“My secret intention was to teach the reader
how to cook without recipes.”
—Richard Olney, in his memoir Reflexions
There is no jam in this book. I know that’s kind of weird, given its title, and given that it’s a cookbook . . . of sorts. But there it is.
The title, Jam Today, comes from Lewis Carroll’s Alice book, Through the Looking Glass. Maybe you remember Alice’s exchange with the Queen? Where the Queen says, “The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday—but never jam to-day.”
And Alice objects, “It must come sometimes to ‘jam today’.”
Well I, along with Alice, object. Why is it always jam yesterday and jam tomorrow, but never jam today?
So the Jam Today cookbook is not really a cookbook, not really a memoir—it’s an answer to the Queen.
It’s one person cooking with what she’s got, in her own neighborhood, in her own family, in her own way. And she figures the way you should be cooking is with what you’ve got, in your own way. Not my way, but yours.
If I could be standing in your kitchen, leaning against a counter with a glass of wine at the end of a day, watching you cook for yourself and your loved ones, and trading stories about what we both like to eat and how we like to cook it, that would be the best.
But given that we haven’t figured out how to get that interactive with ideas yet, this will have to do for now. It’s one person’s diary of some really swell meals. It’s about cooking with what you’ve got, for pleasure, and for your own happiness and that of the people around you. I figure if you do that, it’s bound to spread out. After all, it’s got to start somewhere.
Jam today, not yesterday, and don’t put it off till tomorrow. Tomorrow, I reckon, will be today soon enough.
Today the kitchen. Tomorrow the world.
(And see the Jam Today blog for a continuing look at what I’m cooking and eating today on the Exterminating Angel Press website . . . exterminatingangel.com/jam-today . . . )
I love food. Food is part of my everyday life—and I love my everyday life. I firmly believe that you have to be the change you want to see happen in the world. And when I look at the world around me, I think: we’ve forgotten how important everyday life is.
Just sitting and thinking’s good. Then acting after you’ve had a think. Going for a walk with the dog. Sitting with a glass of wine and a friend, or a loved one, at the end of the day, talking over the events of the day, that’s good too. Those are the best times I know.
Best of all, I think, is planning and serving and eating meals that I’ve playfully considered beforehand, and then eaten with loved ones, or alone, with satisfaction later. Those meals tie me into the place I am. I like to think about what ingredients came from where, and to know the people they come from. What I eat tells me something about myself, because of what my body says it wants each day . . . and sometimes what it tells me is surprising. Sometimes it even makes me laugh. And another reason I love food: it gives me an opportunity to say I love you to the people in my life, in a literally nourishing way.
So food’s political for me. Because what you eat is who you are. And how much attention you pay to the care and feeding of the people you love—and to yourself—is direct political action. Really. Think about it. If we, each one of us, make up our world, where’s the best place to start with strengthening it in virtue and wisdom and courage? If you’re well fed—if you’re well loved—well, that makes it easier to do just about anything. And if you have an entire population that is well fed—and well loved—and believes it can do just about anything . . . this may not be good for those who would rather lull and manipulate us into doing what they think best. But it’s definitely good for us and our world.
This cookbook isn’t, in any way, shape, or form, a conventional how-to book. (Though I personally love those books, and cherish an armload of them, and admire the people who researched, compiled, and wrote them—among them, the ones that immediately come to mind are Marion Cunningham’s version of The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, and Mark Bittman’s The Best Recipes in the World . . . among others.)
This cookbook isn’t meant to give anyone recipes to follow to the letter, or to tell anyone how to eat, or even what to eat.
My goals for Jam Today are much more modest: just to say how much I like food, and like cooking it for my friends and loved ones, and how thinking about it leads me to think about all the things it’s connected to in my world. And how, bit by bit, I see that I’m strengthening myself and the world around me by waking up in the morning and thinking: What do I have on hand today? What are the needs of myself and my loved ones? How am I going to provide for those needs with as much playfulness and pleasure as I can?
I figure if I do that, and then expand it out every day to include more friends, more loved ones, well, that will do as much, if not more, to help the planet than any amount of hours spent worrying or bemoaning the state of things I can’t immediately change.
So instead I get cooking, and then I get eating. And, while I’m at it, I get having a good time. It’s fun, it’s easy, and I’m absolutely convinced it’s taking direct action toward a better world.
Best of all, anyone can do the same.