Shrink in the Kitchen

When I first started writing about food 23 years ago, it was to create a life at home with my wife and our first child through cooking.  I figured flavors would be memorable.  That if I cooked, people would come to our house and stay awhile.  That, unlike moaning new parents I knew who swore their freedom ended by having children, we would have some things original by accenting our lives with tastes that might become symbolic of our new family.

Nowadays, we find food, as a nation, occupying a central place in the culture, which is, frankly, unfortunate.  Dan Brown’s new book, “The Lost Symbol,” which I hope to read some day, is, I’m told, about Masonic cookery.  Do we really need a book of Masonic recipes?  I ask you.

Not to be outdone, Stephen King’s latest, “Under the Dome,” is said to concern slow cooking, “under the dome,” or, “sous le coupole,” a method of braising that in Provence was a hit when Roger Vergé ran his kitchen in Moulin.  However, can’t Mr. King return to the genre he knows best?  Why the crossover?  You won’t see Ruth Reichl try to write a book like, “The Shining of My Mom’s Apples,” so why does Mr. King presume his talent extends to food?

The most egregious example is Rap Cooking.  Snoop Dogg on The Martha Stewart Show.  Gangsta.  No joke: www.marthastewart.com/article/baking-and-rapping-with-snoop-dogg