A Child's Larder of Verse

To ask the lard question is simple. But the answer is lard, and lard to remember. ("No wurst, there is none.") We are also to be found at Glass-Bottom Blog and ſparkles dire

[smokinggunt-blog]

“We can say that he feasted like a king,” police spokesman Tomáš Hulan said. The man chomped into six baked geese, weighing about five kilograms each, three ducks, a four litre jar of pickles, six kilograms of goose fat and liver, poppy seeds and butter. He also had several bottles of wine and other beverages.

“Man hid in restaurant at closing time before spending the night feasting like a king” (via smokinggunt)

[lardr]

The Health-Food Diner

No sprouted wheat and soya shoots And Brussels in a cake, Carrot straw and spinach raw, (Today, I need a steak). Not thick brown rice and rice pilaw Or mushrooms creamed on toast, Turnips mashed and parsnips hashed, (I'm dreaming of a roast). Health-food folks around the world Are thinned by anxious zeal, They look for help in seafood kelp (I count on breaded veal). No smoking signs, raw mustard greens, Zucchini by the ton, Uncooked kale and bodies frail Are sure to make me run to Loins of pork and chicken thighs And standing rib, so prime, Pork chops brown and fresh ground round (I crave them all the time). Irish stews and boiled corned beef and hot dogs by the scores, or any place that saves a space For smoking carnivores.

[30prufrock-blog]

Crimes against the commonveal [Handbill for refreshments at the trial of Warren Hastings, 1788 (Sarah Sophia Banks Collection, British Museum), via LRB]

[lardr]

We had macaroni for lunch every day / except Sunday, when a small quail was induced / to be served to us. Why do I tell you these things? / You are not even here.

Ashbery, “This Room” (from Your Name Here)

[lardr]

In hot snacks and appetisers, on the one hand, the soy, barbecue, Worcestershire or steak sauce, being sprinkled with paprika, where a ‘browned appearance’ [is desirable] and beneath the magnetron tube soggy crackers, wrapped in bacon, toughen. On the other hand, a frozen pancake will not crust. Nay rather, like radio waves, bubbling, spattering, dispersing their spin, and IMPORTANTLY should you omit to vent the plastic wrap, or flip the pieces halfway through, or properly position the special microwave popcorn popper, [it] will burn your nose right off.

Anne Carson, "A Fragment of Ibykos Translated Six Ways ('[fr. 286 as pp. 17-18 of The Owner’s Manual of my new Emerson 1000W microwave oven]')

[lardr]

my, look at that sausage swell

Sebastian walked out of the room. He put the black pan over the gas. Caught a corner of grease and melted it off on the edge. Sliding down and vanishing. Passed the knife through the connecting skin and the little sausage fell neatly, hissing in the fat. Don't know what to tell this Lilly. Could tell her that life is a matter of resistance. Been telling too many people that. I have an aesthetic. Tell Miss Frost to get one. Judge these little difficulties with it. My, look at that sausage swell. A spout of richness coming out of there that will drown the whole lot of us, aesthetics and all.

Sebastian left his pan and went to the bedroom. Miss Frost standing naked in front of the mirror and said O as he entered. Folding her arms over her breasts.

"Lilly, we know each other better than that0

"O."

"Get your toothbrush and I'll take you to London"

"I couldn't go. Everyone would know."

Sebastian went back to the kitchen. Shook the pan. Sausage shrinking and splitting, juice pumping out of its side. From now on it'll be eats for one. Must drink more tea for me nerves.

Miss Frost came into the morning room as he was biting off next to the last length of sausage. She was wearing her black skirt and gray sweater and little red hearts hanging from her ears. Heart of Jesus.

--The Ginger Man

[lardr]

He took out an oakie cake, crunched it, and ate. Stale fat. Dry and gluey.

The Ginger Man

[lardr]

In the corner an ancient upright piano, its top covered with opened tins and rinds of cheese. Three fat armchairs distorted with lumps of stuffing and poking springs.

