Eat, Memory, Garlic

Eat, Memory: The Sixth Sense

By GARY SHTEYNGART
Published: October 9, 2005

Growing up I dreamed of garlic the way some dream of bright city lights. I had smelled the forbidden vegetable (spice? herb?) during brief trips to Manhattan, roasted garlic coating the poorer sections of town, clinging to the peeling fire escapes, pouring down the tenement stoops to sucker-punch me in the nose, my 10-year-old mind reeling with flavor and summertime heat and the still inchoate idea that sex could somehow be linked with the digestive process (cf. "Seinfeld").

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(I can see it now, a not-too-bald George (Jason Alexander) crawling out from under the ravenous bedsheet activities to get a bite of a sandwich he's hidden in the bedside stand.)

I read this food column in "Eat, Memory," a compilation of essays published in the New York Times Magazine under the editing of Amanda Hesser, the longtime Times food editor who is coming to the Texas Book Festival early next month.

The writing in this book is taking me back to Jacqui Banaszynski's class -- the last time I can remember my writing being so closely scrutinized -- where we had to sum up our stories and the stories we analyzed in one single solitary word.

In the exercises in her class, we had to get past that we were writing about dessert, for example, to realize our words more precisely represented tradition, comfort or adventure.

In this article, it's lust or maybe passion. But is this article by Tom Perrotta about finickiness or outright control? Is lying to your diners to preserve your perceived originality more about ego or pride?

Of course, we won't all agree, because the meaning we find says more about ourselves than the author's intention, but it's a fun game to play, especially when we're talking about food.