Deconstructing Banana Pudding

For a topic this week, it would probably be difficult to beat Wordplay’s National Dessert Day tutorial on apples, banana pudding, chocolates, and other topics, posted today on the Wordplay Facebook page, complete with photos. Therefore, I won’t try. I thought I’d said all I needed to on desserts, Aphrodite, etc. last week, but when I found out what day it was today, I just had to seize the opportunity. (And really, can you ever get tired of looking at pictures of desserts? Probably not.)

I guess I was also trying to make a point about the impossibility of putting life experiences into separate silos and the lack of neat boundaries between categories of knowledge, experience, etc. If you’re reading this page for the first time, that may sound pretty far removed from National Dessert Day, but if you think in terms of mythology, depth psychology, and layers of meaning, it’s really not. I’m a librarian, too, and while I semi-enjoyed the cataloging class I took in school—which taught us how to organize and classify areas of knowledge—I saw even then that some subjects just don’t fit into a single slot. Some librarians might argue that they actually do if you’re doing cataloging the right way, but I don’t agree. There’s too much overlap between subjects.

I have a fairly strong teacherly instinct, which I’m sure annoys a lot of people (at least, it seemed to in the past), but I have realized that I take a lot of pains to explain things because I have spent so much of my life feeling misunderstood. I don’t mean to make that sound tragic; it’s just a fact that I often felt my experiences were not like those of other people, and that people really didn’t understand my jokes, my references, or even my real feelings about things. I was not always the forthcoming person I am on this blog, and I really was one of those young people I was talking about a few weeks ago who lacked communication skills. Through much of my life, I had a hard time speaking up for myself in person (though never in writing). Actually, what someone said to me once turned out to be true, and that is that you gain greater confidence in yourself by doing. I’m much better at talking now than I used to be.

So I tend to favor clearness in communication, but it’s also true that no matter how clear you try to be, some people will never understand you because they are seeing you through the filter of their own experiences. I don’t like misunderstandings, but they are unavoidable at times, so sometimes you just have to say your piece and move on. I might say something like, “It’s supposed to rain tomorrow,” and really mean that just as a literal statement of fact based on the weather report. And yet I often feel that people try to read much more into my words than I intended. On the other hand, I often have to caution people not to be “too literal” when it comes to interpreting stories and mythology. Sometimes there is no “literal truth,” but rather a psychological or artistic truth. I’m really not speaking a secret code that other people are supposed to decipher (I would find that extremely tiresome myself) just because I talk about poetry, myths, art, and other things that have layers of meaning. It’s not true that a person named Daphne literally turned into a tree because someone named Apollo chased her, but it is true that it’s sometimes necessary to put your foot down and make a stand.

Others things I learned from National Dessert Day:

1. There are an awful lot of blogs out there on cooking that almost look like someone just made them up and slapped them on the Internet a week ago. It’s not that they are lacking in quality, it’s just that they don’t quite seem real.
2. Banana pudding is one of the most appealing desserts there is to look at; you hardly ever see a photo of banana pudding that isn’t mouth-watering.
3. It takes a little courage to write about food and Aphrodite, as one feels that one is almost bound to be judged, or misjudged, for the attempt, even though you may only be saying what other people are thinking.
4. Fruits are more “erotic” than vegetables, and it’s probably because of the sugar.
5. Some fruits are more “erotic” than other fruits. Never really thought it through in those terms before, but it’s true.
6. Chocolate truffles, according to one source, were named for the truffles that grow in the ground because of the “earthy” appearance of their centers. That never would have occurred to me, though both kinds of truffles are expensive gourmet items.

That’s about it for this week. Thanks for reading, but remember this: if you take an idea from this page and run with it, only to find yourself at the business end of an international crisis, don’t blame me. Learn to be a little more thoughtful about what you read; take a couple of classes or something.

Wordplay Indulges in Broad Generalizations. You’re Welcome.

