Holt - Eating heaven: spirituality at the table

Published by Acorn Press Ltd, ABN 50 008 549 540

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Simon Carey Holt 2013

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, no part of this work may be reproduced by electronic or other means without the permission of the publisher.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA and are used by permission. All rights reserved.

Cover design: Andrew Moody, Blackburn VIC.

Text design and layout: Communiqu Graphics, Lilydale VIC.

Printed by: Openbook Howden Design & Print, Adelaide SA.

To my mother
Marie Winifred Peta Sue

Table of Contents

Eating and Spirituality

Eating, Identity and Formation

Recipe: Mums Chocolate Pudding

Eating, Sustainability and Suburbia

Recipe: Vietnamese Coleslaw

Eating, Sidewalks and Community

Recipe: Double Chocolate and Cranberry Brownies

Eating, Beauty and Justice

Recipe: Raspberry and White Chocolate Pavlova

Eating, Cooking and Vocation

Recipe: Annas Baumkuchen

Eating, Celebrating and Mourning

Recipe: Lasagne for Sharing

Eating, Culture and Inclusion

Recipe: Sinh Kheins Spring Rolls

Eating, Sacrament and Connection

Recipe: Credos Zucchini Slice

Eating Heaven

Preface

I can only hope this book is easier to read than it was to write. Though I have wrestled with its words for a string of years, I have been pinned to the mat and unable to move more times than I can count. The challenge has not been so much my inability to write as beautifully as I imagine one should. Thankfully my aspirations for writing are much humbler than they once were. The challenge is more to do with the subject of the book and the question of its merit.

The act of eating is a troubled business; to write about it is fraught. Ive spent too much of my time in foods shadow, professionally and otherwise, to view it romantically. For the most part, table life speaks of monotony and ordinariness, and at its more refined edge, decadence and excess. Surely the investment demanded by good writing could be more profitably targeted to a subject matter that really matters. Or so the conversation in my head goes.

Routinely, though, I have been prodded to think again, and it is this prodding that has kept me at the keyboard. Marion Halligan, one of Australias most intelligent food writers, is a wise and moderating voice in what can be a pompous genre. For Halligan, eating is a conversation, a relationship, a way of being in everyday life. Its beauty is its simplicity, its ability to bring us together, and its connection to the earths rhythms and seasons. In a long-forgotten essay from the 1970s, Halligan critiques the style and approach of food writing in the Australian press. Part way through she says this:

Writing about food is not a totally satisfactory activity. It has too many intimations of decadence, in a world where so often the mere presence of food is such an event that the consideration of its elegance would be an obscenity. The only justification of our preoccupation with food is that, since we do eat a great deal, we should do it well.

It is Halligans exhortation to do it well that has kept me struggling for words that take eating seriously; words that treat our life at the table as the significant thing it is. According to Halligan, to eat well is not to eat extravagantly, but to do so mindfully, respectfully and justly. Indeed, in this age of culinary infatuations, global food crises, celebrity chefs and Biggest Losers, the need to reflect more seriously upon eating is pressing. It is this idea of eating well eating as a spiritual act that I have tried to explore.

Writing is a solitary business, yet a book is never written alone. I am indebted to the people who have journeyed with me through this books living and writing. To those who hosted my earliest, stumbling days in the professional kitchen, especially Graeme and Anna, I owe more than I can name. I came alive in their kitchens in a way I had never been before. I only wish I had the insight at the time to tell them. To those who have submitted to formal interviews and informal conversations around the subject of this book, those whose stories appear in its pages and those that inform it: thank you. To the congregation at Collins Street that has allowed me such generous leave for writing, and especially my colleague Carolyn Francis who has stepped in with such competence: thank you. To Philip and Stuart, my gracious hosts at Clevedon Manor in Castlemaine where Ive found a home to write these past three years: thank you. To the team at Acorn Press, especially my cheerleaders Rena Pritchard and the late John Wilson and my editor Kristin Argall, who have graciously and patiently encouraged me in the writing process: thank you. And to my dear friend Dianne Brown, the person who has so consistently embodied what this book is about and lives a life at the table that gathers so many others into its sphere of grace. Without knowing her influence, she has inspired me with the most tangible reminders that this business of eating is important far beyond whats on the plate. Thank you, Di.

I am deeply grateful to my family, my children Ali and Nathaniel and my wife Brenda. Not only have these three allowed me to feed them these past two decades, they have shared a table and a home with me, absorbed my weariness and forgiven my imperfections, inspired my writing, and kept me grounded in the most ordinary wonder of life. Whats more, without logic or reason Brendas confidence in me has never failed.

Finally, this book is dedicated to my mother who at the time of publication has just celebrated her eightieth birthday. My own life at the table is so intimately tied to her: her love, self-giving, faith and unfailing optimism. Cooking has never been Mums first love, not even her second or third. Her faith in God has always been first in her life, as have been the people, so many people, whom she believes God brought her way. Whatever energy and time she has invested at the stove, more years than I can know, she has given out of love. I am forever in her debt.

Simon Carey Holt

Melbourne

CHAPTER 1

An Introduction

Eating and Spirituality

This morning I had eggs for breakfast. Its a Friday ritual and I am a creature of habit. After making coffee for my beloved and sitting with her to breathe the quiet morning air, I shower and dress, wake my two children, pack their lunches and make them breakfast. Cajoling them out the door on a Friday is more challenging than usual, but eventually they depart. My beloved follows close behind. Once theyve all left, I leave too. Its on my way to the market, another Friday routine, that I stop in at a local caf for my ritual meal: poached eggs on sourdough with mushrooms, and a strong flat white.

Though my caf of choice is not as hip as others close by, its a comforting place as a caf should be, one with a feeling of intimate yet open space and a view of the cobbled pedestrian laneway out the front. Each week I sit at the same table, a long communal one of dark and solid wood surrounded by stools. I nod and smile at those around me. Occasionally we chat. In a simple and momentary way we are bound by this shared object and space. The waiter is a young woman, Australian-born of Japanese descent. Warmly as always, she greets me by name. If its available, I read the morning paper. If its taken, I revert to the book Ive brought with me. Its a simple meal in an ordinary place, but Ive come to value that half-hour ritual as a spiritually significant one; as significant and sustaining, in fact, as any routine practice of my life.