The Imaginary Cookbook

And why I'm no longer interested in writing recipes.

It’s difficult to write about anything other than Gaza at the moment (especially after the “Flour Massacre”) and next week my writing will return there. Today’s newsletter, however, represents a sequel of sorts to The Dead Cat in the Freezer. -JRS

When Eating an Island, my imaginary cookbook, came to me, I was lying on an old couch in a Montreal apartment, an aging cat at my feet. Smoking, probably; my roommate was out of town, paying a reluctant visit to his girlfriend and her rheumatic pugs, so I could service my habit without stepping outside.

The imaginary cookbook was of the coffee-table kind, i.e. big, bold, comprehensive. Expensive. The subject at hand: The food culture of Newfoundland, my home (at least in the abstract sense; I’ve never felt particularly at home here, not since the insular, placeless days of middle-class childhood).

Eating an Island would wade through the province’s cuisine via stories, history and recipes, old and new. Among this information and instructions: photographs beautiful and sublime – both of which abound here, in this Marvelous, Terrible Place.

I could see the book in my mind, I want you to know that. The cover, the thick pile of pages. I could feel the smooth laminate coating, hear the vertebral snap of the spine stretching open, the flap of a page landing as I leafed through. 

In the years that followed, as I wandered through the labyrinth of rebuilding a life, the imaginary cookbook stayed with me, one of many pots simmering on the back of my mind. Once I’d gotten my finances in order and found an apartment of my own, I felt ready to make it happen.

My plan, as such: Begin a blog, build a following, make the right connections and, eventually, self-publish. Self-publish, because I’m independently minded to a fault – but also because I knew it was possible. I’d made incredibly talented friends who did things “their way” (publish successful books, record and master albums, put off art exhibitions, organize pop-up restaurants), without the consent of gatekeepers or the hope for government grants. 

The blog I began at thirty-seven, under the name “Foodsmith”, and over the next four years published some 50,000 words of recipes, restaurant reviews and articles. During that time, I also quit Montreal and relocated to St. John’s. 

You know what happened next: 2020, or The Year That Changed Everything. In the period that followed, I abandoned the cookbook (stopped writing altogether, in fact) and began learning photography – and by that route, oddly enough, ended up in an internationally award-winning cookbook about … Newfoundland cuisine.  Go figure. 

You might wonder why, after seven years, I set the imaginary cookbook aside. Multiple reasons, really (e.g. competition, compensation), but mainly because the focus of my writing had both widened and deepened. Eating an Island, the cookbook, became Eating an Island, the newsletter (which you’re reading right now OMG!)

Also, however, I was simply no longer interested in creating and sharing recipes. There’s been some discourse about this of late – which I’ve been avoiding but am excited to read after publication – so I’m going to keep my comments short.

Why  I am no longer in love with recipe-writing, a breakdown:

1. This, basically, but for recipes: “Inevitably, hip-hop records are treated as though they are disposable. They are not maximized as product, not to mention as art.” - Harry Allen, fr. an interview sampled on Act Won (Things Fall Apart) by The Roots. 

2. Glut-tony: At any given moment, you can find recipes on [takes deep breath] blogs, websites, newspapers, magazines, cookbooks, television shows, Facebook feeds, Instagram reels, TikTok videos, YouTube videos, Twitter threads, Threads threads, Reddit posts, Pinterest pins.  Have I missed anything? 

3. Food waste: While it is possible to avoid or mitigate this, the testing and retesting of recipes can be wasteful. For example, I’ve been fine-tuning a recipe for a good arrabbiata sauce based on the cheapest available ingredients; since I don’t have the time or resources to make and store multiple batches in a single day, and because I want to eat or share what I make to avoid waste, this process has taken multiple weeks. It would be difficult to create reliable recipes both quickly and without throwing away food.