With last week’s post, I thought I had gotten Aphrodite and Eros and desserts and all out of my system, but that does not seem to be the case. I know this because I keep finding myself looking up pictures of the most elegant desserts I can find on the Internet. Of course, you cool kids know that when we speak of Aphrodite, we are speaking of more than romantic love. Aphrodite encompasses luxuries and indulgences of all types: fine wines, beauty, fashion, flowers, and, of course, desserts. If you’re not sure how this works, or what the goddess of love has to do with any of this, think of it this way: Aphrodite encompasses romance, and all of the above are considered enhancements or accompaniments to romance. And certainly, it is quite all right—healthy, actually—to fall in love with yourself and to treat yourself with appropriate indulgences as needed.

I know that my readers understand this because reductionism is a kind of sin in depth psychology, and if you follow this blog, that means you have some appreciation for the nuances of the soul. In mythology, too, it’s unusual for simple mathematics to rear its head: rarely does “this” equal “that” in any kind of neatly delineated way. Aphrodite and Eros reign over an entire class of experiences, not just sensual love, and that includes a group of things we might categorize as “the finer things in life.” Most people realize that life is made up of not just one or two but a variety of different types of experiences. “To everything, there is a season,” as Ecclesiastes tells us.

Nevertheless, just as people often have one or two qualities predominating in their makeup, so do places. L.A., for instance, is one of the most Aphrodite places I’ve ever seen, and Lexington, KY, (where I live now) is one of the least. There’s nothing unusual about a place or a person having a dominant cast to it, but it’s also true that whatever is undervalued or outside the comfort zone tends to go into the shadow. Thus many people have the perception that L.A. is an anti-intellectual place and that Kentucky is a very hearth, home, and family type of place. I’ve spent enough time in Kentucky to know that there’s a lot of truth in this perception and also to feel that people here have a suspicion of “Aphrodite.” It’s not that they don’t feel it, it’s that they’re not quite at home with it. It seems like frippery, perhaps, or something that might lead you astray, away from the things that really matter: hearth, home, family, and God. Of course, if it weren’t for Aphrodite, there wouldn’t be children or families, but somehow Aphrodite seems to get divorced from the rest of the process, as if she had nothing to do with it at all, and Demeter rules the roost.

My current preoccupation with Aphrodite springs, I’m certain, from my current experiences. If you ever find yourself living in your car and getting by from paycheck to paycheck, you may discover, as I have, that a healthy person eventually rebels against all that cheapism and tries to seek balance as best it can. You throw a chocolate bar into the grocery cart once in a while or check into a hotel to experience cool sheets, pillows, and air conditioning. A person who lives in his or her intellect much of the time (Athena/Apollo) will, at the best of times, seek out sensory enjoyment just to stay in balance, and if you’re living in very reduced circumstances, it doesn’t become less important but rather more. Certainly, it’s possible to have too much Aphrodite in one’s life, which amounts to overindulgence; it’s also quite possible to have too little, which amounts to poverty.

So it was that, being off work today and still thinking about dessert, no matter how hard I tried to find other “more important” things to read about, I decided to set myself a task: to discover an Internet photo of the most luxurious fall dessert not involving pumpkin that was out there to be found. This was how I made what was, to me, an interesting observation. The majority of fall desserts that don’t involve pumpkin contain apples, and no matter how long I looked, I couldn’t find an apple dessert that seemed luxurious in the same way a profiterole or chocolate mousse is. (An exception might be a galette, simply because the French have a deft way of putting Aphrodite into their food that does not seem to come as easily to most Americans.) Vast quantities of cinnamon, sugar, butter, and cream notwithstanding, all the apple desserts I saw, as delicious and appealing as they looked, seemed wholesome rather than gourmet, and I think this has to do with the apple itself. Introduce an apple into a dessert, and you’re suddenly speaking of harvest, Grandma’s kitchen, and the farm rather than of luxury.

So, here’s my contribution to world peace: 1. Aphrodite, so often either overvalued, maligned, or misunderstood, is probably most to be feared when overvalued, maligned, or misunderstood. 2. American culture has a Puritan cast to it that gives Aphrodite sort of a bad name here, but this possibly diminishes the further you get from New England. 3. If you require an indulgent dessert with apples in it, you might have to go as far as France. 4. Kentuckians are great at getting in the harvest but suck at experiencing (or creating) sensory delight. 5. People in L.A. fear being ugly or wearing their pants too loose as much as the rest of us would fear the plague. 6. It often costs more to make things beautiful, but the payoff in psychological well-being is probably vastly underrated.

