NOVEL THOUGHTS
………
HARPERCOLLINS, 2001
(available in paperback from Perennial, 2002)
ANN PATCHETT’S Bel Canto, inspired by a true event, opens in an unnamed South American country where the vice president hosts international dignitaries and officials at a birthday party honoring a visiting Japanese businessman, Mr. Hosokawa. A lavish dinner is served: white asparagus in hollandaise, turbot with crispy onions, and pork chops in a cranberry demiglaze.
Mr. Hosokawa’s idol, Roxane Coss, the gifted and beautiful lyric soprano, has just finished performing when the room is plunged into darkness. Terrorists invade the mansion to kidnap the country’s president, who, it turns out, is not at the party. Determined to fulfill their mission, the confused, ragtag terrorists take the group of partygoers hostage. They release all the women, except Roxane Coss, whose voice captivates them.
As weeks pass, Roxane’s magical singing, the only common language of the hostages and their captors, mesmerizes the group and bridges the barriers between them. Tensions lessen, and for the group of fifty-eight living inside the vice president’s mansion, the boundaries between hostage and captor are blurred. As chess games are played, politics discussed, and music performed, friendships are forged and love blooms. For Mr. Hosokawa, who has the opportunity to become acquainted with his idol, Roxane Coss, the world inside the compound is blissful.
The hostages’ memories of the fine meal that began their odyssey quickly vanish. The first meals sent in after they are taken captive consist of soda and unappetizing sandwiches.
When the hostages’ regular food supplies—casseroles and prepared sandwiches—are replaced by raw vegetables and chickens, Vice President Ruben Iglesias views the unprepared foods as a sign of waning public interest in their ordeal. Iglesias, who “did not know marjoram from thyme” recruits the French diplomat, Simon Thibault, the only hostage with culinary savoir faire, to transform the raw ingredients into dinner. When Thibault realizes the terrorists hold all the kitchen knives, he directs them in chopping vegetables, teaching them how to mince garlic and slice peppers. The camaraderie is momentarily shattered when the diplomat takes the knife to show Ishmael, his young captor, how to peel, seed, and chop an eggplant. Seeing Thibault hold the knife, Beatriz, another terrorist in the kitchen, becomes agitated. The diplomat, with his hands up, proposes a compromise so dinner may be prepared in the proper manner: “Everyone can stand away from me and I can show Ishmael how to peel an eggplant. You keep your gun right on me and if it looks like I’m about to do something funny you may shoot me.”
Ann Patchett liked the idea of pairing an eggplant appetizer recipe with a discussion of Bel Canto. She explained to us why she chose to write about eggplant in her novel’s pivotal kitchen scene:
I chose the eggplant for the kitchen scene in Bel Canto because I think that eggplants are such misunderstood vegetables. If you have a bunch of people trying to cook who don’t speak the same language, some of whom have guns, some of whom are in love, it creates an air of confusion that is best represented by the eggplant. It is, after all, a singularly beautiful vegetable, but also impenetrable. It’s horrible raw and difficult to know how to cook. It’s something that really needs to be mixed with something else in order to work, and how it looks on the outside and how it is on the inside are completely different things. The eggplant makes a fine metaphor, and a fine appetizer.
To help demystify the enigmatic and misunderstood eggplant we mixed ours with onions and peppers—ingredients mentioned in Bel Canto’s kitchen scene—to create this delicious caponata, a Sicilian sweet-and-sour eggplant appetizer. Caponata can be served with crackers or crostini (little toasts) as an appetizer, or as part of an antipasto or sandwich filling.
