Collins

The Food Essay

“When from the distant past nothing remains, after the beings have died, after the things are destroyed
and scattered, still, alone, more fragile, yet more vital, more insubstantial, more persistent, more
faithful, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us, waiting
and hoping for their moment, amid the ruins of everything else; and bear unfaltering, in the tiny and
almost impalpable drop of their essence, the immense architecture of memory.”

–Marcel Proust, Du côté de chez Swann (1913) in: À la recherche du temps perdu 

How to write it: (based on NYT’s “Eat, Memory” series)

In this essay, please explore one particular food or meal and its influence on your life. Use description
in your account of your memory to help your reader share in your experience.

So what, exactly, does all of this mean? In the simplest terms, I am asking you to think of a food
that has meaning to you and relate a story about the food in the context of your life. It can be a set of
stories (perhaps a tradition your family has, or something you loved as a child), or just one experience
—I only ask that it be memorable. It doesn’t have to be an epic tale of food with life or death
consequences. It only needs to be meaningful to you. Remember the stories we read in class; each of
them deals primarily with the way the author feels about herself at a certain point in her life. Each
author uses food to illustrate her feelings. Elizabeth Gilbert describes Naples, her pizza, and how
happy she is. Amy Tan makes us feel her teenage shame at being different in front of her crush by
giving a dominant impression of disgust, even though all of the foods are her favorites. And, last but
not least, Yiyun Li relates how “Tang,” or “Fruit Treasure,” represents the ideal life that she wishes for
as an adolescent. This narrative should have a lot to do with you and how you felt at some point in
your life. The food is used as a vehicle to invoke memory.

So, please realize that this essay isn’t just about food. Food should play an important role, but it isn’t
all about food; it is about you, your memories, and your emotions. Think about the things that have
been important to you in your life, whether that means the day where you learned to love yourself
when you stopped counting calories, the day you and your dad split a sandwich when your car broke
down on the side of the road, the spaghetti you were eating when your dog died, or the cake your best
friend baked you because you had a bad day. These stories all have a feeling behind them. Describe the
food, your setting, and everything else according to this emotion. That’s your dominant impression.
We also discussed objective (facts) vs. subjective ideas. This essay will contain lots of subjective (your
opinions!) descriptions. You are using food to explain your experience and the way you feel, so use
description accordingly.
Strategies? We learned and observed many different ways to describe exactly what we mean. These
techniques are what you should employ in your essay.
+Have a dominant impression
+Use comparisons- similes and metaphors.
+Use specific, concrete language. “Fruit Treasure” sounds so much better than just “drink.”
+Show, don’t tell. Make your readers SEE/FEEL/TASTE what is going on. While prewriting, picture
your scene and just jot down some details before you start narrating.
+Make your verbs work! Don’t just use adverbs with basic verbs. If someone ‘shouts,’ it is so much
more telling than ‘spoke loudly.’ The same can be said for ‘gulping,’ and not ‘eating quickly.’
+At the same time- simple descriptive language is okay. Sound like YOU, not a thesaurus.
+ Remember- who/what/when/where/why/how.

Basics: 12 point font. Times/Times New Roman. 2-3 pages. Double spaced. 1” margins.