Book Review: The Sugar Queen

The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen

"The thing is, books just appear to me." This quote, from one of the central characters in the novel The Sugar Queen, accurately describes how I often stumble upon the books I read. Although I can't say I've had the same kind of magical experience as Chloe, for whom books just "arrive" in her life without having to go buy them at the store or check them out from the library, I often find that I am surprised by how appropriate or timely a book is for me.

This book by Sara Addison Allen very much "wanted" to come home with me; as I perused my other options in the local Barnes and Noble, I kept coming back to the description on the back. I've been wanting to keep my promise of adding some reviews of novels about food to my blog, and I saw potential in this book. I also found the part about Chloe bumping into books that demanded to be read rather intriguing -- as if I was having the same experience with this book.

The Sugar Queen is a book about a young woman, Josey, who loves sweets, but is trapped in a

going-nowhere existence living with her rich, controlling mother. Josey, a plump but pretty

girl, hides her amazing stash of old-fashioned candies and treats and romance novels behind

a false wall in her closet. Since the outside world of the small, cutesy, Southern town of Bald

Slope really holds nothing for her, Josey dreams about escaping from her mother's guilt trip

and travelling the world.

One day, Josey opens her closet -- where a horde of mallowmars and soda pop awaits -- to

discover a visitor. Sitting there is Della Lee Baker, a woman with a shady past but a heart

of gold and a knack for getting Josey to see the dead-end she is in. With Della Lee's encouragement, Josey breaks out out her rut and makes some new friends and discovers the power that comes from admitting her own desires, instead of hiding them in a closet.

One of the friends is Chloe, a sweet, passionate, yet practical young woman who runs a sandwich shop in the courthouse building. Della augers that Josey and Chloe should meet, so she tells Josey to go get sandwiches from her: tomato and three-cheese, fried egg, turkey on cheese bread. The sandwiches sound tasty, and we even get a description of Chloe making the fried egg and cheese (spoiler! she uses a bit of dill on the cooking egg). Her storyline touched me even more than Josey's for entirely personal reasons. In her tale, her long-term boyfriend cheats on her one night -- a meaningless, one-time thing. Obviously hurt, Chloe turns the man out of his own apartment . . . and then begins to realize how deeply entwined their lives are. This is a couple who makes water boil when they are together (I had reminders of Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate here). However, Chloe also needs to develop some autonomy -- she has given everything to this man. Jake, her boyfriend, for his part, feels awful and is desperate to get Chloe back. While Chloe is trying to figure where her head is at, she is visited by a witty plague of books with titles, such as "Finding Forgiveness," and "A Girl's Guide to Keeping Her Guy." Though she never reads the books -- they seem to irritate her with their embarassing appearances -- Chloe seems to get the message anyway.

Organized into chapters named for candies -- "Everlasting Gobstoppers" and "Sugar Daddy" are

a couple -- The Sugar Queen would seem to put comfort food at the center of the novel. It's not. While the author cleverly dusts this tale with sugary descriptions, I felt that I was getting the "icks" -- a little too sweet, not enough substance. I couldn't help but feel a little grossed out by the thought of a grown woman eating so much junk. By the end, the book becomes a light adventure and a lesson in learning to be oneself. A nice message, but it could have been a little less predictable -- I saw the wrap-up to Della's story coming a mile away.

I hestitate to call the book magical realism because it doesn't really have the substance of the typical offering from that movement/genre even though it does make use of unexplainable events. The strange occurences are not really depicted as "realism" -- they are weird even to the people who live with them everyday. This book falls more into the formula of a romance novel, a light story that uses magical events, like a modern fairy tale. I have to say that after just finishing Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses -- a book that can genuinely be defined as magical realism -- I found this book a little too light and fluffy for my tastes. It is a sweet story, and I found the two storylines of the lonely Josey and the betrayed Chloe to remind me of both my own past as a lonely girl who used food for comfort (in secret) and as a woman who knows the sting of being cheated on, to be a comforting distraction. But I didn't really learn anything, I wasn't moved to think of my world in a different way, and I didn't experience anything significant from a foodie's point of view that would make me recommend this book to other food-folk.

Grade: C+

Three Favorite Rules from In Defense of Food

This is the promised follow-up to the discussion of Food, Inc. 

Three Favorite Rules from In Defense of Food:

 

·         “Don’t eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.”

 

I have a pretty good idea of what my great-grandmother thought was food because I have two of her cookbooks: the 1946 Joy of Cooking and City Mission Cook Book: Favorite Recipes of the Women of Greater Lawrence. She may not have been exposed to the ethnic cuisines that are popular today, but I’m confident that she could have been educated in this area. Breads with 20-something ingredients, high fructose corn syrup and McFrankenchicken would certainly not have qualified.

 

·         “Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle.”