Wordplay’s Shopping Extravaganza

I went shopping the other day, something I hadn’t done in quite a while—shopping for clothes, I mean. It’s like this: I hadn’t planned to be back in Kentucky, but here I am, and hardly any of my winter things with me. Since my job search over the summer was so unsuccessful, and my recent trip so fruitless, I don’t know when I’ll get back to California. I was unwilling to admit it, but I’m stuck here for now, and that meant I had to get some outerwear. No more running outside sans hat and gloves for me. Once I knew I was going to have to do it, even though I couldn’t afford it, I got myself in gear and headed over to the mall.

This was one of those experiences with an unexpected upside. Retail therapy can actually work sometimes, especially when you really haven’t bought any clothes in years. I was trying to be practical and not spend more than I had to, so I looked around until I found a vest I could layer over my fleece. Hats, gloves, and scarves were all marked down, so even though I have several of each (in storage) I bit the bullet and accessorized at bargain prices. I was so exhausted by looking by that time that instead of buying pajamas, which I also needed, I grabbed a pair of leggings off a sale rack. Instead of buying the boots I first had in mind, I got a pair of water-resistant ankle boots. That was good because it turned out there were other things I had to spend money on that weren’t cheap but in my mind necessary. I didn’t ask to be put in the circumstances I’m in and can only do the best I can.

Spending beyond my means isn’t something I enjoy. I took pride in decades of frugality and was always able to make a dollar stretch pretty far, a skill I learned in my early working life when I lived paycheck to paycheck and sometimes couldn’t afford something as basic as a pair of shoes. But whereas going to the mall usually seemed like a chore when I was younger, it’s different now. Last week’s trip to the mall actually made me feel better: I enjoy looking at things even if I know I can’t buy them. The “commercialization” of the experience doesn’t bother me any more. I’ve come to understand that all those goods and services represent supply, demand, jobs, and fulfillment of people’s needs.

Once I got back to my room, I wondered if I would reconsider anything I had spent that day and decided to sleep on it. In my new leggings, I was quite a bit more comfortable than I had been and relieved to think that with my outerwear I wouldn’t have to risk frostbite when I went out the next day. I could continue walking places instead of going by car to stay warm. And when I woke up the next day, everything I had bought still seemed justified. Now in fact, I’m already concerned about running out of things like soap that I won’t have any way to get later. It’s a sad day when you’re having to plan ahead on things like soap, but that’s the way it is.

Despite the pressing need that sent me to the mall, it was still a little bit of an Aphrodite experience, in a good way, the way looking at and buying nice things for yourself always is. It was also a little bit of a Demeter experience, since it was the internal mothering voice that told me I’d better not go out any more without a hat and gloves. Athena and Apollo may have been along for the ride, too, on the strategizing end of things. And you thought going to the mall was just about frivolity.

Wine for the Palate, Yarrow for the Heart

There's something in Vanessa Diffenbaugh's novel The Language of Flowers that makes me think of the movie Sideways. It may not seem that a teen-age orphan making her way in the world after years of foster care and a frustrated middle-aged oenophile should have much in common, but they do. There's the central role of grapes and vineyards in both stories, of course, but there's also a similarity of mythic themes.

At first glance, Sideways seems to be about one thing primarily, and that is romance. The film is replete with sensual images: wining and dining, epicurean picnics at sunset, flirting, and long drives through gorgeous fields of ripening grapes. Aphrodite's presence is so strong and beautifully rendered that it initially diverts attention from another, more patient figure in the story.

In keeping with Miles' tendency to devote himself to sybaritic pursuits while shying away from love, the movie seduces with soft-focus images of romantic dinners and voluptuous wines. Meanwhile, another goddess bides her time, making herself known only through subtle gestures. That's Demeter, notable mostly for her absence at first but coming into clear focus in the scene in which Maya asks Miles about his obsession with Pinot and in turn shares her feelings about the life cycle of the grape. No mere aficionado, Maya is the real deal. She not only loves to see things grow but is perceptive enough to understand that the key to Miles is bound up in his appreciation for a temperamental grape that needs a lot of nurturing to thrive. The subtle language of wine, shared by Miles and Maya, leads from sensual appreciation to something more deeply sustaining.

