FRUIT AND THE CLASSICS

Food has been intertwined with the classics for centuries. Classics is the study of Ancient Greece and Rome; more broadly, the label ‘Classics’ refers to the study of language, literature, music, history and the humanities, art, and culture from the past to the present day. The variety of subjects in the classics makes the study of it complex and fascinating; however, one element has branched out to become its own – food writing.

Food writing, no longer confined to recipes, has gained recognition and was noticed as a literary genre in the 1990s. The genre has many overlaps; traditionally, it is linked with cookbook writing and ingredient lists, but during COVID-19, food writing merged with public health journalism due to the pandemic’s impact on the food industry. Continuing along these lines, writing about food intertwines with human nutrition and medical terminology, playing a key factor in the recovery of those who are malnourished or vitamin deficient. However, the act of writing about food is now noticed as a form of fictional writing that can be read for enjoyment and included for the benefit of a novel, instead of a medical context. Food writing might still be a relatively recent term and yet to be included in the Oxford English Dictionary, however it is gaining popularity. Despite its increased usage in the 20th century, one aspect of food writing dates back centuries: fruit.

Fruit is not new to the literary scene. Essential ingredients might be included on an ingredients list, but few other raw foods have been heralded in literature as much fruit. Poets such as William Carlos Williams, Robert Frost and Pablo Neruda wrote poems revolving around fruit and its qualities.

The poem ‘This is Just to Say’, published in 1934 by Carlos Williams, remarks on the sweetness and coldness of plums in the icebox. This imagist poem has been subject to great discussion and debate over its meaning and Williams’ intentions behind it. The poem is merely 28 words, and, on the surface, it seems rather like an apology or a hastily written note for a partner due to its run-on lines and lack of punctuation. But Williams ends the poem on a mischievous note, confessing they were ‘delicious so sweet and so cold.’ Touching on forgiveness and confession links to the Biblical narrative of the Garden of Eden and the idea of temptation and sin. Adam and Eve are tricked into eating the forbidden fruit and banished from Eden. However, Williams declares that he wanted to eat the fruit, which could be read as a bold rebellion against Catholicism.

Less metaphorically, Pablo Neruda wrote ‘Ode to the Lemon’, summed up by the title. Neruda praises the lemon as ‘a miracle’, oozing ‘original juices.’ The rest of the poem overflows with sensuality and concrete imagery, such as a ‘cup’ and ‘breast and a nipple’. Neruda’s personification of the lemon blurs the line between fruit and human beings so artfully that we question if there is more commonality between us than we might think. In ‘After Apple-Picking’ by Robert Frost, the speaker feels so intertwined with the apples and the art of apple picking that he dreams of ‘magnified apples.’ Not only does Frost physically touch the apples, but they also infiltrate his dreams and take on a spiritual presence in his unconscious mind. As readers, we might question if the same obsession and longing for the apples could be replicated in a poem about a different food like cereal or a sandwich. By dedicating the poem to apples, Frost can reflect on the physical exertion of harvesting the apples and the link between the unconsciousness of dreaming and the concrete apples. Thus, the poem enters a liminal state, the apple becoming something of desire, not quite tangible. It is hard to imagine Frost would evoke the same atmosphere if an apple was replaced by a slice of bread. Continued below…