I Have Eaten the Plums
I understood nothing in my “20th-Century Lit” class which I took in 1963 at Colorado College. NOTHING. We read pages and pages of poetry, and each poem left me more confused – and wondering why in god’s name I thought I could be an English major. (I should note: Andy had similar fears about being a college professor.)
I wasn’t the only one confused. After a good friend wrote a lengthy (and hysterically naive and incorrect) response to a test question in her lit class, someone had to tactfully and delicately explain to her the “significance” of the corn cob in Faulkner’s Sanctuary.
But as far as poetry, William Carlos Williams is a case in point. He lived from 1883 until 1963. The Williams’ poem which we studied – and which sticks in my memory – is The Red Wheelbarrow:
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
In retrospect, reading the poem again and contemplating why Williams was considered so great reminds me of a favorite painting Andy and I have – which we bought at the wonderful The Arts Guild of Sonoma a number of years ago. Upon seeing this painting for the first time, a family member remarked that her kindergarten students could easily have painted something just as good!
Though it wasn’t included in Modern American & Modern British Poetry (my well-worn edition of the book, edited by Louis Untermeyer, was published in 1955), another Williams poem is quite famous:
This Is Just to Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
And so this brings me to Ruth Reichl. 🙂
Reichl, well known amongst foodies, was the restaurant critic for the LATimes and the NYTimes – and then the Editor of Gourmet Magazine – until it folded in 2009. Her 2019 tell-all book – about her days at Gourmet – is entitled Save Me the Plums – because of her fondness for that Williams’ poem.
I’m still dense. I couldn’t figure out why Save Me the Plums – a riff on the poem’s beginning line, “I have eaten the plums” made sense as Reichl’s title. But – thanks to Google – I found the following Reichl interview with the LA Times. I don’t want to ignore the deeper meanings, but my take on that interview is simply that being Gourmet’s editor was a “plum” job.
Including recipes seems to be trendy in food memoirs and Reichl is no exception. I figured she’d be pretty sure to pick delicious recipes from Gourmet, given that she included only a few in this recent book. I tried three – Spicy Chinese Noodles, Thanksgiving Turkey Chili, and Chocolate Cake with Mascarpone. And all three were hits with Andy and me. MountainWestBob, our friend in Albuquerque, gave the chili a try, after reporting that he loves chili but that he’d never made it without tomatoes. And, yes, he and his wife, Gayle, liked it! Whew.
Though there were “plum” recipes in Reichl’s book, there was no plum recipe per se, so I’ve included a favorite of ours (and of many, many others). …
