What's a poor girl to do if her book club picks the world's most boring book to read?
The one I belong to is very small; we are lucky to
have two people show up. We did have
three regulars but one moved to Texas.
Neither of the remaining members (one being me) intend to move, though
we both are so old we may just disappear one these days. The book club is run by a nearby library and
the leader picks the books. We read non-fiction,
and this is probably why we are so small.
Nevertheless, we mostly really like the books that are selected and
with the small attendance here's little chance of anyone monopolizing the
conversation. So we basically have no
problems. Except....
This month's book was "In Defense of Food: an Eater's
Manifesto" by Michael Pollan. The
first 100 pages of the book held about as much interest for me as a book of
quantum physics. When the first
"reminder" e-mail was sent out by our leader I e-mailed her back
telling her very honestly that I found the book waaaaayyyyy too boring, and since I wasn't going to read any more
of it I would attend but simply keep quiet in the meeting.
Quickly she advsied that it got better after the first 100 pages,
but alas, I found it not so.
Nevertheless, our discussion meeting turned into an hour of
great interest, and fun. Aside from all
the nitrates and nitrites and chemicals and processed food and nutritionisms
that the author flings around through the book, we had a nice
discussion on the global economy (why we grow strawberries in California but find only
"grown in Mexico" strawberries in the supermarkets), what the
possibilities are of getting all the ethnic and cultural palates to
forgo the "fast food" and eat "right" (it will have to be
done with education on a one-to-one basis, we decided). Somehow the discussion of Pollan's book moved
out of center stage and we began talking about animals. So thinking about both animals and food, I shared the following:
I am in the process of doing some genealogy transcription to
be put onto certain websites and most recently came across a story of Indians
in Minnesota teaching early 1850's settlers how to cook (and eat)
muskrats. It seems there were two ways
the Indians did it: one was to prepare them like today's corndogs and stick one
end of the wooden stick in the ground near the fire. (The other end of the stick, of course, was
where the edibles were). Since muskrats
were plentiful, the entire fire was ringed in this manner. Dinner was served. I shared this with the book club members and
we all made very appropriate sounds.
The other way muskrat was cooked was decribed thusly:
Many a white settler was asked to partake of what was evidently a feast
to the Indians, and it is certain that they all graciously declined the
invitation when their eyes beheld the contents of the kettle. On a day when the Indian hunters were
considered most fortunate boiled muskrat was on the bill of fare. Just what procedure was gone through in
preparing the muskrat for the kettle cannot be said, but it must have been an
added delicacy to leave the claws and tail on, for there they were, dangling
over the side of the kettle. Potatoes
were added to the stew to make it more savory.
We then had to have a thorough discussion of muskrats,
because none of the three of us had ever seen one. We threw in opossums and beavers for differentiation
and relationship.
But the best part of our discussion came about because we
were discussing the eating of goats.
(Jerry has eaten goat stew in Nigeria, but he wasn't crazy about it.)
I shared my knowledge of "Fainting Goats."
And our leader shared her knowledge of Moroccan tree goats. I love learning new things, and learning
about the tree goats made up for what I found so boring in the month's
read.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQev3UoGp2M
This three-person book club may not be the most exemplary of what a book club is supposed to be, but I have to tell you that I don't dare miss a meeting; I never know what new thing I'm going to learn!
1 comment:
It somehow did not surprise me to see the goats in the tree although I can't say that I had heard of it before.
I like Pollan's books myself. At least it sparked some discussion. I don't belong to a book club. My sister belongs to a couple and was told that she thinks too much about what she reads. Hardly seems in the spirit.
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