by Sonja Hakala

“The Killing Tide?” Agnes Findley said as she looked over her friend’s shoulder at the book on the table. “Edie, I thought this month’s book club meeting was supposed to be about food not algal blooms? I thought you said those Brittany mysteries were mouth-watering.”

Edie Wolfe laughed. “I know. An unfortunate title, right? But hear me out. Have you ever heard the story behind the harvesting of fleur-de-sel? And did you know that Belon oysters, which are from Brittany, go through a finishing process before they are sold? And do you know what an entre-côte is?”

“I don’t know about the salt or the oysters but I had a very snobbish boyfriend—short-term, I assure you—in college who once took me to a restaurant in Montréal where he thought he would impress me by ordering entre-côte for both of us,” Aggie chuckled. “I didn’t know any French at the time so I had no idea what it was. You should have seen his face when I objected to eating cow. I was a pretty rabid vegetarian back then, something I had told him about, but he said everyone had to eat meat, and that vegetables were nothing.”

“Ooh, a Jean-Luc Bannalec mystery. I love those books,” Annie Crane said as she hefted Edie’s book from the table. The Frost Free Library in Carding, Vermont is under her care. “The way he describes food and the colors of the sea and the harbors of Brittany, c’est magnifique. Every time I read one of those books, I find myself looking up the price of airline tickets to France.”

“So what did you bring?” Edie asked as Annie placed a rectangular box on the table. Annie grinned as she raised its lid to reveal a succulent array of strawberries. Everyone in the room breathed in deeply because the scent of fresh strawberries was a gift to be treasured.

“They were just picked this morning, up at Tennysons,”  Annie said as she selected a glowing red fruit from the top of the box. “Still warm from the sun.”

“Ooh, berries,” three women cooed together as they entered the book club meeting room.

“How was the picking?” Denise Digby asked as she popped a red orb into her mouth. “Oh my gawd, it’s heavenly!!”

“The picking was great. It only took me an hour and less than half a row to pick a whole flat,” Annie said. “And Lee Tennyson was grinning. For once, he said, we’ve had just the right amount of rain and the sun over the past three days to get the berries into just-so-ripe condition.”

“Well, I know where I’m headed this afternoon,” Edie said over the sounds of snacking and smacking. “And probably again tomorrow morning to pick for my freezer.” Tennyson’s strawberries were not to be missed.

“So, shall we talk about books that center around food?” Annie suggested. “This is one of my favorites.” She held up a well-thumbed copy of Chocolat by Joanne Harris. “How about the rest of you?” All twenty seats in the room were now filled with women and books. Most of them nodded in answer to Annie’s question. 

“This is one of my favorite passages: There is a kind of alchemy in the transformation of base chocolate into this wise fool’s-gold, a layman’s magic that even my mother might have relished. As I work, I clear my mind, breathing deeply. The windows are open, and the through-draft would be cold if it were not for the heat of the stoves, the copper pans, the rising vapor from the melting couverture. The mingled scents of chocolate, vanilla, heated copper, and cinnamon are intoxicating, powerfully suggestive; the raw and earthy tang of the Americas, the hot and resinous perfume of the rain forest.”

A collective sigh rippled through the group. The book and its attendant movie were on everyone’s list of favorites.

“Okay, how about this one?” Mary Clavelle held up her book, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Mary had lost her husband Clarence to cancer in midwinter, and this was the first book club meeting she’d attended since then. She’d been nearly smothered with hugs when she arrived at the library but as her Clarence used to say, “Hugs are good medicine.”

“Do you know, that’s been on my reading shelf for a long time,” Ruth Goodwin said. “It sounds so good but it also takes place during World War II, and I have difficulty reading about that era if I read before I fall asleep.”

“Oh Ruth, I don’t think you’d have a hard time with this one,” Mary said. “It is about loss but it’s also about bravery and resistance to oppression, and how much courage in small places counts. And I think the authors handled the sad parts with real care so it’s more real than horrible somehow.”

“Do you have a reading from it?” Agnes asked.

“Of course. The book is set post-World War II and it is told through letters among folks who lived through the Nazi occupation on the island of Guernsey and a writer who lives in England. The writer’s name is Juliet Ashton, and this particular letter is from a man named Micah Daniels. It’s about a shipment of food from England to Guernsey, and what it meant to them.” Mary cleared her throat. 

