge. Or squeeze an ant
into your salad; black ones are the best.
Any bug you judge to be a pest
can make a meal. Don’t tell me that you can’t!

The crunchiness and savor of such bugs
as scorpions delight so many. Chew
them raw, deep-fry them, boil them in stew —
caterpillars, maggots, baby slugs.

Oh, do not shudder! Think of them as candy.
Crush or blend your bugs. No need to squirm
as if that June bug were some kind of germ!
You never know — they just might come in handy.

Ode to a Dairy Product

Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese
– G.K. Chesterton

For justifying God’s ways, Stilton
Has the edge on malt and Milton.
No tongue can savor nor extol a
Rarer tang than Gorgonzola.

There is scarcely any food a
Gourmet ranks above aged Gouda.
Olympian deities all swear
They’d swap ambrosia for Gruyere.

Sublimest offspring of the dairy,
Oh, how thy scents and textures vary!
Such range of taste bud paroxysms
From milk and microorganisms!

Thou piquant source of stimulation
For palate and imagination,
Ancestral name of Python Cleese,
And stuff of classic sketch laughs – cheese!

We should never take the name of cheeses in vain. What Chesterton began R L Stevenson developed, until...

Ben Gunn Weeps

“Tell me, shipmates, do you perchance have cheese
aboard this vessel?” When they said they did
he wept a little, and when he was asked
to name his favourite, whispered “Wensleydale”.
And then he dreamed again; this time with hope.

Now he could see the cheese, wrapped in its muslin,
close-crafted by a time-served artisan.
Perhaps a little mould, as they unwrapped it,
would fall like green tears on the wooden board.
Oh, knife or wire? How would they cut his piece;
his piece of eight, his piece of Wensleydale?

He saw it falling painlessly away
from the white, crumbling side of a soft cliff.
He tasted it, one salty nutty lump
at a slow, timeless time. His fingers dabbed
at its imaginary crumbs, anticipating.

But while he was away in Paradise,
the world had turned to show a sadder side;
the predatory short term interest
of the financial sector had changed cheese
till it capered to the hornpipe of novelty,
short shelf-life, arbitrary innovation,
all the cut corners of the swift turnover,
the quest for the discretionary buck.

They brought a pallid slab, shrink-wrapped in plastic,
sleek and damp and beshitten with cranberries.
His toothless mouth rounded into a howl
and he wept with the grief of his great loss.

That's wonderful, Ann. It makes giving up even the shrink-wrapped cranberry chevre on my low sodium diet a bit more palatable - or at least more entertaining.

Another off the ever-growing bleaching bone pile:

A Dinner Dance

Bedazzled by her dance across the floor,
I sense the rhythmic beating of her heart.
With restless energy, she makes a start,
glides smoothly to the pantry to explore.
A metal whisk in hand, she soon will pour
eight eggs with parmesan, the crucial part.
She tempts me with her culinary art,
sashaying to the oven’s open door,
hips shifting side to side, a lovely sway.
She slides in the frittata (sausage, eggs,
potatoes, peppers, onions), and I pray
that for dessert we too will cook, our legs
then dipping deep to stimulate romancing
with sweetly spicy after-dinner dancing.

The Gal Cajoles Her Guy to Ingest a Vegetable

Were you a rabbit, you’d inhabit gardens, chomp a carrot,
live broccoli or celery — whatever — wouldn’t spare it.
You would be ever hungry, never fussy. Turnip, pea,
zucchini, squash, you’d keenly nosh them all with utter glee.

A bunch of mice would not think twice of munching week-old lettuce.
They’d not be picky. “Things you call icky,” they’d say, “have always fed us.”
Decayed bok choy would give them joy, but never soybeans, mind!
They’d gorge on sorrel, and have no quarrel with tossed-out pumpkin rind.

But you, my dear, have a foolish fear of veggies of all sorts.
Oh no, I don’t, I simply won’t eat anything that sports
a leaf or root or stem or fruit or seed or flower or ... wait!
What’s on my dish next to the fish? What is that on my plate?

I hope it’s not a veggie! Got to go now. See you later.
Hold on, my sweet. Don’t leave your seat! This object is a tater.
It’s topped with butter. Oh, don’t shudder. Eat it! Please, don’t go!
(He took a bite. They had a night of bliss. How did she know?)

Weighing Plain Vs. Showy Veggies When Hungry

Unlike its giant cabbage cousin,
the Brussels sprout’s so small, compact,
you can tote them in your pocket. Fact:
one easily can eat a dozen.

Great taste (unless they’re overcooked).
One relative, though, looks ornate
as fractals — its most striking trait —
a vegetable that’s got me hooked

called Romanesco cauliflower,
whose inflorescence can enchant
me so, it is the sort of plant
I’d rather gaze at than devour.

