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books
| 10/7/2009 5:26:00 PM Email this article • Print this article |
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Writer Adam Leith Goller recently spoke at Cornell’s Statler Auditorium, on Wednesday, Sept. 30. (Photo by Jason Sanchez) |
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Author Adam Leith Gollner speaks at Cornell
Lisa Mance
A certain philosophy of food consciousness - a keen desire to know how our food is grown, made and sold, as well as advocacy for more sustainable consumption - has skyrocketed in popularity in the last five years.
But some take it much further. In Adam Leith Gollner's luminous, eye-opening book, The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce and Obsession, fruits are the objects of obsession, a marvel of nature, and a crucial way of understanding human evolution.
Through his investigations both abroad - Gollner quests to the Amazon, the Seychelles, Borneo and West Africa - and at home, he unearths the untold treasures, controversy and the ancient history that helps explain the complex relationship that binds human beings to plants.
Recently, Gollner was featured as part of the Cornell Plantations' fall lecture series, where he spoke at great length on The Fruit Hunters. Simultaneously informative and wildly entertaining, Gollner is a true storyteller, taking us beyond our experiences and into a truly unknowable territory.
The Montreal-based writer, musician and filmmaker writes for the New York Times, Gourmet, Bon Appetit, and was the former editor of Vice Magazine. The Fruit Hunters, in addition to being a national bestseller, was also an Editors' Choice by the New York Times Book Review and a winner of the McAuslan First Book Award.
Currently, Gollner is working on his second book, titled Springs Eternal: The Neverending Quest for Neverending Life,a work that will explore our complex relationship with water and immortality.
The Ithaca Times recently met with Gollner, who, in addition to speaking about his next book, the creative process, and his previous life as a music critic, gave us a fascinating tour of the Cornell Plantations' Botanical Garden, which apparently houses a healthy, hermaphroditic kiwi plant. Who knew?
IT: Food culture has experienced a tremendous upswing in popularity. Is The Fruit Hunters is timely, in that sense?
Gollner: I think that's true, for sure. [The book] was certainly part of this moment where the consciousness of eating locally was being raised. And "foodies"? (Laughs) Five years ago, that wasn't even a word in the mass consciousness. When I initially started thinking about this book, it seemed like a really fringe, weird topic. It still is a weird topic, but it's not that fringe anymore, which is quite astonishing. (Laughs)
IT: Do you think that this growing interest in food is a permanent paradigm shift? Certainly food succumbs itself to trends as much as fashion or music.
Gollner: I think that in certain pockets of the population, like Ithaca, that is here to stay. Now that people have discovered purple flowering broccoli and the heirloom tomato, no way will they go back to eating iceberg lettuce year-round. But as far as the entire North American population... most people still eat hamburgers ever day. So... posterity will determine that. Posterity determines everything.
IT: Would you say that you approach learning about rare fruit the same way as you would about discovering obscure music? Is it a similar process of discovery?
Gollner: Yes, totally. I have thought that exact same comparison. I used to be a huge music lover, musician, music writer. It's like, when you discover a really great song, it can make you feel really special... You're totally enraptured, it's a state of ecstasy. I remember having these amazing fruits, and it would be the same thing. I was like, "What is happening here? Why is this so good?' And all I could compare it to was that it was like kissing someone for the first time, or this amazing song that you hear for the first time.
IT: It's this visceral thing.
Gollner: It really is. Over the course of writing the book... I came to think of them as horizontal experiences. My subconscious started to notice that when I would bite into an amazing plum or peach or whatever, it almost felt like I was lying down, like I was knocked over. It was this feeling of surrender to the majesty of the sensation. It's a religious, mystical feeling.
IT: Is that feeling specific to your psyche? Or if anyone had the opportunities that you've sought, there would be a similar sense of rapture? Is it universal?
Gollner: If I took you to this farm in Vancouver where they grow mulberries, and I gave you one of those mulberries, you would have no trouble saying that it was one of the best things that you've had in your entire life. (Laughs) It's completely precognitive. It's pre-language. Articulating it comes afterwards, and even then you spend years trying to decode that experience. Words always feel inadequate.
The complete, unedited interview with Adam Leith Gollner can be found online at our arts blog, Popcorn Youth (www.ithacatimesartsblog.com).
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The Youth Leadership Corps is a new Youth Council program to connect teens (14+) with their community through volunteer service while also doing workshops for leadership building and event/outreach planning. After two compelling opening productions, Glimmerglass Opera began its second weekend with an all-time favorite, Mozart's comic masterpiece "The Marriage of Figaro." Don't let the title fool you; with the libretto by genius collaborator Lorenzo da Ponte, this opera is presented in Italian with English projected titles. The show was a truly remarkable achievement-a seamless, clearly delineated, musically excellent, and emotionally telling performance-matched only by some unscheduled thunder and lightning theatrics outside.  |
