It’s November! For those of you in the US (and Americans abroad), that means you’re probably looking forward to the end of the month, when we get to stuff our faces with turkey and carbs on top of more carbs. It’s unclear at the time of this post whether we’ll be gorging on mashed potatoes out of relief or self pity… but what matters is there will be food, and lots of it!
Food carries a lot of cultural weight, whether it ties you to where you come from and how you see yourself, or if the choices you make about food are defined by your beliefs. The latter of these can be witnessed in the variety of food documentaries that have been released in the last few years, revealing the darker sides of consumerism and mass production; the former may have fewer filmic explorations, but I can recommend Cooked.
This month, write about a character who is thankful for a kind of food. Perhaps they’re starving when they wake up in the morning, and breakfast is their savior. Maybe they love to snack, and they can’t live without chocolate-covered goji berries or bowls of guacamole. Whatever you focus on, be sure to use specifics — smells, tastes, textures— and, most importantly, avoid cliches!
Responses:
Menu Dilemmas by Tracey Hamilton
Broth by E.M. Killaley