Sean Borodale explores the mysteries of culinary transformation in dynamic, sensual poems written as he cooked
These wonderful, original and sustaining poems were written while Sean Borodale cooked (rather as his first book, Notes for an Atlas, recorded his London walks – streets rather than a stream of consciousness – and his second, Bee Journal, his bee-keeping). One imagines him in his kitchen, and wonders how it must have been to have pen next to pan, the challenge of it all coming to the boil together, of poetry stewed, sieved, weighed, leavened – and served.
I love the culinary vigilance, sight and insight, the ear for sound effects (“I heat the pan. It happens quickly;/ the cadence is furious”). I hugely enjoyed tasting/reading, and felt an unforced rejoicing at the luck of finding myself at Borodale’s table. But there is also a submerged absurdity, unacknowledged and possibly barely recognised. There are moments when the precious takes hold, as in Preparing Potatoes, in which the humble spud gets unexpectedly promoted. “They are the gloomy dead, potatoes,/ along the walls at Mycenae.” It is splendidly pretentious. The high-risk intensity and folding in of classical references into the recipe won’t be everyone’s dauphinoise.
Related: There’s poetry in peas
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