HS 405 - Inventing the Truth: Art
& Craft of Autobiography
 Baking An Autobiography “Autobiography through Food”
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Presented ByHarsh Sahai------->09010317
Ajay Kumar Yadav----->09010802
Amit Kumar Yadav-------->09010405
Anuj Verma----------->09010206
Surojit Ganguli------09010363
Baking An Autobiography
“Autobiography through Food”
What is a Food Autobiography ?
•The autobiography attempts to articulate the impact that popular cultural
performances of food may have upon current notions of food, identity and the self.
•The writer uses food as a vehicle for investigating and revealing multiple versions of
self.
•Food can imbue experiences with richness and complexity.
•Provides the ingredients to add flavor and spice to the memories that form a person's
life stories.
In short Food Autobiography is
“Disclosing the Self through the Performance of Food”
Examples of some Food Autobiography
•The Autobiography of the Original Celebrity Chef" by Colonel Sanders
•"Alice, Let's Eat” by Calvin Trillin's
•Toast-The Story of a Boy’s Hunger written by Nigel Slater
•New Orleans- A food Autobiography written by Elizabeth M. Williams
•Artist in the Kitchen: A Brief Autobiography in Food by Michael
Fracasso
Objectives
To provide inspiration and practical lessons for the home
cooks
“This is a new kind of book. There's never been another
written like it as far as I know. It's the story of a man's life and
the story of the food he's cooked and eaten, running right
along with it. The food I've liked, the work I've done and the
way I think are all the same thing. I'm going to tell how I grew
up and at the same time how you can have the kind of food I
grew up on. I'm making room in these pages for real old-time
American country and farm cooking before it's forgotten. I
was a farm boy and lean toward farm cooking. To me, my
recipes are priceless.“
Colonel Sanders
Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC)
To Convey Emotions
• Eating has never and never will be simply about satisfying physical hunger. We
eat not only to quell a rumbling stomach, but also to satisfy the appetite and
deal with emotions
• Depending on if you are sick you would want hot/warm food for a cold and
cold food for a fever
• “My comfort food had to be ice cream. When I am happy I eat ice cream”
To Depict The Culture To Which A Person
Belongs
“Since I come from an African American background
we eat lots of fried foods, cakes, dairy, and pork products”
Freddie Horne
“Well my culture eat a lot of beans and yes I do eat them”
Talia Rodriguez
“My grandma told me that for her every news year she
would always eat black-eyed peas for it was good luck”
Jackie Dooley
Role Of Food In Preserving The Tradition
“I have some recipes that my grandmother taught me before she
passed away. A technique that I have is called slow roasting”
“My great-great grandma's sugar cookie recipe she used to make the
cookies with homemade butter and she would frost them”
“My grandmother taught me some of my favorite foods. I learned to even
go to the grocery and shop for the stuff. There is a dish my grandma
wants to make with her it was called papaya salad”
Food Autobiography of Jill Dupleix
• Believes that food is one of the ways of tracing
ones own personal history
• According to her food has an incredible power to
evoke the past; to remind us of special occasions,
disasters and triumphs, and those long gone
• To write her autobiography she came up with ten
dishes from her past to present, from the very first
food memory to her current obsession
• These dishes represents certain ages and stages.
That’s her entire life there, “plate after plate”
“All good
food comes with a story, and the stories need
sharing as much as the food”
First Important Dish: Porridge
“My grandmother, was a brilliant porridge maker and I used to love
staying with her overnight so we could have porridge for breakfast.
She had a small red enamel pan (her entire kitchen was fitted out in
bright red) and a number of wooden spoons that were worn down
almost diagonally in half from all the stirring. I’ll never forget how
heavenly that porridge smelt”
Reminds the autobiographer about her childhood and also
the associated surroundings.
Second Dish: Egg And Bacon Pie
Evokes the memories of holidays and the activities done during
those holidays.
Third Dish: Lamb Chops, Mashed Potatoes
And Peas
Gives us an idea of the diet of the autobiographer in her childhood
Fourth Dish: Sausages And Honey
Reminds the author of the time she spent in a boarding school
and some of the hardships she faced
Fifth Dish: Tiropites, Little Triangular Filo
Pastries Filled With Feta And Spinach
Reminds the author of the holiday in Greece and the company
she had during the stay.
