Twain's Feast (41 page)

Cooking at home isn’t always easy (or even possible). It takes time, and planning, and sometimes (not always) more money than ordering takeout or heating up something frozen. But even if what you’re making is nothing much—five cloves of garlic, a half cup of olive oil, a pound of spaghetti—cooking can be a full, rounded event, an evening of experience instead of routine. Garlic sizzles; salt wells up in water; windows cloud with steam. A kitchen can give a home a center and mark it as a place. When people think of home, the kitchen is often the first place they think of; when they come home, it’s often the first place they go.

The last thing’s the corn bread. Not sweet—I know enough to know that that’s exactly the mistake Twain would expect me to make. Corn bread isn’t cake. Corn bread is
corn bread
. It shouldn’t just melt away in your mouth; if your teeth aren’t fully involved, something’s wrong. To get a good crust, I plan to use my cast-iron skillet (known, in our house, as the World’s Greatest Pan). I’ll heat the skillet in the oven, drop in a knob of butter, then blend the melted butter into a bowl of buttermilk and cornmeal and salt.

When I pour the batter back into the hot, slick skillet, the edges will immediately form up; in the oven it’ll make a good, chewy crust. When it’s done, I can turn the golden circle out onto a platter. But I’ll do all that at the last minute, so the bread will be hot and ready for more butter.

Right now the chicken is finished; the bowl waits to be filled. Chess pie cools on a rack. The greens simmer, sending up their steam; the kitchen is heady with smoked pork. There’s time for me to take a deep breath before our friends arrive.

But the instant I’m out of the kitchen, my plan for a quiet moment evaporates. Erik’s in the mood for tag; Eli chases him around the living room, balancing Mio in the crook of one arm, motioning for me to intercept. I zoom in to cut Erik off. He jukes past, shooting out the front door, down the steps, and along the edge of the massive juniper bush that runs from the sidewalk to our front wall. I’m a step behind. The bay’s morning fog has burned away, the sky washed clear; and as I catch Erik, sweeping him up, swinging him over the juniper’s edge, part of me suddenly sees the bush as a tremendous waste of sunlit ground.

Twain started with radishes; this spring it’s time to think about a garden.

Many people shared their work and knowledge during the writing of this book. I’m particularly grateful to the following: Frank and Judy Oberle, John and Linda Cover, Frank and Helen Wolfe, Robert Eagle, Rena Obernolte, Bud Abbott, Marguerite Whilden, Tory McPhail, Cliff Hall, Jannette Vanderhoop, Bret Stearns, Kristine and Robert Keese, Jim Dina, and Bill and Amy Proulx. Thanks also to Dianne Jacob, Scott Simpson, Terry Esker, Vernon Kleen, Ronald Westemeier, Jay Miller, Sumadu Welaratna, Marilyn Latta, Hilary Sandler, Linda Coombs, Patti Phillippon, Lydia Matthias, Lisa Monachelli, Kay Carroll, Craig Borges, Nancy Rabelais, Kevin Craig, Ray and Kay Brandhurt, Pete and Clara Gerica, Poppy Tooker, Barbara Brennessel, Darra Goldstein, Sandra Oliver, and Cameron Monroe.

The staff at the Mark Twain Project, headed up by Robert Hirst at Berkeley’s Bancroft Library, deserves special mention: Neda Salem, Vic Fischer, Michael Frank, and Lin Salamo were all welcoming and enormously helpful from the first day I came knocking. I’m grateful for their dedication to sharing their remarkable depth of knowledge about Twain, as well as for their infectious enthusiasm.

Paula Marcoux and Pret Woodburn, Terry and Lynn Myers, Bill and Chris Merritt, and Dora, Paul, and Reilly Cullen were all terrific hosts, and often sources in their own right—I hope to be able to return the hospitality to each of you soon. Thanks also to Cameron, Stephanie, Angela, Miranda, Ryan, Dave, Karin, Brio, Nathan, and Natalie, for the steady support (and for sharing a last celebratory lunch).