4 ripe tomatoes, or 6 ripe Roma tomatoes 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 2 pounds small eggplant, peeled, seeded, and cut into ¼-inch dice 1 large red bell pepper, seeded and cut into ¼-inch dice |
1 large yellow bell pepper, seeded and cut into ¼-inch dice 3 medium onions, chopped 2 cups good-quality pitted green olives, halved ½ cup red wine vinegar ¼ cup water |
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½ teaspoon salt ½ teaspoon dried oregano |
2 tablespoons pine nuts 2 tablespoons capers Salt and freshly ground black pepper |
Blanch the tomatoes in boiling water for 1 minute, then remove and rinse under cold running water. Peel, seed, and chop tomatoes. Set aside.
Heat the oil in a large, heavy skillet. Add the eggplant and sauté, stirring constantly, until soft (15–25 minutes on low). Eggplant may be sautéed in two batches if necessary. Add the peppers, tomatoes, onions, and olives. Cook 10 more minutes, stirring frequently. Remove from the heat.
Make a dressing by combining the vinegar, water, sugar, and salt in a bowl. Add to the vegetable mixture along with the oregano and stir well.
Toast the pine nuts in a hot skillet until fragrant and lightly browned. Stir the pine nuts and capers into the caponata, mixing well. Season to taste with salt and black pepper.
Cover the caponata and allow to cool, then refrigerate at least 6 hours. Serve at room temperature, accompanied by toasted baguette slices.
Yield: 12 to 16 appetizer servings
NOVEL THOUGHTS
Guests of the Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Great Books Dinner and Discussion Series often find their thoughts and their discussion drifting beyond the book. Tantalizing smells of the multicourse meal being prepared for them waft into the parlor of the MSOE Alumni Partnership Center, where the group congregates for opening comments, drinks, and music. The lavish dinners have always been connected to the books’ themes and have evolved to include food specifically mentioned in the selected novels; the monthly meetings have become a unique literary and gourmet experience for guests.
Professors from MSOE’s Humanities Department take turns leading discussions, choosing a variety of contemporary and classic works for the series. The discussion leaders collaborate with the MSOE catering staff, which creates the dinner menus.
Professor David Kent has facilitated several discussions at the dinner series, including Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto.
Kent hails from Nashville, Patchett’s hometown, and was interested in reading her work. He says Patchett’s “authentic writing style” and “gripping story” interested him in leading this discussion. To spark discussion, Kent often asks the group to name a character in the novel with whom they would like to have dinner. For most of the group, it was Roxane Coss, the lyric soprano.
The group enjoyed exploring the role of humor in Patchett’s novel, such as the fastidious but endearing mannerisms of Ruben Iglesias, the vice president of the unidentified country. “The group thought it amusing that President Masuda could not attend the dinner in the opening scene because he had to watch his favorite soap opera,” says Kent.
The group also discussed the extent to which opera appreciation contributed to an understanding of the novel. “Some members asked how realistic it was that Roxane Coss could have such a mesmerizing effect on the audience,” says Kent. “But others were opera aficionados and it was easy for them to imagine. Opera singers have the ability to enchant. As someone who has recently fallen in love with opera, I can attest to that.”
More Food for Thought
“As the hostage situation drags on in Bel Canto, Vice President Iglesias is concerned because the food brought in is increasingly less well prepared, with little attention to detail,” says David Kent. Kent says there was no such concern about the meal served at the Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Great Books Dinner and Discussion that evening. In fact, the novel inspired MSOE chef Terri Tollefsrud to create a menu including bacon-wrapped water chestnuts, medallions of pork tenderloin, garlic smashed potatoes, green beans almondine, spinach salad with strawberries and mandarin oranges, and, for dessert, xangos, a Mexican cheesecake. “Several guests said it was one of the best meals they had ever eaten,” says Kent.
“We didn’t know in which South American country Bel Canto was set,” says Suzanne Brust of her St. Paul book club, “but we had an exchange student from Brazil living with us, so I made a Brazilian seafood stew.”
The stew was a huge success with the four married couples that discuss literature in their homes after church on Sunday afternoons. “It was really different from our usual fare, but everyone loved it,” says Brust. “It was the perfect complement to the discussion of one of our favorite books.”