In The Language of Flowers, Victoria seems to have little going for her on her emancipation at age 18 from the group home in which she's been living. She shares Miles' penchant for acting out and has her own troubled and unhappy past. She, too, has a secret, sophisticated, and sensitive knowledge of a little-known subject, in her case the symbolism of flowers. Desperate to avoid living on the streets, she asks a florist for a job, revealing her innate gift for combining flowers not merely in beautiful arrangements but in a manner that speaks true. Unknown even to herself, Victoria is a healer, skilled at hearing what a giver wants to say to a recipient and knowing how to say it.

Like Miles, Victoria has betrayed and been betrayed and is afraid of intimacy. As her growing success as a flower arranger begins to open a new life for her, she, too, confronts the possibility of love. The not-easily-deflected interest of Grant, a farmer and purveyor she encounters in the flower market, simultaneously leads to a halting romance and a re-engagement with the traumatic past. Grant also speaks the rare language of flowers, which both intrigues and frightens Victoria but ultimately proves too difficult to ignore.

Nurturing takes many forms in this story. As in Sideways, Demeter is first absent, ineffectual, or deflected and then unmistakably central. Victoria begins to encounter one maternal figure after another, from her employer, to her roommate, to her employer's mother, a midwife and wise woman. Even Grant is a nurturing figure. Finally, and surprisingly, Victoria discovers that the imperfect mothering she received in the past, which had seemed so insufficient, was in fact perhaps enough. Grant leads her to a rapprochement with the woman who nearly adopted her years ago and whose teachings about the language of flowers proved to be a true mother's gift.

Flowers generally fall into the realm of Aphrodite, with their beauty and sensual appeal, but in this story they represent nurturing, care, true insight, and love. As in Sideways, a symbol with one meaning proves to have unsuspected dimensions, leading the way delicately from mistrust to trust and from insufficiency to abundance. Miles and Victoria play multiple roles, though the most prominent one for each is perhaps Persephone, at first sojourning in the Underworld and finally returning to life. Miles, Victoria, and the characters who surround them are examples of the way mythic themes surface in remarkably different contexts, all but unrecognizable sometimes but ever persistent.

Unlike some love stories, which seem too lightweight and inconsequential to be believed, both Sideways and The Language of Flowers have a gritty layer of reality. My guess is that this is because neither story stops with physical attraction but also acknowledges the importance of nurturing and understanding. Both stories are ultimately grounded in the earth.

Demeter's in the Kitchen, and She Has a Blender

I seem to be preoccupied, in my recent Facebook postings, with food. I think there are several reasons for this. For one, it's winter, and most of us are in hibernation, especially with the kind of deep freeze we've had this year. You can't always hit the sidewalks for a carefree stroll in the sun (especially when they're covered with ice), but you can always put a casserole in or bake some bread.

In just the last month, I've written posts about baking bread and cinnamon rolls, cooking chicken stew with escarole, making marinara and Bechamel sauce for lasagna, fixing Spanish rice, baking chocolate Valentine's cookies, re-creating a ravioli and broccoli dish I had years ago in Somerville, Mass., and trying to figure out how my grandmother made cornbread. Unlike other things that might eat up your day, a well-prepared meal can rarely be considered a waste of time. My only regret is that my circle of college friends, whom I used to enjoy cooking with, is now too far-flung to make group dinners possible.

OK, so it's winter, but I believe there's more to my food-mindedness than that. In addition to my own birthday, both my mother's and my father's birthdays occur in midwinter, so I've naturally been thinking more about the two of them than usual. Inextricably tied up with memories of childhood are memories of foodways and family meals. How I regret not finding out how my mother made certain things, like pancakes and meatloaf! How I wish I could be in my grandmother's kitchen again, eating her fried chicken. How well I remember the taste of a grilled cheese sandwich and Campbell's Tomato Soup, a common childhood lunch. How much fun it would be to prank my dad on his birthday one more time by putting hot pepper in the Jello!

If I were to self-analyze, I'd say that many of my kitchen adventures represent self-mothering, an attempt to take care of myself through culinary means. Gridlock in Washington? That's OK, here's a blueberry smoothie. Emperor has no clothes? Never mind, have some stew. Yet another inane conversation overheard in Starbucks? Time to make biscuits. Snarky relative? There's a recipe for Chicken Piccata around here somewhere.

