In Praise of Food Items
- By Bilal Hafeez
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- 3 min read
I learned to cook during the pandemic and now I notice food in everything I read. Here are some poems and quotes devoted to food and ingredients.
Tea
‘Subtle charm in the taste of tea which makes it irresistible and capable of idealisation.
It has not the arrogance of wine, the self-consciousness of coffee, nor the simpering innocence of cocoa’
(Book of Tea, Tenshin)
Onions
You make us cry without hurting us.
I have praised everything that exists,
but to me, onion, you are
more beautiful than a bird
of dazzling feathers,
heavenly globe, platinum goblet,
unmoving dance
of the snowy anemone
and the fragrance of the earth lives
in your crystalline nature.
(Ode to Onions, Pablo Neruda)
Chickpeas
A chickpea leaps almost over the rim of the pot
where it’s being boiled.
‘Why are you doing this to me?’
The cook knocks him down with the ladle.
‘Don’t you try to jump out.
You think I’m torturing you.
I’m giving you flavor,
so you can mix with spices and rice
and be the lovely vitality of a human being.
Remember when you drank rain in the garden.
That was for this.’
(Chickpea to Cook, Rumi)
Plums
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
(This is just to say, William Carlos Williams)
Oranges
I’ll choose for myself next time
who I’ll reach out and take
as mine, in the way
I might stand at a fruit stall
having decided
to ignore the apples
the mangoes and the kiwis
but hold my hands above
a pile of oranges
as if to warm my skin
before a fire.
Not only have I chosen
oranges, but I’ll also choose
which orange — I’ll test
a few for firmness
scrape some rind off
with my fingernail
so that a citrus scent
will linger there all day.
I won’t be happy
with the first one I pick
but will try different ones
until I know you. How
will I know you?
You’ll feel warm
between my palms
and I’ll cup you like
a handful of holy water.
A vision will come to me
of your exotic land: the sun
you swelled under
the tree you grew from.
A drift of white blossoms
from the orange tree
will settle in my hair
and I’ll know.
This is how I will choose
you: by feeling you
smelling you, by slipping
you into my coat.
Maybe then I’ll climb
the hill, look down
on the town we live in
with sunlight on my face
and a miniature sun
burning a hole in my pocket.
Thirsty, I’ll suck the juice
from it. From you.
When I walk away
I’ll leave behind a trail
of lamp-bright rind.
(Oranges, Roisin Kelly)
Bilal