By Elaine Jinto
A few prompts to break the ice if you are stuck!
PROMPT 1
Food plays an integral role in our life—and not just because it is a source of sustenance! Food has an emotional, historical, and cultural depth that makes it a vital part of our lives.
Recently, I have been reading a book called 'The Kamogawa Food Detectives' by Hisashi Kashiwai that inspired me to write this prompt. The story revolves around the Kamogawa Diner, an inconspicuous, casual restaurant in a quiet backstreet in the heart of Kyoto.
Run by a father and daughter duo, the restaurant can only be traced through a one-line advertisement in Gourmet Monthly. Customers are drawn to the diner, as though by fate, not only because of the delectable delicacies but because the duo can trace any food from your past! From Napolitan Spaghetti for a much-loved grandfather suffering from dementia to Nabeyaki Udon for a man missing his late wife's cooking, the detectives were able to recreate any request, however whimsical, bizarre, or vague.
Your Challenge
This magical connection between food, memory, and emotion is something you can explore in your next piece! It could be about:
Your favourite dish.
Something you eat during festivals.
The food you reach for when you are tired or ill.
A secret family recipe (or a "recipe for disaster").
Creative "Jumping Off" Points
1. Idioms and Sayings
Think about how we use food in our language. Could you create a piece based on one of these?
"Spill the beans"
"Crying over spilled milk"
"Couch potato"
"Say cheese…"
2. Just Add Magic (Wordplay & Spells)
I love how the TV series Just Add Magic uses food as a medium for spells. I really admire the clever wordplay they use to name their magical dishes like "Settle the Beef Sandwich" and "Lost and Fondue"! Can you come up with your own "magical" food pun or a story where a meal has a supernatural effect?
PROMPT 2
In the next piece you write you could work on 'time travel.' And I am not talking about the cliche science fiction story of someone going back in time and changing the course of history. There are many ways in which you could incorporate time travel into your pieces!
There is a book called 'Into The Sideways World' by Ross Welford that talks about a world parallel to ours, so we are in fact going sideways in time.
Another thing you could think about is the difference in time zones. If you are based in the US for example, you are reading this thirteen hours ahead of when this was published in India. (That’s where I am!) Or you could think about how time seems to speed up when we are doing things we enjoy or slow down when we hate what we are doing. Another thing worth thinking about is how it often feels like after a day of travelling or some momentous change, that you have been moving around for days instead of a few hours.
I think memory has a great deal to do with time too. I can remember what I had for dinner when my cousins came over, but forgot what I ate this morning. How does time influence what we remember and forget?
PROMPT 3
I recently studied the poem Snake by D.H. Lawrence at school, and it's an amazing poem in free verse about the speaker seeing a venomous snake in his backyard. And, yes, I am often inspired by the pieces I read.
So, when the speaker glimpses the snake, he is torn between his admiration for the snake's sinuous and elegant curves and his knowledge that snakes like that one are deadly.
The whole poem depicts his internal struggle as he decides what to do.
Write a piece similar to that, where your character is struggling to make a choice or dealing with some internal strife. How do they portray it? You could use rhetorical questions and repetition to depict their struggle.