How can I bite a life whose shape
is mathematics at its height?
I bless you, Brussels sprout. I might
well starve without you, mouth agape.

The Ackee

My second cousin once removed, named Jackie,
purchased a ripened reddish-yellow ackee.
The fruit was gaping like an alligator
and luscious-looking. ’Twould invigorate her,
she thought, and took a little tiny bite.
The sweetness was so good, her appetite
grew like a cane toad. Gobbling all its flesh
she tossed away the big black seeds. So fresh
the taste, next day she hurried back and bought
another ackee. Nobody had taught
her anything about this foreign fruit.
That relative of mine was not astute.
This specimen was far from ripe, its rind
lime-green. She broke it open (was she blind?)
and had a healthy helping. Sadly, heaven
did not turn up to help. (She was eleven.)

Green Fingers (Okra)

My lady’s fingers are as viridescent
as Kermit the green frog. They are not spicy
like jalapeños, though they’re just as long.
My lime-green lady’s fingers, while not pricey,
are so darn tasteless, they’re like a depressant.
Perchance they’ll make me healthy, slim and strong,
but they are trailing slime behind like snails
slithering forth. They don’t sport fingernails,
nor are they blessed with knuckles. No, these fingers
are hot where one might hear good Cajun singers.
Louisiana chefs can make them yummy.
Not me! I must have left mine undercooked.
I gagged on the first forkful. Oh, my tummy!
I don’t expect I ever will get hooked
on bland, gelatinous seedpods. Being a dumbo,
I’ll never get the hang of cooking gumbo!

I wrote this one many moons ago.

For Lunch

For lunch, I often have an iceberg salad —
a shredded head of lettuce (nothing on it) —
and think of you, or have a bite of ballad
and miss you; or while noshing on a sonnet …
I hardly sleep and barely eat — doggone it! —
Since you had gone and vanished from my life.
When last I’d seen you, you had worn your bonnet;
you looked so cute! My heart then felt a knife
when you said you don’t want to be my wife
and ran away to live with that guy, Sam.
What happened, dear? We hadn’t had much strife.
But now I’m munching on an epigram
and thinking of that gal I met, Sestina,
who’s meeting me for brunch at the cantina.

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I'm having trouble keeping up — there are so many good ones here. Michael, the Aubergine poem (it's a beautiful word to hear) is stunningly seductively deliciously delicately dished. I don't know if I've ever read a food poem like it before. It would be good even if it were not an eggplant you were writing about but a woman named Aubergine. Maybe even better. (etymology:The French and the British (copying the French), call eggplants aubergine, which is derived from the Sanskrit word vatinganah (literally, “anti-wind vegetable”))

Martin, Yours are a vegetarian delight.

Ann, Much like Ben Gunn, I haven't had a good round of Camembert since the early seventies.

I'm looking forward to devouring the rest.
.

For André Lambion

I owe my life—at least the parts that count—
the cooking, eating, and creative times;
the fressing, noshing, snacking, stuffing, tasting
that make most days a minor festival—
I owe it all to André Lambion:
In three hours, in a tired restaurant in Liege,
halfway between Brussels and nowhere,
so long ago it was a time before time,
he grabbed my life and redirected it.

Andre was Director of European Sales.
He was a man of tailored suits and walls of shirts
so white and starched they crackled as he moved.
The office rumor mill advised of ties
to the royal family. He drove a vintage Porsche
and spoke French, Flemish, English, German.
His wife was an ex-Olympic swimmer.

And me? I was a schmuck from the Bronx:
an achingly young engineer assigned
for a year to our new Belgian subsidiary.
I had never even been on an airplane
until I flew to Brussels for this job.
But I had no wife, no kids, no family,
no relocation costs – I was a bargain!

We sometimes made sales calls together;
me dragging bags of samples and catalogs,
and André holding a crisp leather folder
in his long and manicured fingers,
as he disdainfully translated my English
into precisely manicured Francaise.
We had visited a customer in Liege,
and missed the train back. Three hours to wait.
We settled into a nearby restaurant,
and André ordered food and wine for us,
without bothering to ask what I wanted.

Within minutes, steaming bowls of mussels
were placed in front of us. I hated mussels—
their stench, their dull, dumb bottom-feeder-ness.
I’d been in Belgium for almost two months,
and every week the Chief Engineeer
and his wife took me to a popular
seafood restaurant, where they devoured
cauldrons of mussels on the company dime,
and tried to persuade me to try the same.
“I don’t eat seafood” I explained repeatedly.
After a few visits they stopped pestering me.
I always had the veal parmesan,
buried at the bottom of the menu
and often served still partially frozen.