I’m tremendously fortunate in my agent, Emma Sweeney, and my editor, Laura Stickney. Emma’s enthusiasm, encouragement, and guidance continued long after she found the book its best possible home. Laura has been a constantly insightful, focused, and dedicated presence; I’m very grateful for her sharp eye, steady hand, and sure instincts.

I can never thank my family enough for their help and support during the writing of a book that overlapped, in large measure, with my daughter’s first year. Eli, Erik, and Mio were terrific cheerleaders, research partners, and occasional travel companions; when I did go without them, the best part was always coming home.

Finally, I have to acknowledge my great gratitude to Samuel Clemens for his lifetime of inspiring work. His words are as full of life as when he wrote them; the world is a better place for having had him in it.

vii
“If I have a talent”
Mark Twain,
Mark Twain’s Notebooks & Journals,
vol. 2 (1877-1883), Frederick Anderson, Lin Salamo, and Bernard L. Stein, eds. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), 204.

1
“as tasteless as paper”
Mark Twain,
A Tramp Abroad
(1880; New York: Modern Library, 2003), 291.

1
monotonous, a hollow sham
Ibid., 289-91.

2
“suddenly sweeping down”
Ibid., 291.

3
hung in a cool, dry spot
Harold McGee,
On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen
(New York: Scribner, 2004), 143-45.

4
a simple, imperious “try it”
John Hammond Moore,
The Confederate Housewife
(Columbia, SC: Summerhouse Press, 1997).

5
Recipe for German Coffee
Twain,
A Tramp Abroad,
294.

5
diluting single cans
Twain,
Notebooks & Journals,
vol. 2, 104.

5
“maybe they
can’t
give good milk”
Ibid.

5
a temperature as high as 171 degrees
McGee,
On Food and Cooking,
22.

6
“so rich and thick that you could hardly have strained it”
Mark Twain, “Early Rising, as Regards Excursions to the Cliff House,” first appeared in the
Golden Era,
July 3, 1864; reprinted in
The Washoe Giant in San Francisco: Being Heretofore Uncollected Sketches by Mark Twain Published in the Golden Era in the Sixties,
Frank Walker, ed. (San Francisco: George Fields, 1938), 87.

6
“This tea isn’t good”
Twain,
Notebooks & Journals,
vol. 2, 87.

7
1840, reputedly when
Alan Davidson,
The Penguin Companion to Food
(New York: Penguin, 1999), 1022.

8
“Radishes. Baked apples, with cream”
Twain,
A Tramp Abroad,
292-93.

10 “
earnest” and “generous,” “genuine” and “real”
Ibid., 290-93.

11
“insipid” or “decayed”
Ibid., 292.

11
“perfection only in New Orleans”
Mark Twain,
Life on the Mississippi
(1883; New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 446.

11
“It makes me cry to think of them”
Mark Twain,
The Autobiography of Mark Twain,
Charles Neider, ed. (1956; New York: HarperCollins, 1990), 5.

12
“use a club, and avoid”
Twain,
A Tramp Abroad,
294.

12
“the way that the things were cooked”
Twain,
Autobiography,
14.

12
“Open air sleeping”
Mark Twain,
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
(1876; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 108.

12
“nothing helps scenery like ham and eggs”
Mark Twain,
Roughing It,
Harriet Elinor Smith and Edgar Marquess Branch, eds. (1872; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 121.

12
the invention of Saratoga potatoes
Ron Powers,
Mark Twain: A Life
(New York: Free Press, 2005), 64.

13
“As a nation, their food is heavy”
James Fenimore Cooper,
The American Democrat
(Cooperstown, NY: H. & E. Finney, 1838), 164.

13
“Cooper’s eye was splendidly inaccurate”
Mark Twain, “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses,” in
Mark Twain: Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, and Essays, 1891-1910
(essay first published 1895; New York: Library of America, 1992), 184.

