The Un-Constipated Gourmet

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Hey, look, I'm part of a trend. This week a book called CURE CONSTIPATION NOW published. It's by a doctor, so prepare for more clinical info than what you'll find in the Un-Constipated Gourmet. (Dare I come up with an acronym so I don't have to type out my title every time? TUG. Oh, that's brilliant. TUG.) Prepare for a 3-step solution from Dr. Jones, the author of Cure Constipation Now. I haven't seen the book, but I love its timing. I'll endorse it just because it came out the same week as mine.

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WHAT IS THIS BOOK?

It is a recipe collection of delicious dishes from around the world that have the double benefit of tasting great and calling you to duty. We're not talking about mixing Metamucil into risotto, or spiking the Brandy Manhattan with prune juice. We're talking about a recipe collection that stands beside (or perhaps just behind) How to Cook Everything and The Joy of Cooking, that competes on all levels—ease, taste, quality of ingredients, etc.—with great cookbooks for home chefs everywhere. At the heart of every recipe are ingredients from god’s most “effective” food groups (think of them as “Superfoods” with an agenda) among them: fruit, legumes, chocolate, and coffee.

DO WE REALLY NEED THIS BOOK?

If you look at the stats, the constipated or potty-challenged are a very, very large group:
--# of visits to office-based physicians for digestive system symptoms in 2004: 41.3 million (Source: National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey: 2004 Summary)
--In 1992, the estimated total medical cost of all digestive issues: $107,000 billion
-- Diverticulosis alone – the disease that doctors claim is a direct result of constipation and low-fiber diet – affects one out of every two people over the age of 60

Yikes. Still, despite our numbers, this inability to “go” is mostly a private preoccupation. We buy Wheatabix and Metamucil in bulk and quietly and shamefully pray that the check-out lady will think it’s for the kids. But this silent suffering is fairly new. “The amount of attention that both medical and lay writers have lavished on the costive bowel over the last centuries is enormous...” (xii), according to James C. Whorton in his magnificently scatological tome, Inner Hygiene: Constipation & the Pursuit of Health in Modern Society (Oxford, 2000). Whorton reveals a time between 1800 and 1950 when defecation was the American Idol of bodily function. “No single harmful effect of civilization was warned about more frequently than constipation.” (33). Treatises on the subject sold in the tens of thousands. You couldn’t turn a corner without bumping into an advertisement for purgatives (Jam-0-Lax, Lax-Krax, Purgo, Purgil, Purgatin, Purglets). Advertorial booklets “itemized and explained the ravages of intestinal stasis.” One such booklet was called “The Story of Constipation”—as if the whole family might gather around with hot cocoa and enjoy.Frankly, I’m glad we’ve toned ourselves down. That it’s now an affliction mumbled under one’s breath or to one’s uncorked gloating spouse—seems much more appropriate. We’ve rendered the subject innocuous with words like “roughage” and “fiber.” We do not have to see our sorry selves portrayed on billboards or television, and really, except for the occasional mound in the street left by a dog and the inordinate attention paid to diapers, popular discourse is nearly free of poop today.Still, whether guttural or subdued, the obsession persists. And what truly astounds is that after all this time, we’ve yet to solve the problem in any satisfactory way. And by satisfactory, I mean, gourmet.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Danielle Svetcov is a writer and literary agent based in San Francisco. You can find her articles in Forbes, The New York Times, U.S. News & World Report, Real Simple, The Chicago Tribune Magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle Magazine, and many others.

In 1998 she attended culinary “camp” at Boston University where she discovered that commercial cooking is really “coal mining indoors.” She cooked alongside Julia Child and Jacques Pepin. After a very brief stint at Chez Panisse, she began writing restaurant reviews for Sidewalk.com in San Francisco, and compiled the first food guide to San Francisco for Virgin.

In 2003 she earned an MFA in fiction. About that she says, “Writing is cooking without a clear set of people to serve.” This is her first book. You can reach her at unconstipatedgourmet at gmail dot com.

The Un-Constipated Gourmet

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Thursday, June 25, 2009

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