Black Pepper Visions: Original Folk Tales & Stories You Can Eat. With foodlore and drecipes.
Black pepper swirls that absorb anger, tortillas that mend broken-hearts, and sun-dried cookies that encircle a cheating spouse (again) are only three of 16 fast-paced stories in Black Pepper Visions: Original Folktales & Stories You Can Eat.
This 160-page FolkHeart Press 2012 release, written by Karen Pierce Gonzalez, captures the magic of food through a range of original folktales and contemporary stories, food lore and personalized recipes.
“Complete with its culinary wizardry and fascinating historical roots that literally span centuries and continents, foodlore about how we grow, prepare, and eat our food allows us to creatively preserve important cultural traditions and beliefs. And these are what sustain and protect us,” said Gonzalez, a folklorist, journalist and author of several books including Family Folktales: What Are Yours? (FolkHeart Press).
Food lovers agree. “As a professional chef, I perceive food as an act of giving to others and sharing a part of myself. This can mean memories of food experiences I had as a child or while sailing and cooking around the world. The core, I think is learning, either personally or through another individual, the cultural history and family values behind each and every recipe I encounter. It is the foundation of food.Black Pepper Visions really solidifies these relationships with food for me through these wonderful tales,” said Chef Heidi West of Heidi West Catering.
Established in 2007, FolkHeart Press books also include Moose Mash and Other Stories, Three Months: A Caregiving Journey from Heartbreak to Healing and Spanish Cuisine One Region at a Time: Catalonia.
World of Writing
We are thrilled to present yet another World of Writing interview here on our blog with our featured guest: Karen Pierce Gonzalez - an award winning fiction and nonfiction writer and author of Black Pepper Visions: Original Folktales & Stories You Can Eat, Family Folktales: What Are Yours, and Family Folktales: Write Your Own Family Stories. She has been interested in folktales and folklore for more than two decades and has facilitated writing classes and workshops for more than fifteen years. Her writing credits include nomination for the Pushcart Prize and awards from Farmhouse Magazine, National League of American Pen Women, California Writers Association, and others.
Q: As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A: I always knew I wanted to be a writer. I used to devour books and then try to rewrite them with my own slant. There was something wonderful – and very satisfying - about filling up the lines of binder paper with copy I had created. It took years for me to understand the value of my writing and to realize that not everyone understands what it means to write, let alone write with heart and soul. In early adulthood, when I published short stories and poems I would stuff them and related awards into a drawer. Acceptance and appreciation of this talent has come slowly.
Q: What makes a good story?
A: So much depends upon the purpose and the point of the story. Some stories are intended to be a reflection or portrayal and others are bound to incite, excite, or encourage. Over all a good story is one in which the characters are real and the action compelling and heart felt (true). Characters who reflect decision making at its best and at its worst provide the greatest insight into our collective humanity. They show us and they tell us what we may not know about ourselves: who we are in relation to ourselves, others, and our environment (cultural as well as physical).
Q: What makes you write in certain genres?
A: I primarily write literary short stories that are character driven. There is an ease for me in this writing style because I am NOT bound by plot or reader expectations. The work can be as prosaic as is necessary or as lean as is required. As a journalist, however, I’ve learned to glean the essentials that must be conveyed and to ‘state the facts’ or make a point as simply as possible. The bonus: I can’t have ‘writer’s block’ when on deadline!
Q: Do you insert your own characteristics in your writing? (character development in fiction writing)
A: Sometimes, I do. Over time, I have found that many of my characters have also been shadowed/influenced by their pasts or have had to interact with others who have been wounded in way or other.
I have also discovered characters who juxtaposed what it is I believe in and, as a writer, have had to let their stories unfold naturally (without my per-determining the outcome). Occasionally, too, characters have had the same color of hair that I do!
Q: What are your favorite publicity activities?
A: Radio interviews because the “talking heads” format allows for both spontaneous (unscripted) conversation about a topic and provides for in-depth commentary that, I find, helps to create a larger context for writing/writing topics.
Q: Who are your favorite authors or poets?
A: My top 6: John Steinbeck, Alice Hoffman, Joyce Carol Oates, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Pablo Neruda, Lee cummings.
Black Pepper Visions Book Review
As one of the oldest known spices, pepper plays a large part in the first of sixteen short folklore stories in Black Pepper Visions: Original Folktale Stories You Can Eat by Karen Pierce Gonzalez. This 160 page FolkHeart Press book brings forward the idea of food exhibiting supra-natural abilities and how they may affect one's life. In the first story entitled "Black Pepper Visions," a local woman, Conchita, casts a spell on the black peppers her husband left when he left her. She would dance with "black peppered bodies" alone in her house and through anger had brought life to the black peppers which created black pepper visions for another local, Raul. "The black peppers had taken over. First they had taken her fiancés place and then hers."
In the story "Red Cherries," you are given a cherry pie recipe as well as some folklore behind cherries. The Chinese believed cherry would keep evil spirits away thus they carved statues out of it to stand guard in front of homes. In "Tortilla Woman", she creates "a tortilla that would stretch between two cacti like a roof over the child." She wraps the young mother and her lover in a tortilla cocoon where they were finally able to be together and away from her abusive husband. In the last story "Isalene," the tasting of her rose jam made herself and the man she longed for to discover their happiness together. She said "I first made the fruit for a man whose love I fed" but soon after he ran away with another woman.
At the end of each story, history on the spices or recipes for the food presented in the story are given to the reader such as the history of pizza, how to make blue potatoes and salsa, a biscotti recipe and many more. Not only are you transported into a folklore world throughout each story, but you are given the opportunity to bring that folklore into your own life through a simple food recipe.
I would recommend this book to those readers who find magic in cooking as well as magic in their everyday life. If you are drawn to folklore and folktales of food, romance, heartache and happiness, then this is the book for you. "In the literary realm, the use of such folklore motifs it's known as magic realism. In everyday life, it's simply delicious."
Author Karen Pierce Gonzalez has been interested in folklore for over two decades and is an award winning fiction and non-fiction writer. Her other publications include Family Folktales: What Are Yours? and Family Folktales: Write Your Own Family Story.
Eggs With Tomatoes And Cheese - And A Giveaway
A few months ago, the fine people at FolkHeart Press sent me one of their latest books-Black Pepper Visions. The book was written by Karen Pierce Gonzalez and is chock full of folktales and stories about food-with recipes to boot.
The other night, I cooked one of the egg recipes that go with the story of Zafira from the book.Eggs with Tomato and Cheese
You need:
4 tomatoes peeled and chopped
4-6 eggs (I used 4)
4-6 slices of feta cheese (I used the type of cheese I had on hand)
2 tablespoons of oil
pinch of sugar
salt to taste
Heat oil in pan and add chopped tomatoes, sugar, and salt. Simmer till tomatoes are cooked down and thickened slightly. (you can see my counter is still covered in tomatoes-best tomato production ever!)
Easy supper recipe
Drop in eggs and cheese-cover and cook till eggs are cooked through.
Eggs with tomato and cheese from Black Pepper Visions
Serve while hot-with a piece of toast-or rice-we've had it both ways and it was good either way. The Deer Hunter liked the recipe so much he allowed it'd be good served on a flint rock.
The book, Black Pepper Visions, is a little gem. Although the folktales and stories are not from Appalachia-they are fascinating. Leave a comment on this post for a chance to win your own copy of Black Pepper Visions. If you're interested in buying the book-go here.
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My book is a collection of dialogues with award-winning chefs from various backgrounds and cultures, sharing their personal experiences of where and why food culture is where it is today.