16
“The fountains of the deep have broken up”
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (SLC) to William Bowen, Feb. 6, 1870, Buffalo, NY, in
Mark Twain’s Letters, 1870-1871,
Victor Fischer, Michael B. Frank, and Lin Salamo, eds. Mark Twain Project Online (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995, 2007),
www.marktwainproject.org/xtf/view?docId=letters/UCCL02464.xml;style=letter;brand=mtp
, accessed Oct. 20, 2009.

16
“a level great prairie”
Twain,
Autobiography,
13.

16
Ducks and geese, wild turkeys
Ibid., 5.

16
“I can call back the prairie”
Ibid., 16.

17
“I remember . . . how we turned out”
Ibid., 19-20.

18
Prairie Chickens
Estelle Woods Wilcox,
Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping
(1877; Bedford, MA: Applewood Books, 2002), 143.

20
filled with their own gravy
James M. Sanderson, “Above All Other Birds,” in
American Food Writing: An Anthology with Classic Recipes,
Molly O’Neill, ed. (New York: Penguin Putnam, 2007), 38.

22
“Some morning in the month of April”
T. A. Bereman, “The Boom of the Prairie Chicken,”
Science,
n.s. 22, no. 546 (1893), 22-23.

22
among the wildest of animals
Frances Hamerstrom,
Strictly for the Chickens
(Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1980).

23
Charles Ranhofer of New York’s
Charles Ranhofer,
The Epicurean
(New York: Charles Ranhofer, 1894), 643.

23
“only tolerable in point of flavor”
The Journals of the Expedition Under the Command of Capts. Lewis and Clark,
Nicholas Biddle, ed. (New York: Heritage Press, 1962), 398.

23
resented having to stuff their skins
Hamerstrom,
Strictly for the Chickens,
65.

24
one 1887 dinner at Twain’s house
Evelyn L. Beilenson,
Early American Cooking: Recipes from America’s Historic Sites
(White Plains, NY: Peter Pauper Press, 1985), 38.

25
words like “ocean” and “sea”
John Madson,
Where the Sky Began: Land of the Tallgrass Prairie
(Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1982), 14.

25
calls such land “food deserts”
Michael Pollan,
The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
(New York: Penguin, 2006), 34.

25
230 species
Janine Benyus,
Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature
(New York: Harper Perennial, 1997), 25.

25
French or Belgian name
Madson,
Where the Sky Began,
5.

26
periodic burns and occasional grazing
Personal communications, Scott Simpson, Dec. 22, 2006, and Terry Esker, Apr. 6, 2007.

26
“Beyond the road”
Twain,
Autobiography
, 13.

27
In 1836 an eight-mile-wide blaze
Prairie Establishment and Landscaping
(Springfield: Illinois Division of Natural Heritage, Natural Heritage Technical Publications, no. 2, 1997), 3.

27
the same word,
sce-tay
Madson,
Where the Sky Began,
48.

27
“a Cloudy morning & Smokey all Day”
William Clark and Meriwether Lewis,
Journals,
Mar. 6, 1805.

28
Each hen typically spends five days
Hamerstrom,
Strictly for the Chickens,
94.

29
Prairie Chickens Stewed Whole
Juliet Corson,
Practical American Cookery and Household Management
(New York: Dodd, Mead, 1886), 227.

29
“permanent ambition”
Twain,
Life on the Mississippi,
62-63.

29
14 million
of the birds
Scott Simpson, “Prairie Chickens: Promoting a Population ‘Boom,’”
Illinois Steward
10, no. 1 (Spring 2001), 21.

30
the Nantucketer “lives on the sea”
Herman Melville,
Moby-Dick
(1851; New York: Everyman’s Library, Alfred A. Knopf, 1988), 85.

30
“the land was rolling”
Twain,
Roughing It,
6.

30
Prairie Chicken clan
Gilbert L. Wilson,
Buffalo Bird Woman’s Garden: Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians
(1917; St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1987), xix.

30
“soft and easy to work”
Ibid., 9.

30
“a great part [of northern Illinois]”
Quoted in Madson,
Where the Sky Began,
30.