Of Morsels and Marvels

For many, cooking is simply the mechanical act of reproducing standard recipes. To Maryse Cond , however, cooking implies creativity and personal invention, on par with the complexity of writing a story. A cook, she explains, uses spices and flavors the same way an author chooses the music and meaning of words.

In Of Morsels and Marvels, Cond takes us on a literary journey around places she has travelled to in India, Indonesia, and South Africa. She highlights the tastes and culinary traditions that are fascinating examples of a living museum. Such places, Cond explains, provide important insights into lesser-known aspects of contemporary life. One anecdote illustrates what becomes of the standard Antillean dishes of fish stew and goat curry by two Antilleans who own a restaurant in Sydney, Australia. Cuisine changes not only according to the individual cook but also adapts to foreign skies under which it is created. The author also recounts personal memories of her lifelong relationship with cooking, such as when Ad lia, her family's servant, wrongly blames little Maryse for mixing raisins with fish and using her imagination in the kitchen.

Blending travel with gastronomy, this enchanting volume from the winner of the 2018 Alternative Nobel Prize will delight all who marvel at the wonders of the kitchen or seek to taste the world.


Author: Maryse Condé
Publisher: Seagull Books
Published: 01/19/2020
Pages: 324
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.79lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.20w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9780857426932


Review Citation(s):
Foreword 12/26/2019
Shelf Awareness 01/21/2020

About the Author
Maryse Condé is one of the French Caribbean's most beloved voices. Her many novels and plays published in English include Heremakhonon, Segu, I Tituba Black Witch of Salem, Crossing the Mangrove, Windward Heights, and Victoire, My Mother's Mother. She is professor emerita of Columbia University and divides her time between Paris and Gordes in the South of France. Richard Philcox is Condé's husband and translator. He has also published new translations of Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth and Black Skin, White Masks.



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