I can tell that it really is self-nurturing and not self-indulgence by the judiciousness with which I (usually) weigh what I'd like to have with what seems most nutritious. I grew up in the meat and potatoes era, but I've branched out: I'm always looking for new ways to fix vegetables, including some I'm not used to using. I think I shocked some old friends the other day when I announced I making the potato soup I've been making for 30 years with celery instead of leaving it out as I've always done. "But you hate celery!" I heard, almost immediately. It's true, I always did; but then I vacationed in New Orleans, where the food was so divine and sometimes had celery in it, and there was that yummy tuna dill sandwich they used to have at the library that included celery, and so . . . there I was at the grocery store on Tuesday, eyeing celery on sale for $.77 and wondering why the bunches had to be quite so big. (The soup experiment hasn't gone down yet, but I can't imagine it will use more than a couple of stalks, which could mean ants on logs in my near future.)

You may not believe it, but I also have less of a tendency toward snacking and unrestrained dessert foraging than I used to have. That's not to say I've dropped it altogether, but I'll give you an example. I heard about a new type of Ben & Jerry's ice cream yesterday that apparently includes two different flavors in a single pint along with a core of something delectable like raspberry jam or fudge. My most immediate thought was, "Wow, that's extreme!" instead of "I have to see if Kroger has it!" (I will have to see if Kroger has it, but it wasn't my very first thought. See what I mean?)

So I can't, at the moment, do anything about unemployment, political intransigence, ignorance, incivility, dishonesty, or the rampant failure of so many schools to teach information literacy, but I can at least try to feed myself, which is saying a lot in a world where way too many people still go to bed hungry. We could all use an infusion of Demeter, which is probably why I'm so preoccupied with her. When I think about my parents, I think they'd be pleased that I invested the money a couple of years ago in all the kitchen basics I'd never bothered with before. Fake it till you make it, I can hear them saying. Fake it till you make it. And by the way, your biscuits are better than they used to be.

Magic Flash Mobs in the Month of May

Last autumn I wrote a blog about the end of summer and the myth of Demeter and Persephone. I was thinking about the two of them today when I was out and about, on a day of just about perfect weather. Yesterday was beautiful but a little cool; today was just right. There was a bright blue sky, angelic white clouds, a warm (but not hot) sun, trees in full leaf, irises in bloom. To repeat an observation I made a few weeks ago, it was like stepping into an illustration in a children's picture book, one showing a perfect neighborhood with a smiling sun, children waving, and everyone from the mailman to the baker going cheerfully about their business.

So -- Persephone comes back in the spring. The melodramatic part of the myth concerns her leaving and Demeter mourning her loss in autumn. The story goes on to say, though, that a compromise is reached whereby Persephone is returned from the Underworld in the spring, to the general rejoicing of Demeter and everybody else. Persephone is spring personified, with violets entwined in her hair and daisies springing up where she walks. I think of the delicate beauty of April as characteristic of her youth. A day like today, when the promise of early spring has blossomed into something closer to summer, makes me think of her mother, Demeter, whose care greens the earth.

The nurturing and feminine aspects of May are reflected in several traditions. The name of the month probably comes from either Maia, a Greek nymph beloved of Zeus, or the Roman goddess Maiesta, who was associated with veneration and honor. In the Roman Catholic tradition, May is the month of Mary, the mother of God. Of course, May is also the month when we celebrate Mother's Day in the United States. Here in Kentucky, we run the horses on the first Saturday in May. I'm not sure what they think about it, but for the people, it's an occasion marked by showy hats, spring finery, mint juleps, and elaborately planned parties.

The birthstone for May is the emerald, whose stunning green seems like the perfect color for such a lush and opulent month. The flower for May is the Lily of the Valley. That seems quite right too, because if I were to assign a fragrance to the month, it would be the old-fashioned but unforgettable (to me, anyway) Muguet des Bois, which contains an essence of this delicate but lingering floral. If you took everything bright and beautiful about the month -- from the luxuriant grass to the shy flowers in the woods -- and distilled it into a bottle, it would smell like this perfume.

