A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers

You know a writer is good when he or she writes a villain in such a way that you not only sympathize and empathize with them, you find yourself actively rooting for them and hoping they get away with murder. Patricia Highsmith did it with Tom Ripley. Thomas Harris did it with Hannibal Lecter. Shakespeare did it with Lady Macbeth. And now we have the marvelous, food-snobbish, carnivorous (in every sense of the word) Dorothy Daniels in Chelsea G. Summers’ magnificent novel A Certain Hunger.

Dorothy’s story begins as she recants her first kill, the irritating Casimir whom she stabs with an icepick whilst banging him on Fire Island, and proceeds from there to tell of her upbringing in upstate New York with her gourmet-cooking, distant and beautiful mother, her banker, womanizing father, and her two rather dull siblings. Her voice is unique in its snobbery, lustfulness, intellect and humor. Dorothy becomes a restaurant critic and food writer, describing those heady days in the 80s and 90s when glossy foodie magazines were the rage. Being that she is a major foodie, obviously her other appetites are gargantuan as well.

The satire in this book is so hilarious that it works incredibly well as a cross-contrast to some of the rather visceral descriptions of the meat industry, and some of her rather inventive ways of murdering her lovers in order to extract their vital organs. Dorothy, you see, has become a cannibal. Her first fuck-kill-eat adventure begins with Giovanni, whom she meets on a train between Venice and Genova. They become lovers, obviously, go truffle hunting together, and travel together. On a fateful road trip, Giovanni loses his temper, stops the car and stomps off in a dramatic rage, after which Dorothy leaves him on the side of the road. Remorseful, she returns to pick him up and when the car headlights pick him up, she gives in to an unexplainable urge and rams him over a cliff with the car. Giovanni is impaled and dies instantly, after which Dorothy carefully extracts his liver, takes it back to her apartment and proceeds to prepare it in the same style as fegato di cinghiale, which is a paté of wild boar.

After that, there is no stopping her. Her high-level taste in food runs hand in hand with her increasing voraciousness for human meat, specifically, that of her former lovers. Her next victim is Andrew, with whom she deeply desires to have a rump roast……Andrew’s rump, to be exact. After that tasty adventure, she focuses on Gil, with whom she dearly wishes to share lingua con le olive. Lingua means “tongue” in Italian, so surely you can figure that one out on your own. Her penultimate vivisection is saved for Marco, her longtime on-and-off again lover of 25 years with whom she has shared countless Italian meals and countless sexual adventures and positions. His demise is one to be dismembered……er, I mean, remembered!

I laughed way too hard at this book, but I see the humor in the satire of a woman becoming a hunter of men and eating them. It’s hilariously, albeit darkly, written. It’s just such a clever viewpoint both on female empowerment, male power, the entire societal obsession with food and foodie culture, and the overall science of food, particularly the meat industry. It’s funny but it’s also meant to shine a light on areas that we, as self-proclaimed foodies, really should look at. I think it’s important to understand not just where our food comes from and how it is produced, but also the side effects of our consumption. This book does that in spades, and in the most blackly entertaining way you could imagine.

It’s a novel that I think you will either adore or loathe. Obviously I am in the former group. But what can I say, I love me a good story about a feminist food reviewer who is also a major food snob and who fucks, kills and eats the men in her life. I do think that the readers who dislike this book take it a bit too seriously. It’s meant to be hard-core satire, black as our protagonist’s meat-loving heart, and the book itself doesn’t take itself seriously. But I suppose that is the risk when you write anything in life and put it out into the world. It does take on a life and identity of its own and we, as readers and as media consumers, always read and absorb things through our own lens. Our own personal identities have as much to do with how we interpret what we see and read as what the author intends. This book slays…..literally. 🙂

I was inspired to create this meal after reading the passage where Dorothy reconnects with Andrew with the sole purpose of enjoying his juicy rump roast. Well, he did cheat on her with her former assistant so one can understand Dorothy is getting to the “bottom” of the issue in her own way. (Yes, I went there.) I mean, the woman is a murderer, but she does understand the way to a man’s heart……food and fucking.

Thus I reentered Andrew’s life, almost if I’d never left it. Before the sun rose the next day, I had cooked for him (a simple salad of greens and blood oranges, risotto with peas and porcini, sausages with braised fennel), we polished off a nice bottle of Anselme Selosse Champagne, and we had fucked, to mutual delight.

Sausages with fennel sounded luscious and lovely, so I made them with Castelvetrano olives and served with pea-and-porcini risotto. Any man would kill…..or be killed……to have this as his last meal.

INGREDIENTS
6 good-quality Italian sausages
3 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 cup dry white wine, such as Pinot Grigio
12 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
1 cup green Castelvetrano olives
1 large fennel
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
Salt and pepper to taste

METHOD
Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a heavy metal pan and brown the sausages for 7 minutes on each side, turning to ensure brownness on all sides. Remove from the pan.

Pour in the white wine, bring to a bubble and let reduce for about 10-12 minutes until it is thickened, then toss in the garlic. Cook for about 10 minutes. Your nose will let you know.

Crush the olives with the flat side of a knife and add to the garlic in the pan. Cook about 5-7 minutes.

Add in the red pepper flakes, stir to mix and let cook slowly.

Trim and chop the fennel into roughly six chunks and add to the garlic and chili flakes, and pour over a bit more wine or hot water. You want to make certain the fennel cooks and is somewhat soft but neither mushy nor hard. Cook on low for 25 minutes.

Add the sausages back to the pan, stir to mix and let cook another 5-7 minutes to ensure the flavors mingle.

Serve with porcini-pea risotto and enjoy, though hopefully not with murderous, cannibalistic thoughts in your head……though if you did, who am I to judge?