Sixth dish: My Pub Roast
“It went like this: put leg of lamb and heaps of potatoes in the oven
to cook, and go to the pub. Have such a good time that by the time
you come back hours later the lamb is completely crisped and the
potatoes are incredibly crunchy and golden and completely hollow”
Reminds the author of the good times she had with her friends
Seventh dish: Oeufs poule aux caviar
(Eggs in eggs)
The dish reminds the author of the relationships she had and
the special memories associated with each
Eighth dish: Gougeres
“Still on the French kick, although by now I was into hearty, rustic
regional food rather than cheffy stuff. I’d been to Burgundy and eaten
these enormous, puffy, cheesy choux pastries fresh from a bakery on a
hilly street of Vezelay and fallen in love with them. But I was still
scared of words like ‘choux’ and ‘pastry’. Determined to conquer my
fear, I had a go at heating water, butter and salt, dumping in the flour
and beating like mad until the dough left the sides of the pan. Then I
threw it in my trusty food processor, added eggs and whizzed, added
cheese and dropped spoonfuls onto a tray and baked them – and they
worked. I felt invincible. I had made Gougeres”
Ninth Dish: Sticky Toffee Pudding
“What a great dish this is. I was once doing an ABC radio recipe
segment on what was then called 3LO – the night I ran through the
sticky toffee pudding recipe the switchboard jammed as the ABC was
hit with requests – they handed out over 500 recipes that night alone.
There were some quite important political events happening around
that time, but we the people had decided a good pud was far more
important”
The pudding serves as a reminder of the challenges and
enjoyment the author had while working
Tenth Dish: Flourless Chocolate Cake
We believe that some great chefs have used food as a
means of self-expression and they chose this mode
because it suited them best. We are going to
attempt to translate to words what their food
conveyed to us and interpret it in context to their
history that we got from the internet
Food Autobiography of Rene Redzepi
He was born in a Danish family of modest means. He and his brother managed ten
newspaper rounds to help contribute to the family finances. Only the essentials
could be afforded, and this also applied to food.
Redzepi had difficulty concentrating at school, and it was largely a coincidence that
he started at the Hotel and Restaurant school after finishing basic school. But
within a week, he won a competition for the best dish and from then on he was
hooked into the world of food.
He is now the head chef of a Three Star Michelin Restaurant called “Noma in
Copenhagen”
Sea Urchin Toast
A thin sliver of toast that holds a pristine raw Norwegian
sea urchin.
Beets and Plums
A dish of grilled beetroot, fermented plums with a fennel and verbena sauce. The beetroot is roasted for three
hours, giving it a dense, meaty texture with a mild hint of liquorice.
Øllebrød
Rye bread soaked in beer and served with sorbet, milk foam and rye crumbs.
Food Autobiography as Creative Nonfiction
Creative nonfiction (also known as literary or narrative nonfiction) is
a genre of writing that uses literary styles and techniques to create
factually accurate narratives.
The primary goal of the creative nonfiction writer is not to communicate
information, just like a reporter, but to shape it in a way that reads like
fiction.
Forms within this genre include personal essays, memoir, travel
writing, food writing, biography, literary journalism, and other hybridized
essays.
In a food autobiography, writer attempt to observe, record, and thus shape
a moment(s) from real life. Writers thus extract meaning through factual
details—they combine the fact of detail with the literary extrapolation
necessary in rendering meaning from a particular dish.
Manner of Writing a Food Autobiography
Autobiographies could be written to capture a particular phase, eg child hood,
of the writer’s life. An example of this type of autobiography could be “ ToastThe story of a boy’s hunger” by Nigel Slater.
Some times these autobiographies try the share the experiences of an author’s
visit to an alien land through the rich food culture of that place. An example
could be “New Orleans- A food Autobiography” by Elizabeth M. Williams.
Rarely the author of a food autobiography may have the patience of writing an
autobiography at a later stage in life, clearly illustrating the importance of the
food , which he/she has cooked and eaten, has had on his entire life. An
example could be "Colonel Harland Sanders: The Autobiography of the
Original Celebrity Chef."
Frequently used literary Techniques.
Reflective tone  The focus is on writing that is not merely descriptive
Emotive language  Used to provoke an emotional response in the reader
“Cooking “ Metaphors- A recipe for disaster.
 Food for thought
Rhetorical Usage
Anecdotes Short and amusing or interesting account, attracts readers.
Personification  The jello danced on my plate.
 Some of the gravy ran down my hand.
Makes Description more
vivid
Flashback  Makes the autobiography deeper and more insightful.
Bibliography
(1) Food Confessions: Disclosing the Self through the Performance of Food http://journal.media- ulture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/viewArticle/199
(2) Colonel Harland Sanders: The Autobiography of the Original Celebrity Chef http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/31/colonel-sanders-autobiography-freedownload-facebook_n_1560165.html
(3) New Orleans a Food Biography - http://www.scribd.com/doc/122542633/NewOrleans-A-Food-Biography
(4) “Write your own food autoography: my life in 10 dishes.”, Jill Dupleix http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/blogs/table-talk/write-your-own-foodbiography-my-life-in-10-dishes-20100729-10xrd.html
(5) René Redzepi – Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Redzepi
(6) Creative nonfiction - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_nonfiction
(7) Toast: The Story of a Boy's Hunger - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Toast-Story-HungerNigel-Slater/dp/000739361X
(8) Food Autobiography - http://jramosfoodid2008.weebly.com/foodautobiography.html