“Miss Ashton, there were TWO BOXES of food for every man, woman, and child on Guernsey—all stored up in the Vega’s hold. There was other stuff too: nails, seed for planting, candles, oil to cook with, matches to light a fire, some clothing, and some shoes. Even a few layettes for any new babies around.

“There was flour and tobacco—Moses can talk about manna all he wants, but he never seen anything like this!”

“Can you imagine how much that meant?” Edie said. “The Germans took everything—food, light, transportation, freedom, lives. They let the folks on Guernsey starve. That boat that the Brits sent was part of what saved them.” She shook her head. “I will never understand human beings.”

“Yeah, we’re a pretty weird bunch, that’s for sure,” Annie said. She pointed to the mystery novel lying in front of Edie. She knew that a reading from a Bannalec book would lighten the mood. “How about you take us to Brittany, Edie?”

Before she started reading, Edie looked at her friend Ruth. Everyone in town recognized the bright yellow Jeep she drove to deliver mail in Carding, and most folks couldn’t remember when anyone else stuffed flyers in their mailboxes. Ruth had a reputation among those who did not know her well as someone who was blunt and brusque, and it was true that she didn’t suffer fools at all. But Edie knew the truth was quite the opposite. Ruth was a softie whose life centered around her daughter Sarah, her close friends, her beagle R.G., and her verdant gardens.

“I think you would enjoy this one,” Edie said softly, tapping the cover of the Guernsey book with her finger as she looked at Ruth. Then she cleared her throat. “Well, Annie turned me onto this mystery series a few weeks ago, and I’ve been ripping through them. It’s so nice to find a series of cozies without cats, bakeries, and too-cute writing. The writer is German, and his real name is Jörg Bong.”

“You’re kidding—Bong?” Aggie asked.

“Not kidding. Anyway, he really knows his way around a sentence and it’s quite obvious how much he loves Brittany, its landscapes, its food, and its myths and legends. This passage is about food and myth. You have to know before I start that the main detective’s name is Dupin, and one of the men who works for him is named Riwal. Dupin is rather skeptical of the Celtic mysticism that floats around Brittany while Riwal is steeped in it. Here goes.”

“[It] was one of the favorite Breton genres, Dupin knew. Their ‘devil stories.’ In Brittany, God and the devil were an inseparable pair, you couldn’t have one without the other. Dupin’s favorite story was the one about the slug, ar velc’hwedenn ruz. From the dawn of time, the devil had continuously tried to emulate God’s creation, to hold his own in a war of opposing creation. Only he never quite got there—he always came close but there was always something missing. That was why there were so many incomplete, half-done, awful things in the world, an idea that had a strange power of conviction when you looked around you in reality. When God produced the delicious edible snail, the devil also had to have a go. That was what gave the world the slug.

“‘The devil led people into temptation, seduced them. But he was really only testing them. A test of character. Not everyone succumbed to him. Only those in whom greed, envy, vengefulness, and selfishness were stronger than all the other traits.’ Riwal sounded deeply miserable now. ‘Just as in the case of the perpetrator here, not because it was their tragic destiny, but because they permitted it. People have a choice.’”

“You know, I’ve long believed that myths and legends contain more truth than anything called religion,” Aggie said. “I know that my opinion can get people’s backs up but the passage that Edie just read explains so much about people, about how humans who are infected with greed fail the crucial test of being fully human.”

“I wouldn’t care if they failed the devil’s test,” Ruth said, “if they didn’t infect the rest of the world with their ‘tragic destiny.’ Know what I mean?”

Edie closed her book as the conversation around the table drifted off onto other topics. One of the Tennyson sisters read from her favorite foodie book, Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquival as Edie plucked another strawberry from the box. As she let its juicy goodness flow over her tongue, she thought about the many people now in public life who had opted for lives filled with fear, greed, and selfishness, who had, in the words of the Breton legend, failed the devil’s test. 

She glanced at the copy of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society sitting in front of Mary Clavelle, and thought about the way the people on that island had helped one another through such a horrific time, and how Mary was now facing life without her beloved Clarence. Courage, like seeds in a garden, needed to be sown, watered, weeded, and treasured. Not out there somewhere else but right here and now, in Carding, Vermont.

“We will not be bowed,” Edie thought. “Not now, not ever.” And then she smiled as she looked around the table because she knew she would not be alone.

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The Carding Chronicles are short stories written by author Sonja Hakala about the Vermont town that no one can quite find on a map. They feature the characters in the four Carding novels.

The Carding books are available from Amazon and the Chronicles appear here, on this website, every Monday. Hope to see you next week.