Un pranzo da re

A man—identified as Jim Harrison, whose background will be clarified shortly—returns home, removes some oysters from the refrigerator and sets them on his desk beside several books, remarking, “They seemed so fragile compared to shucked oysters, and, without really realising what I was doing, I plunged my hands into the slimy mass and began to eat them greedily, because at that moment I was in such agony that I knew raw food would help me”. While food is often the solution—though not all dieticians would agree—the real solution, in any case, lies in real life, and this scene presents itself to us as a far from trivial metaphor for the relationship between literature and reality, as perceived solely through sight and touch. Harrison was a prolific American writer and poet, whose widely read novels such as Revenge were even adapted for Hollywood (which he calls ‘Sfarzolandia’), yet he used to say of himself, ‘I’m the best food editor here in the States’ – and perhaps he knew what he was talking about.

For him, eating was an act of extraction as well as meditation. So he would go hunting for woodcocks and quails and fishing for rainbow trout, and he believed in the power of living food over dead food. He loved garlic, salt and chilli, and, as for wine, even wine tasting – a victim of overly touted aromas – did not always satisfy him. He addressed sushi formally and not always with respect; even half a club sandwich bored him, and he even explained foreign policy in the light of different cuisines, which is why Mitterrand ended up outshining Reagan. The introduction, penned by a controversial Michelin-starred chef of Italian origin (about whom he writes, ‘Whenever I have a dilemma regarding wine or food, I consult Mario Batali in New York’), portrays him as caustic and irreverent, as irrepressible as a modern-day ‘Gargantua and Pantagruel’ with a voracious yet gourmet appetite. Within the pages of this sort of autobiography for food lovers – a dazzling array of erotic and gastronomic adventures – wine flows and courses are served, yet with such joy in taste and a philosophical experience in the broadest sense that it makes us feel both small and great at the same time, and leaves us wondering whether we have lived enough, or well enough. Before we come to terms with this, there is still time to take a step back, and "A King’s Lunch" turns out to be not a menu but a spiritual sustenance, which saves one’s life, especially ahead of the winter solstice—a time that is particularly trying for the spirit: “I eat well to avoid killing myself, and now that we’ve reached mid-January, my anger has largely dissipated.”

Jim Harrison
, "A Feast Fit for a King
", Edizioni Settecolori, 290 pp., 23 euros