 

Most supermarkets are set up so that the fresh foods and foods that require refrigeration – produce, meats, fish, dairy, etc. – are set up along the edges of the market. This is supposed to be for better temperature control (but I always thought it was so you had to travel across the length of the store to get all your typical items, allowing the store more chances to market to you). The middle is where you find the four or so aisles devoted to junk food, soda, and packaged food along with other aisles of assorted crap. The only caveat to this rule would have to be the aisle(s) with the rice and other grains, oatmeal and dried beans. And sometimes you need to buy spices, toilet paper, a mop, etc. Most of the rest is crap, or not-food-your-great-grandmother-would-recognize.

 

·         “Get out of the supermarket whenever possible.”

 

We are one week away from our first CSA pick-up of the season. Last year, I rarely went to the supermarket. And, there’s a food co-op market down the street from the pick-up site, so I could go there to replenish my supply of rice, millet, black beans, etc. It might be an interesting experiment to see how long I can go without going to the supermarket at all. Hmmm…..

 

 

Book Review: The Omnivore's Dilemma

Michael Pollan. The Omnivore's Dilemma. 

By now, this book is already three or four years old, and many readers of this blog have probably read it and formed opinions of it. If you haven't, I urge you to read this book, It's about industrial agriculture, organic and sustainable farming, as well as about hunting and foraging. It made me rethink my lifestyle and gave me sound background and reasoning for the choices I now make. 

So, this isn't going to be your garden variety review. Instead of assessing the book's strengths and providing an overview (as I've said, I think most people already have a sense of the book's contents), I'd like to share my experiences with this book as a teacher of composition and literature.

I first read The Omnivore's Dilemma while I was teaching a writing course, ENG102, Writing II: "Into the Woods." The school had initiated a connected-learning project to help students improve their reading, writing and critical thinking skills by restructuring ENG102 to be interdisciplinary and topic-based. My topics have consistently revolved around nature and environmental concerns. I've enjoyed the opportunity to teach a topic that I care about, and I think the students have been enriched as well. Overall, I think the connected-learning approach works well in its aim to get students to a higher level of critical thinking and writing than with traditional introduction to literature curricula. 

Last semester, I assigned this book and it was by far the overall favorite among the students. At first, I was a little daunted by the length, the complexity and the "radical" nature of the book. I mean, here was a book telling students that most of their favorite, processed foods were full of things that would likely make them fat, enrich large corporations and impoverish small family farms. Here was a book that blew the lid on that beloved staple of child/teen life -- the chicken nugget. Here was a book that was going to make them afraid to go into the dining hall.

But, if I may make a pun, they ate it up. They were disgusted to think about the thirty-three ingredients in the McNugget. They felt indignant about the adulteration of homey and wholesome corn in the manufacture of all kinds of food additives. And I think they were most perplexed as to why agriculture could be allowed to become wasteful (when it had once been an efficient way to reuse waste and resources) and even toxic (I'm thinking here about the "manure lagoons" that are the result of CAFOs). 

I think it was helpful that I "served" this book with some accompaniments: a viewing of SuperSize Me and an assignment and discussion about the internet game/edumercial, McVideoGame. In addition, all the research and presentation topics were about food and agriculture issues, which I chose purposefully to coincide with the book, allowing students to even use it as a resource. 

The combination of book, film, game, and projects allowed students to see connections, which is, I think, the mark of a well-informed adult citizen. However, I was dismayed that some students thought I was preaching a leftist viewpoint, an anti-meat philosophy. I guess that's always the danger when you present something that is controversial and complex. The book is NOT anti-meat (they need to see Peter Singer's Animal Liberation for that), but it seems that many folks reduce the book down this way. Perhaps it's easier to understand if one reduces it to a simpler message, especially if they're eighteen, but the book's power, I feel, is really in its call to embrace real, natural food prepared in harmony with the laws of nature. One student asked me why we didn't read something that was "pro-meat." What do you mean, kid? The Atkins' Diet? That fad that was discredited about thirty years ago that was resurrected to once again confuse people about their diets?  This is one of the problems of our culture and our youth -- a lack of discernment and judgement about information. Just because someone wrote a book about it doesn't make it accurate. Even Pollan's book can be critiqued. Even this blog can be critiqued.

I think what I admired most about this book was it's attention to the likely counterargument. I always tell my students that if you want to be most persuasive, predict the opposition's every move and refute each one. I feel that Pollan does this consistently throughout the book, which is why it comes across so vehement and probably why it has been so influential. Of course, this can also confuse students who might not have enough sophistication to discern what is Pollan's own view and what is just a view he is describing/analyzing, but, hopefully, they got something out of it. I hope they will return to the book in their minds and think more critically about it with each rumination. 

********

About a month ago, Pollan spoke at the West Roxbury branch of the BPL, and Seth and I went. So many folks showed up that they had to move the event next door to a school. I really enjoyed it, bought the new book, In Defense of Food, and got my two books signed. I like how this experience both expands and shrinks my world. On the one hand, it's great to see so many people all fired up about food consciousness, and on the other, I think it's crazy that I got to meet my new favorite food author for free, at a pokey, little library that is literally walking distance from my house. 

I am the drop and the ocean . . . .