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I'm reading 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement, by Jane Ziegelman. The title tells a lot of what it's about; "edible" is there because she goes in detail into what the immigrants ate in their home countries and how they adapted those tastes and rituals to what was available in their new country, including contemporaneous recipes. She also points out how in many cases the reason they were leaving the old country was because there was NOTHING for them to eat, and the casual abundance of everything in America was stunning, and the abundance was adapted into their new rituals here. The five families came from different places to all live in the same building at different times, and it addressed how they made space for themselves in the New World and the specific part of New York they lived in, the Lower East Side which is very different now than it was then. The building they lived in is still there, and is now The Tenement Museum, so it's possible to walk through the spaces they inhabited. I haven't visited it for about 10 years, it would be interesting to see it after reading the book. My memory was that it was impossibly dark and cramped, but the book describes how much better it was than where they came from, or how other people here had to live. I'm enjoying it. Earlier in the thread, someone talked about "Capital: A Portrait of Twenty-First Century Delhi", and that sounded good so I found a used one and ordered it. I'm Zoom buddies with a guy in Delhi and he's taken us for walking tours of his neighborhood. Looking forward to reading it, thanks! This is a good thread, fun to hear what people are reading. Liked hearing James Joyce's voice, too, and the way he said the words made clearer what he was writing. Lots of puns and homonyms. I've never tried, because it seemed too strenuous, and I have a lazy streak at least.
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Mar 23, 2024 21:13
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