14. David Bevan, ed., Literary Gastronomy
My interest regarding this book is twofold: First, and most obviously, it’s edited by a guy named David Bevan. Second, and way more relevant to this list, to literature, and to the world, is that I think (and, to be honest, I haven’t read every word of every essay in the collection) it entirely omits any discussion of the damaging effects of illustrating animals as food in the novel, even in the penultimate essay by Luc Renders that discusses and excerpts Coetzee’s Michael K:
The fragrance of the burning flesh rose into the sky. Speaking the words he had been taught, directing them no longer upward but to the earth on which he knelt, he prayed: “For what we are about to receive make us truly thankful.” With two wire skewers he turned the strips, and in mid-act felt his heart suddenly flow over with thankfulness. It was exactly as they had described it, like a gush of warm water. Now it is completed, he said to himself. All that remains is to live here quietly for the rest of my life, eating the food that my own labour has made the earth to yield. All that remains is to be a tender of the soil. He lifted the first strip to his mouth. Beaneath the crisply charred skin the flesh was soft and juicy. He chewed with tears of joy in his eyes. The best, he thought, the very best pumpkin I have tasted.
(J.M. Coetzee, Life and Times of Michael K, qtd. in Bevan, p. 95.)