I live in an area with a lot of large trees that create an avenue of green this time of year. I have a fantasy about a "Dancing in the Moonlight" sort of reverie that I would like to make into a film someday. This vision came to me out of nowhere not long after I moved here and involves an empty street in the middle of the night. To the tune of either "Dancing in the Moonlight," "Looking Out My Backdoor," or "Moonlight Sonata," a group of people in formal attire appear casually from under the trees, assembling in the middle of the street. They all waltz together. As the music picks up, they start to dance faster, and then you begin to notice the presence of fauns, nymphs, naiads, and other minor gods and goddesses in the crowd (it's an ecumenical group). After a few minutes of kicking up their heels in fine mythic fashion, they all disappear into the trees again, leaving a silent street.

I don't know what it is about the neighborhood that gave rise to this fantasy, but I think now that if I were to film it, it would have to be in May. I've pictured it in autumn to the tune of "Moondance," and I think that would work. But May is really the time for this type of extravaganza. If I ever do commit this to film, look carefully at the faces in the crowd. Demeter and Persephone will certainly be there, as well as Maia and Maiesta and Hermes and Artemis and whoever else is up for a frolic. There might be a few jockeys in the crowd, some emeralds, silk, and boas, fancy buttoned shoes, and some really fine hats.

When the sun comes up the next morning on another beautiful day, it will be as if nothing ever happened -- but that's the way it is with these midnight flash mobs in the merry month of May.

Mythology in Aisle 12

I don't know what's up with the yogurt case at Kroger lately, but they have definitely been bringing in some new stock. I bought some Greek yogurt, a new item at my store, and tried the pomegranate variety a few days ago. I had never tasted yogurt made with pomegranates, and the myth student in me was charmed because of the association of pomegranates with Persephone. It seemed an uncommon flavor but a very appropriate one for Greek yogurt.

I got more than I was expecting when I bit into the fruit and encountered something hard. Thinking I had gotten a stem or pit left in accidentally, I threw it away. With the next spoonful came a realization: these hard bits were pomegranate seeds, they were supposed to be in there, and I was swallowing them.

In the myth, it's the eating of the pomegranate seeds that ensures Persephone will have to stay part of the year in the Underworld with Hades. When she is reunited with her mother, Demeter, she is told she will have to stay in the Underworld for one month out of the year for every seed she ate (the number usually given is six). Persephone's descent to the Underworld in the autumn and her return to the upper world each spring correspond with the cycle of the growing season.

I was always affected by the pathos of this story and thought it terribly sad until I wrote a paper about it a few years ago and had to look at it from various angles. One thing I hadn't considered was that the myth could be read not as a tragedy but as a story of maturation. Persephone, after all, is a queen in the Underworld and rules there independently of her mother. If they hadn't been separated, she would never have come into a kingdom of her own. From this angle, the myth describes a natural process of growing up, which sometimes happens willingly, and sometimes doesn't. I had never considered what Persephone might be like if she had never left home.

I was going to get some more yogurt, but when I went to the store yesterday, the shelves of that brand, advertised at $.99 a carton, had been emptied. I was hunting for a substitute when I found another brand called (I'm serious) "The Greek Gods Traditional Greek Yogurt." Well, I knew I had to try it, so even though it only came in big 24-ounce cartons, I bought one. I looked at it just now and noticed that there is a picture of Hermes on the lid. Hermes is the god who entered the Underworld to bring Persephone back to her mother; he is a messenger, able to come and go between all the realms as he pleases, and is also something of a shapeshifter.

This yogurt didn't come in a pomegranate flavor, but they did have honey, and that's what I got. Now the plot thickens. Bees were associated with the Goddess, and Demeter is one form in which she appeared. Honey is connected with the labyrinth, too, in some mysterious way. I have been reading lately about the inscription on a clay tablet, found in ancient Knossos, dating from around 1400 BCE. The inscription reads something like, "One jar of honey to all the gods, one jar of honey to the Mistress of the ? Labyrinth." Ariadne was probably a goddess early on, so this inscription may refer to her.

I don't know what any of this means, unless Hermes is now the buyer for Kroger's dairy department. But I am going to eat a spoonful of the honey yogurt before I go to bed, just to see if it will give me sweet dreams.