When they asked me what I wanted to be I said I didn’t know.
"Oh, sure you know," the photographer said.
"She wants," said Jay Cee wittily, "to be everything.”
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
Some books are meant to be read at certain stages in life, particularly in childhood and adolescence. If you don’t read them at a young age, the magic isn’t the same. As an adult, the story doesn’t grab you the way it would if you were still a teenager.
The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath, is one of those books. I first read it when I was 18, during the summer break between high school and college. If I had read it when I was 20, or 25 or 30, I might not have found it so powerful, or remembered it quite so well.
The crab and avocado salad from The Bell Jar has been on my list of literature-inspired recipes to attempt since I started this challenge, and this week’s theme — Cult Classic — provided the perfect opportunity.
The book
It’s been almost 20 years since I first read The Bell Jar, but that first reading has stayed with me.
I read it because of Gilmore Girls — Rory’s extensive reading list and the show’s Sylvia Plath jokes piqued my curiousity; clearly this was a classic I had to try.
The beautiful writing, and the internal dialogue of the main character, Esther Greenwood, immediately grabbed me.
As a young girl who also wanted to be a writer, I identified strongly with Esther’s desires and questions about the wider world and where she fit in it. I remember reading late into the night, and being so horrified by Esther’s attempted suicide that I couldn’t sleep.
It took a second reading in college for me to see the hope in the novel. Esther may struggle with mental illness, but at the end she doesn’t succumb to it; she’ll continue to struggle and learn to live with it.
The food
In the novel, Esther attends a Ladies’ Day magazine luncheon with a decadent spread: caviar, cold chicken, avocado and crab salad. She relishes every bit, spreading the caviar thick on the chicken slices and eating them with her fingers. Her grandfather taught her how to love good food, she says, including avocados, her favorite fruit, and I love how Esther eats with abandon.
Unfortunately, the infamous magazine luncheon in the novel does not end well — everyone ends up with food poisoning from the crab salad.
When I was making this meal, I made sure to leave out the ptomaine in the crab, and transformed the salad into a millennial cult classic: avocado toast. (In this economy, I can’t afford caviar or even real crab meat. Avocado toast is as rich as I’m gonna get).
First I made a homemade pain de campagne, using a Ken Forkish recipe. The recipe from his book Flour Water Salt Yeast is one of my favorites.
I kept the avocado spread simple — just mashed avocado, salt and lemon juice. I topped the avocado toast with sliced cucumbers and a poke-inspired salad, using imitation crab.
The verdict? Delicious and easy. I love fancy toasts as lunches or light dinners, especially when the weather starts getting warmer. The imitation crab salad was sweet and paired perfectly with the crusty bread and creamy avocado. I’ll definitely make this again.
Next week: Three Sisters