J. P. Donleavy, The Ginger Man

[lardr]

towering plates of Curl Fries

So along the path there are I.D.C milkshakes (my lunch), Lemon Shake-Ups, Ice Cold Melon Man booths, Citrus Push-Ups, and Hawaiian Shaved Ice you can suck the syrup out of and then crunch the ice (my dessert). But a lot of what's getting bought and gobbled is to my mind not hot-weather food at all: bright-yellow popcorn that stinks of salt; onion rings big as leis; Poco Penos Stuffed Jalapeno Peppers; Zorba's Gyros; shiny fried chicken; Bert's Burritos--"BIG AS YOU'RE HEAD" (sic); hot Italian beef; hot New York City beef (?); Jojo's Quick Fried Donuts (the only booth selling coffee, by the way); pizza by the shingle-sized lice and chitlins and Crab Rangoon and Polish sausage. (Rural Illinois' complete lack of ethnic identity creates a kind of postmodern embarrassment of riches--foods of every culture and creed become our own, quick-friend and served on cardboard and consumed on foot.) There are towering plates of "Curl Fries," which are pubic-hair-shaped and make people's fingers shine in the sun. Cheez-Dip Hot Dogs. Pony Pups. Hot Fritters. Philly Steak. Ribeye BBQ Corral. Joanie's Original 1/2-lb Burgers' booth's sign says 2 CHOICES--RARE OR MOOIN'. I can't believe people eat this kind of stuff in this kind of heat. The sky is cloudless and galvanized; the sun fairly pulses. There's the green reek of fried tomatoes. (Midwesterners say "tomāto.")  The sound of myriad deep fryers forms a grisly sound-carpet all up and down the gauntlet of booths. The Original 1-lb Butterfly Pork Chop's booth's sign says PORK: THE OTHER WHITE MEAT, the only discernible armwave to the health-conscious so far.

--David Foster Wallace, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again

[lardr]

The food was delicious but meals could be a nightmare. I remember once we had mince pie but not, of course, the common individual variety but a great dish of a pie from which, having been handed a silver trowel by the scout, one had to cut oneself a tranche and manoeuvre it onto one’s plate. Next came another scout bearing a silver Bunsen burner and a ladle which a third scout filled with brandy which one then had to heat over the burner until it produced a wavering blue flame whereupon one poured it over the pie. A fourth scout then appeared carrying a pitcher of cream with which one doused the conflagration. It was a lengthy process and one which deprived me of all appetite for the end product, particularly since as the lowliest member of common room I was served last while Taylor, Ryle, Lewis et al having long since finished looked on in unconcealed impatience.

Alan Bennett, LRB

[lardr]

I saw a child set down her binder like a wall

through the candy bin at the Corner Luncheonette

so she could scoop out gum while she spoke to the clerk—

and from that moment was in love: Oh theft.

College was supposed to straighten me

like a bent tree strangled by a wire,

but being done with sweetness I could not resist the lure of meat.

How the red muscle gleamed in its shiny wrap,

a wedge that had once been the thigh or the loin

of a slow brute’s body, sugar-dirt and clotted grass

to be snatched in an instant

and zipped into the crone-y-est of pocketbooks.

Radiance housed in rawhide again, as when it was living.

A steak can be stuck in your jeans when you’re skinny,

a rump roast is right for a puffy down coat,

small chops will fit under a thin peasant blouse

where it falls off the breasts

like a woodland rive

with a limestone amphitheater underneath.

Ancient city, ancient sublet, ancient wooden fire escape—

with my other bandits I learned to say how-de-do in French.

We were yanking on the cord that would start the motor of our lives

though we did not have the choke adjusted yet.

Sometimes it seemed I floated in the dregs like a tea bag

bloating up with facts.

Until a girl ran in the door, panting hard, face red,

slab thudding

from her snowflake-damasked waist onto the table,

and we stood around it gawking at the way it seemed to breathe.

Lucia Perillo, "A Romance"

[lardr]

"Monday!" he says. "Sliced oranges boiled grits fried croakers potato croquettes radishes watercress broiled spring chicken batter cakes butter syrup and café au lait! Tuesday! Grapes hominy broiled tenderloin of tout steak French-fried potatoes celery fresh rolls butter and café au lait! Wednesday! Iced figs Wheatena porgies with sauce tartare potato chips broiled ham scrambled eggs French toast and café au lait! Thursday! Bananas with cream oatmeal broiled patassas fried liver with bacon poached eggs on toast waffles with syrup and café au lait! Friday! Strawberries with cream broiled oysters on toast celery fried perch lyonnaise potatoes cornbread with syrup and café au lait! Saturday! Musk-melon on ice grits stewed tripe herb omelette olives snipe on toast flannel cakes with syrup and café au lait!" The zombie draws a long breath. "Sunday!" he says. "Peaches and cream cracked wheat with milk broiled Spanish mackerel with sauce maitre d’hotel creamed chicken beaten biscuits broiled woodcock on English muffin rice cakes potatoes a la duchesse eggs Benedict oysters on the half shell broiled lamb chops pound cake with syrup and café au lait! And imported champagne!" The zombies look anxiously at the women to see if this prospect is pleasing.

Barthelme, "The Zombies"

[lardr]

I belonged in Idle Valley like a pearl onion on a banana split.

