Sources of inspiration

[IrishCream]

Hello, John. I am a big fan of your books, newsletter and website. Thank you so much for agreeing to an interview with eGullet.

I am curious about where you get the inspiration for your writings. For exampe, the chapter on potatoes, and the Irish, in "Pot on the Fire". Were you reading a book that caused you to consider it? Or did you come up with the idea and go research it? I guess I am asking about your creative process. How does it work?

[John Thorne]

Another hard question to answer. Once I've written an essay it's very hard to get back to the start of it, especially one like "Potatoes and Point," which had such a powerful effect on me when I was writing it...as did, in another way, "Cornbread Nation," in SERIOUS PIG and (obviously) the essay I wrote about the death of my father, "Last Gleaning." In the case of "Potatoes and Point," the focal point became the narratives of an American woman, Arsenath Nicholson, who wrote a first person account of the famine that is one most affecting and amazing books I've ever read. But when did I come across it? Not, I think, before I began the project (although I was incredibly lucky to stumble across the book -- it's not easy to find). And it blocks out what came before. So.... I wrote one essay in response to the famous painting by Van Gogh of his bedroom and I've always wanted to write an essay to be called Cezanne's Apple about whether it would be possible for a cook to look at an apple the same way he did. I have a stack of books on Elvis Presley because I've always been fascinated by his appetite, which was so powerful and feral. And there's another stack of books waiting in case I can ever gear up to answer the question "Why do men cook?" (I actually know the answer to the question, because it came to me in sort of aural hallucination, as if from God: "To tell their mothers something." But what something? Will I ever know? Probably not while my own mother is still alive, and the way she's going she may well outlive me.

[IrishCream]

Thank you for a thoughtful answer. A short follow-up question if you don't mind. Where do you start your research (beyond your own book collection)? The library, the internet, used book stores? How did you happen to run across the book by Arsenath Nicholson?

[John Thorne]

I do a lot of reading in a lot of areas that have nothing to do with food. (Readers who are curious will find some reviews of the books that have recently been on my bedside table at my website.) For example, a chance remark by Indira Gandhi to Bruce Chatwin was the take-off point for my essay "Kichri / Kushari / Kedgeree"; a comment by Jean-Paul Sartre about a visit to a Naples pizzeria helped bring about "Existential Pizza."

When I get a bone between my teeth, my most fruitful source of research is interlibrary loan or book searches (plus purchases) via www.abebooks.com. Laying your hands on hard-to-find books is one of the great unsung aspects of the Internet. What used to take half a year, if it could be done at all, now takes place in minutes. The Internet is, however, better at breadth than depth. I do find things of interest there but more often than not just run aground. And it is absolutely amazing how the same recipe can be replicated endlessly; very frustrating to someone looking for variations on a theme. Some projects require little or no research, others require an amazing amount. One that I'm at work at right now has brought me to buy a stack of books, many of them over a hundred years old. But that's another story.