3 Questions with Teresa Lust

We are pleased to present our latest “3 Questions”, this time featuring Teresa Lust, a graduate of the Master of Arts degree in Liberal Studies program at  Dartmouth College, with a concentration in creative writing. She studied Italian at Dartmouth and in Italy, and currently teaches Italian for the Rassias Center for World Languages at Dartmouth in addition to offering cooking classes. 

Ms. Lust will visit the Norwich Bookstore at 7 pm on Wednesday, March 11th to discuss her latest book -- A Blissful Feast: Culinary Adventures in Italy's Piedmont, Maremma, and Le Marche. The book consists of portraits of the people who served as her culinary guides in her exploration of authentic Italian cuisine. Ms. Lust's first book, Pass the Polenta, a culinary memoir, is also available at the Norwich Bookstore.  

1) What three books have helped shape you into the writer you are today, and why?

Consider the Oyster by M.F.K. Fisher. I received this slim volume as a gift from the
chef/owner of The Ark Restaurant and Bakery, where I held my first cooking job on
the Long Beach Peninsula in Washington State. My duties included shucking several
hundred oysters a day, so I had indeed spent much time considering oysters. I went
on to discover the rest of M.F.K. Fisher’s works, most of which appear in the
anthology The Art of Eating. Fisher confirmed for me that food was a subject worth
writing about. She echoed my appreciation for recipes as more than just lists of
ingredients and sets of instructions. I was struck by how she wove history, culture,
and personal anecdote into her writing, and her approach helped me see the layers of narrative contained in even the simplest dish.

First Person Rural by Noel Perrin (currently out of print). I took a class on Nature Writing from Noel Perrin while I was studying at Dartmouth, and he was instrumental in affirming my belief that eating is an environmental act. He found beauty and worth in the small things others overlook, and his evocation of these pleasures on the page helped me find merit in my own subject matter. He encouraged me to say what I had to say in words that suited me instead of in words I thought a real writer should use.

Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White, especially when viewed through the lens of The
Elements of Style, by Strunk and White. I read Charlotte’s Web over and over as a
child, and it was always a favorite. When I picked it up as an adult to read aloud to
my children, I realized how carefully constructed it was. It has a perfect narrative
arc; there’s not a single unnecessary word, not a phrase out of place. Of course, this
was the message of Elements of Style. Some people now think Elements is a
musty old book for fuddy-duddies, but it helped me learn to construct a sentence, and then a paragraph, until finally I had enough momentum to complete an essay or
chapter. As a child, I always cried at the part where Charlotte dies. But as an adult,
the closing lines are what bring tears to my eyes: “It’s not often that someone comes
along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.” Those are two
traits I aspire to myself.

2) What author (living or dead) would you most like to have a cup of coffee with and why?

I’d welcome a cup of coffee with Grazia Deledda. She is the only Italian woman to have won a Nobel Prize for literature, which she was awarded in 1926. She received only an elementary school education, as was the custom for girls at the time, and she taught herself after that by reading everything she could get her hands on. She evoked the people, traditions, and rural landscape of her native Sardinia with an unvarnished clarity, much as the writer Wendell Berry captures the agrarian rhythms of his beloved Henry County, Kentucky. In fact, I’d love to facilitate a conversation between the two of them, for in different eras and continents they both maintained a spiritual connection to the land, they demonstrated an appreciation for family and rural communities, and they put a premium on cultivating a sense of place. Of course if we held this meeting in Nuoro, Deledda’s native village, the coffee would assuredly be good!

​3) What books are currently on your bedside table?

Too many! I’m currently reading East of Eden by John Steinbeck. While visiting my cousin in Monterey, California in the fall, I felt a rush of emotion as we passed through the Salinas Valley and other landmarks in Steinbeck country. My cousin gave me her copy of East of Eden, which I hadn’t read since just after college. I’ve found myself lingering over sentence after sentence, admiring his descriptions of landscapes and inner character at once rugged and fragile. Steinbeck has been said to have a unique ability to unite the human heart and the land, and that quality is very evident in this novel.

Next up is The Song of Trees, by David George Haskell, which has been described as “a love song to trees.” I’m looking forward to the interplay of biology, philosophy, and lyrical prose. Then: 

• Dubliners, by James Joyce
• Testament of Youth, by Vera Brittain-- her classic memoir serving as a nurse for the
• British armed forces during World War I.
• Both Flesh and Not, by David Foster Wallace
• Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, by Elizabeth Tova Bailey
• The Secret Commonwealth, by Philip Pullman (volume 2 in The Book of Dust)
• The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri​

I like to slip in an Italian title every few books to keep my language skills in use. The first book in the Italian pile is currently Marcovaldo, by Italo Calvino. This is a collection of connected short stories that I keep on my dresser to read and reread. Marcovaldo is the book’s main character. He is a poet and dreamer at heart; the stories chronicle his appreciation of and yearning for nature and his discontent at being trapped in the city.

Other titles in this stack include L’isola di Arturo (Arturo’s Island) by Elsa Morante, and Passaggio in Ombra by Mariateresa Di Lascia. This coming of age story, published after the author’s death in 1995, won Italy’s prestigious Strega Prize. An English language translation is due out soon, with the name A Walk in the Shadows (not yet available in the USA).