“The Help” has the taste of the South in the 1960s
Most people who’ve read “The Help,” the bestselling novel by Kathryn Stockett (Putnam) didn’t seek it out because of the references to Southern food. But the real nature of a place is found in its everyday meals, and Stockett has preserved a kind of South
ern life as surely as if she preserved Mississippi 1962 in amber.
In “The Help,” three women narrate their overlapping lives. They are Skeeter, an intelligent beanpole of a white woman, just graduated from Ole Miss; dignified, tireless Aibileen, an African American cook and maid who lovingly raises the children of white employers–right up until the kids get old enough to go along with segregation; and Minny, also African American, a cook/maid and Aibileen’s best friend. Minny is young, wide, and possesses a fast brain and smart mouth that keep her on the edge of disaster with her mean-spirited white bosses.
atest book, “Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating” (Simon & Schuster) is an easy-going guide to becoming what the author calls a Lessmeatatarian. Cutting down our daily intake of cow (chicken and pig too) saves natural resources now used to produce meat, and Bittman spends much of the book explaining how this happens. Then he moves on to the benefits for humans, and throws in more than 75 good (or at least thought-provoking) recipes.