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| The Dotty's Test |
"More often than not people who see me on trains and in ships, or in restaurants, feel a kind of resentment of me since I taught myself to enjoy being alone. Women are puzzled, which they hate to be, and jealous of the way I am served, with such agreeable courtesy, and of what I am eating and drinking, which is almost never the sort of thing they order themselves. And men are puzzled too, in a more personal way. I anger them as males. I am sorry. I do not like to do that, or puzzle the women either. But if I must be alone, I refuse to be alone as if it were something weak and distasteful, like convalescence." – M.F.K. Fisher, from "The Lemming to the Sea"
Few if any other food writer since M.F.K. Fisher has taken their self-designated position as food observer more seriously or with such ferocity as Fisher; most food writing now is little more than avid description so as to self-advertise the whereabouts of the next trendy seating; or maybe it is the
silly snippet of weak criticism found on a twitter tag. For a writer to take a position on things and express it is virtually unheard of. Fisher was no doubt a pioneer on many platforms: food connoisseur, traveler, and most importantly a creative writer writing food criticism that was both lyrical and biting, but for those very reasons trustworthy. All of these components left a daring chip on the shoulder of her prose; if she did not like something, there would be little holding back; political correctness was not yet the chief mode of communication in the 1930's – maybe there was not
enough time for this in the midst of a Great Depressions and World Wars to endure. More than once she took very clear sides on her chosen position as sometimes eater alone. For her very first entry 'A' in Alphabet for Gourmets, she chose "A is for dining Alone" where the following first sentence of the entry continues..."and so am I, if a choice must be made between most people I know and myself." It sounds somewhat crude, especially for a woman who would ascend to fame as a result of her very readership, but it might all depend upon what it is that the food writer is writing about, exactly – is she conversing with friends around the table, or is she conversing with the locale itself, the waiter, the menu, the ambience, the match between expectations and reality of the food...the final digestion? The
diner alone to this very day, male or female, will still gain as many looks as Fisher might have motivated way back when. To walk (or drive) through the line of some fast food dispenser is one thing, but to fully engage the dining process alone might be something considered far too exclusive or shameful and yet, once done, is as full an experience as the mob scene fish fry or the planned family style dining venue where the surrounding distractions far outnumber the insights. As I walked into Dotty's Dumpling Dowry by myself at 12:30 on a thursday all of this came freshly back to mind. What courage it takes to walk into a fully packed house where even the bar stools are occupied by the early day willing beer drinkers. You may have to wait in the foyer and bide your time ofcourse skipping through baseball scores until your name is called for a seat somewhere unknown. Or, you may be
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| Carbon 4 Fantasy Factory IPA, made in Madison |