André saw my look. “It’s a seafood restaurant.”
“I don’t eat seafood. Do they have fried clams.”
“Enjoy the bread. You do eat bread, don’t you?"
Hours and hungry hours until the next train.
and then the long ride back to Antwerp.
Andre stared at me across the mussel bowl.
“You don’t speak French or Flemish, do you.”
I shrugged. He knew perfectly well I didn’t.
“And you don’t really know where we are,
or how to get back to Antwerp.” Another shrug.
André just sighed. He stared at me and through me.
“Try a mussel or I will leave you here.”
It wasn’t necessary to add “to die”.
He was a cousin of an uncle of the King.
He went to parties at the Royal Palace.

So I tried a mussel. And another.
And a third. And all of my bowl and half
of André’s, and we had one more each after that,
And several bottles of a modest but intriguing
Muscadet that André recommended.

In just three hours that man had changed my life,
and set me on a path to not just bivalves,
but the exotic and the challenging.
By the time I was assigned to head up
a new joint venture headquartered in Tokyo
a few years later, I established myself
with our stone-faced Japanese partners
by devouring live shrimp and a carp’s eyeball
at the launch party with practiced panache.

I’d like to think that André saw inside my soul,
and sensed the inner man beyond the Bronx,
but I suspect he was simply bored and annoyed.
Either way, he made a different man of me

(Another response to Chesterton's remark)

xxxxxxxxxxxxSay Cheese!

O poets! Eloquent on birds and bees,
On love and death, on daffodils and trees,
Why shun you so the noble theme of cheese?

Mysteriously silent, poets lost a
Rewarding subject; Byron might have tossed a
Stanza or two in praise of Double Gloucester.

No Scottish Cheddar (mousetrap with a kilt on)
From Robert Burns? No elegiac Stilton -
The favourite cheese of Lycidas - from Milton?

No ode to Wensleydale or to Caerphilly,
No cheesy hymns, delectable or smelly,
From Tennyson or Browning, Keats or Shelley?

I speak, of course, of proper English curds’ worth,
And not that foreign muck, barely a turd’s worth,
Unless from sheep - in which case, where is Wordsworth?

I was thinking about Michael Cantor the other day when I made ramen, scratching it up from what I had to hand. I had in mind this scene from one of my favourite films.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WrkdTrrwew

I gathered leeks and garlic, onions and mushrooms, some snack-squares of crispy seaweed and a not-quite-hard boiled egg. I used vermicelli in lieu of noodles but the broth was the real McCoy – or rather the real Yoshihiro, from a carton at the back of the fridge. The pork was three horizontal slices of the subject of the old poems below. I dipped it mindfully and whispered to it as reverentially as Yoshi Katō in the film but it still tasted very much like …


Beautiful Spam, so nearly meat,
You came about as a wartime treat
With a pinch of pork and a hint of ham
And a whiff of austerity, beautiful Spam!

Beautiful Spam, who then would wish
For Snoek or any funny fish
Or flesh of billy, bull or ram?
Oh, meat of the multitude, beautiful Spam!

Beautiful Spam, your pale pink prism,
Plonked on a plate with Platonism,
Stands for the grandeur of Uncle Sam.
Gift of America, beautiful Spam!

Beautiful Spam, I thee exalt,
Sodium nitrite, fat and salt,
The fair foundation of all I am.
Feast of obesity, beautiful Spam!

* * * * * * *

See it slide from the confines of its tin;
it is Milo of Croton, poised and greased
for combat. See the first slice, unwiped, hung
from thumb and finger. Watch it as it slips,
still in its jelly, between eager lips
where its pink dampness will be welcomed in,
held for a moment like a lover’s tongue
pressed hard against the palate, then released
to lie, resigned, a sacrifice beneath
the rhythmic strokes of reverential teeth.
.

Mom’s Broccoli

Mom’s pasta plate had fed them all—
extended family and paesani.
Witty, she amused this mob,
and sang the Great Depression Blues
when she ran out of meaty bones
and boiling broccoli fouled the air.
As I grew up, she’d often groan
Pasta with broccoli—months on end!
At dinner once, she told her brood,
It’s all they serve in pauper’s hell.
Then holding up my school report—
a string of Ds and Es, one C—,
she signaled Dad to back her up,
but he kept chewing prime filet.
Nostrils flared, she sniffed at me:
This smells of future broccoli!

.
Sam Gwynn posted a food poem on FB that is excellent. Wish he would post it here for you to read. Or you can track it down on FB.
.

You can track it down right here on the 'sphere. Click on "search" and look for "Fried Beauty".

.
Yup, that's it.

Here it is, prepared by Sam Gwynn and served up by moi:


Fried Beauty

Glory be to God for breaded things—
...Catfish, steak finger, pork chop, chicken thigh,
.........Sliced green tomatoes, pots full to the brim
With french fries, fritters, life-float onion rings,
....Hushpuppies, okra golden to the eye,
............That in all oils, corn or canola, swim

Toward mastication’s maw (O molared mouth!);
....Whatever browns, is dumped to drain and dry
.............On paper towels’ sleek translucent scrim,
These greasy, battered bounties of the South:
............................Eat them.