Raymond Chandler

[lardr]

If you want a subject, look at Pork!

Joe's station and influence were something feebler (if possible) when there was company than when there was none. But he always aided and comforted me when he could, in some way of his own, and he always did so at dinner-time by giving me gravy, if there were any. There being plenty of gravy to-day, Joe spooned into my plate, at this point, about half a pint.

A little later on in the dinner, Mr. Wopsle reviewed the sermon with some severity, and intimated—in the usual hypothetical case of the Church being "thrown open"—what kind of sermon he would have given them. After favoring them with some heads of that discourse, he remarked that he considered the subject of the day's homily, ill chosen; which was the less excusable, he added, when there were so many subjects "going about."

"True again," said Uncle Pumblechook. "You've hit it, sir! Plenty of subjects going about, for them that know how to put salt upon their tails. That's what's wanted. A man needn't go far to find a subject, if he's ready with his salt-box." Mr. Pumblechook added, after a short interval of reflection, "Look at Pork alone. There's a subject! If you want a subject, look at Pork!"

"True, sir. Many a moral for the young," returned Mr. Wopsle,—and I knew he was going to lug me in, before he said it; "might be deduced from that text."

("You listen to this," said my sister to me, in a severe parenthesis.)

Joe gave me some more gravy.

"Swine," pursued Mr. Wopsle, in his deepest voice, and pointing his fork at my blushes, as if he were mentioning my Christian name,—"swine were the companions of the prodigal. The gluttony of Swine is put before us, as an example to the young." (I thought this pretty well in him who had been praising up the pork for being so plump and juicy.) "What is detestable in a pig is more detestable in a boy."

"Or girl," suggested Mr. Hubble.

"Of course, or girl, Mr. Hubble," assented Mr. Wopsle, rather irritably, "but there is no girl present."

"Besides," said Mr. Pumblechook, turning sharp on me, "think what you've got to be grateful for. If you'd been born a Squeaker—"

"He was, if ever a child was," said my sister, most emphatically.

Joe gave me some more gravy.

"Well, but I mean a four-footed Squeaker," said Mr. Pumblechook. "If you had been born such, would you have been here now? Not you—"

"Unless in that form," said Mr. Wopsle, nodding towards the dish.

"But I don't mean in that form, sir," returned Mr. Pumblechook, who had an objection to being interrupted; "I mean, enjoying himself with his elders and betters, and improving himself with their conversation, and rolling in the lap of luxury. Would he have been doing that? No, he wouldn't. And what would have been your destination?" turning on me again. "You would have been disposed of for so many shillings according to the market price of the article, and Dunstable the butcher would have come up to you as you lay in your straw, and he would have whipped you under his left arm, and with his right he would have tucked up his frock to get a penknife from out of his waistcoat-pocket, and he would have shed your blood and had your life. No bringing up by hand then. Not a bit of it!"

Joe offered me more gravy, which I was afraid to take.

Great Expectations

[lardr]

I can tell you what I need is a good periodontist: my gums are so sensitive, separated and lumpy, I have to let my cornflakes sit and wilt: the niacin leaks out before I get it in and the ten percent daily requirement of iron rusts: I've got so mashed potatoes best accommodate my desire: my gums before them relax and, as it were, smile: I have bad dreams that snap, crackle, and pop (to switch seeds) have built an invisible wall soggy-resistant: what I could use with my gum line is like a new start or at least a professionally directed reversal or arrest of what has become abrupt recession.

A. R. Ammons, "Renovating"

[lardr]

lunch: hot dogs and baked

   beans again: swell:

   2/23: 11 1/2¢ can: cheap:

   hotdogs run you around---

     oh let's see:

   this morning's coffee &

   a chocolate fudge cookie:

   maybe 30¢ altogether:

   & all

   that energy

turned into verse

--A. R. Ammons, Tape for the Turn of the Year

[30prufrock-blog]

The walrus has a diverse and opportunistic diet, feeding on more than 60 genera of marine organisms, including shrimp, crabs, tube worms, soft corals, tunicates, sea cucumbers, various mollusks, and even parts of other pinnipeds.[44] However, it prefers benthic bivalve mollusks, especially clams, for which it forages by grazing along the sea bottom, searching and identifying prey with its sensitive vibrissae and clearing the murky bottoms with jets of water and active flipper movements.[45] The walrus sucks the meat out by sealing its powerful lips to the organism and withdrawing its piston-like tongue rapidly into its mouth, creating a vacuum. The walrus palate is uniquely vaulted, enabling effective suction.

wikipedia (via 30prufrock)