Ann Hood, Tomato Pie, Tin House, Spring 2014 (elevation of object, our hero goes on a journey, looks back at her past)

I have to admit that what initially attracted me to this story was the idea of reading about and possibly making potato pie. But I also like Ann Hood, especially her essays, and when I read the first paragraph in which Hood writes about the great, late food writer and novelist, Laurie Colwin, I knew I would want to read this piece through.

This essay is a bit long but there is some wonderful, vivid writing here. “The recipe got splattered with tomato guys and mayonnaise..” is an excellent example---we have the funny, violent and refreshingly original phrase, “tomato guts.” 

Hood writes about the mechanics of making the pie: “You place a layer of biscuit crust in a pie pan, cover it with sliced fresh tomatoes, sprinkle with chopped basil and top with cheddar cheese…” As Frank Conroy once said, process is always interesting and that includes the process of cooking. The mechanics of doing anything that requires concentration---planting flowers, climbing a mountain, sewing on a button, decorating a cake---can be made to symbolize an entire life’s effort and the object itself can go on the journey that the protagonist is also making. In fact, sometimes the object’s journey is more magnificent and vivid than the character’s and we end up loving and longing for that object as if it were a character. 

Hood made that tomato pie over and over until she got it just right. Hood ends that paragraph (on page 210) by writing, “The smells of that pie on a hot summer day make you feel dizzy, so intoxicating are they.” You’ve probably heard me say this before in class, and I know it sounds cynical, but your reader wants the experience of being drunk/intoxicated/high and you will give him/her a vicarious thrill by describing the effect of being intoxicated by food/drink/smokes/drugs/love in your work.

But of course, this piece is not just about getting tomato pie just right or the joys of making it and eating it. If that’s all it were, it would appear in Bon Appetit or Cook’s Illustrated.  This piece is about Hood’s evolution as a writer, her family’s vacations at the shore, her desire to emulate Laurie Colwin and become a published author, and most of it all, it is about Hood’s past, how she got through it and what she made of it. But one writer’s desire to emulate another writer is an old story. Hood cleverly gives the story a twist by inserting the making of tomato pie into it. She elevates the pie as an object and uses the pie to expand and narrate her story. 

And though her infatuation with Colwin is interesting, it is her description of her own family, specifically on page 212, that brings this piece to life. Notice the details of food, weather, books, the specifics of what her mother did at work. This is rich, thick writing: “Growing up, I spent most of my summers sweating in our backyard or watching game shows on TV, sitting in front of a fan and eating root beer popsicles. My mother worked at a candy factory, stuffing plastic Christmas stockings with cheap toys and candy all summer. But she got Fridays off, and she and my aunt would load us kids into one of their station wagons and drive down to Scarborough Beach, where my cousin Gloria Jean and I sat on a separate blanket and pretended not to know the rest of the family. We had plans, big plans. To leave Rhode Island and our blue collar, immigrant Italian roots behind. Even at the beach, we toted Dickens or Austen, big fat books that helped the hot humid summer pass.”

Hood also deftly uses smells in this piece. Notice on page 213: “I also remember the smells of steam heat and wet wool, the way the audience listened, rapt.” Don’t forget to use smell in your own work.

Finally, Hood beautifully writes about her family in this piece, and this is ultimately what gives the piece some heft: She is writing about loss here, the loss of family, the fading feeling of safety and happiness that children feel when their parents are nearby, and she writes about it beautifully even as she casually writes about food. On page 213, she writes: “We ate tomato pies with grilled cheeseburgers and hot dogs, and Italian sausages, my father manning the grill with a cold beer in his hand..” She mentions her mother’s poker club, Auntie Dora’s Italian meatloaf, etc. By page 214, she has killed all these characters off, and though that sounds callous and blunt, please notice that this loss of the people/characters she loves (and we have come to love) moves us as readers. We have come to know these characters and feel attached to them because Hood wrote about them with fondness and in detail, and she makes us feel sad about the characters she’s lost and prompts us to think about our own families and friends, perhaps prompting us to revisit the art of spending time with and remembering the people (and characters if we are writing and reading about them) we love(d). 

Hood writes these beautiful lines on page 214: “There are have been so many things I didn’t take good enough care of, or hold on to tight enough, because we don’t really believe we will lose them, do we? Somehow, we are always stunned that things go away, disappear, die. People too. They leave us and despite knowing better, their leaving is always a surprise.” 

Don’t be afraid to write movingly and slowly about people/place/things and pets that you have lost. Your reader wants to share that loss with you. Killing off a vital, vibrant character is an effective way to move your reader.