(I'm not "new" to the sphere any longer, but not old enough either to have been aware before I started this thread that the topic had already been covered. Not that there's anything wrong with a second helping. In fact it would be considered a compliment in some households — And in Sam's case his poem is really "Re-fried Beauty" : ))

.

Another nod to W.B.Yeats

Miss Piggy and the Swine

A sodden smack: the boar’s snout steaming still
Atop a piglet, pinkish ribs suppressed
By fleshy hams as juices slowly spill
On both and his chest mingles with her breast.

What way can tenderloins and forearms push
Away the marbled fat that’s twice her size?
How can a sow within that blubbery rush,
Avoid his popping belly bacon, thighs?

The blistering hams and hocks embracing her,
Smoke smells, bright sizzling coals, the basting beer,
Her flesh grown crisp.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Being so sauced up
And paired with a prize swine from County Fair,
Did she know flavor was their only power,
That Texas Barbeque was their last stop?

On the next-to-last palindromic date 12/11/21 (US 2021) this year, I offer (from p 35 of the previously mentioned title, Of Course,):


          Wisconsin Rhapsody


He likes to see his lovely lassy there
In Madison, Wisconsin’s Greyhound station —
Alive at the planet’s best encounter, filling
Those coffee cups he needs to be serene —
Far from the bus announcer’s clarion shrilling,
Her recreation serving dawn flirtation
Like easy sunrise. So, what does he declare?

Oh, listen to my words. He just remakes
Mountains from soda fountains, billets-doux
From luncheonette placemats, while he devours
Waffles drowned in syrup and apple yogurt,
And groans about the earliness of her hours,
Then leaves a pourboire on the breakfast menu
That rests beside the showcase full of cakes.

Wonder Bread
 

Of Ray’s First Disobedience

Confined in his
highchair, Ray ate
but was confused:
mashed potatoes
nice and white
the butter yellow
apple sauce tan
and peas bright green.
But the bread: brown?

He tasted all
except the poopy
looking bread.
Dad said eat it
eat it eat it
but Ray didn’t.
Before he left
for work again
Dad told Mom
Make sure he eats it.

With other foods
from time to time
Ray tried, got sick.
This time he wouldn’t
touch the bread.
Daylight went dark
and even darker.
As Mom removed
his plate, her tears
dropped on the bread.

Comforted
and put to bed
Ray somehow knew
(would not forget)
the pains and gains
of disobeying.

.
Hi Ralph, I've been break-neck busy of late but had to drop in to say the Of Ray's First Disobedience poem is great. It brings back memories of tense standoffs at the table and punishment and threats and tears. Great topic. I've got a few swimming around in my head now, thanks to you!

.

Hey Jim! Glad it wet your appetite for exploration of the topic.

Okay Ralph, you'll regret dragging this up again. It only encourages me. Another from my first book. Hang in there, wade through the boring sex stuff, and I eventually get around to food.

Pretty Gaijin Boys Have Often Been Her Weakness

This one smells so sweet
And sour – like takuan pickles -
Her pretty silly
Gaijin daikon pickle boy
She stretches as he strokes her

...Oh God, he thinks, this is incredible:
...he has to find the time to write them all
...I’m at the legendary Old Imperial
...and met this geisha girl, and now she’s curled
...up in my bed right here in Tokyo!

Pretty gaijin boys
Have often been her weakness
That and the brandy
And danna-san off golfing
In Hakone with his wife

...Yanagibashi geishas, he’d been told;
...very famous and traditional.
...But most were old. And then the casual
...hand upon his thigh, a squeeze, a bold
...but private look, a number on a card.

Such luck to find him
A boring Daiwa party
After shall we meet?
She glided through the lobby
Panties folded in her sleeve

...They spent the morning making love again,
...and still he could not quite believe that she
...was real – she had been dressed so carefully,
...kimono purple, golden sash, and then,
...beneath that silk, no underwear, just skin.

No more time to play
The Fuji Bank reception
Starts at six she must
Instruct the maids and dancers
First some lunch with daikon-boy

...He’s never used the hotel sushi bar;
...the sweep of pine, the rows of lacquer trays,
...so Japanese. I don’t eat fish, he says
...but shrimp’s okay, and nuzzles at her ear,
...then runs his fingers through the just-brushed hair.

Sushi Master Jun
Knows her from Yoshiwara
Suggests rich tuna
Streaked with fat. And for your friend?
She requests the dancing shrimp.

...Raw shrimp, alive and writhing, are now spread
...behind the counter, heads and shells stripped clean,
...the bodies dipped in soy and served to him.
...He watches each one quiver, armor shed,
...too dumb to know it is already dead.