Speak No Eatable

In retrospect, we probably should have known better. Well, I’ll admit it. I did know better. I’m an experienced mountaineer, after all. I know what to to bring on a hike. I know how know to keep my blood sugar up, and I know what to eat before hiking. And Ryan and Ali and Andrew weren’t exactly rookies either. We’d climbed tons of mountains. We knew what we were doing. And yet somehow, suddenly, we found ourselves stuck halfway across the Sawtooth Ttraverse between Mount Bierstadt and Mount Evans, not having eaten in hours, hiking on aching stomachs, operating under a strict ban on conversations about foodfood-related conversation. “I told you so,” I kept telling my companions. “I told you so.” I had told them so. I had warned them. Don’t talk about food, I said. For God’s sake, it’s too dangerous. I’ve seen the consequences—the inhumanity, the suffering. I described it to them the way a soldier back from the battlefield might describe the horrors of napalm, or gangrene. They listened carefully, soaking in every word. “We’ve been there,” Ryan and Ali said. And they told the story of how, in the third hour of a weeklong canoe expedition, poor Ali had become infected with a senseless craving for chicken tandoori, an all-encompassing foodlust that grew like a fungus, spreading to Ryan, until finally they had to cut their trip short and drive four hours to the nearest Indian restaurant. It was the best chicken tandoori they’d ever had, they said. The outer skin had been crisp and black and perfectly seasoned, the butter-soft meat inside it practically dripping off the bone... “No!” I cried, but it was too late. We could all taste the chicken tandoori. My belly burned like it was on fire. It was all over. We tried talking about other things but hunger wouldn’t let us. A few minutes later Ali accidentally said the word “stroganoff” and Andrew had some kind of seizure. After that we had to hike in total silence. I began to hallucinate that I was still chewing my breakfast: the half a chocolate muffin that Andrew had given me. It was all I’d had to eat before hiking. He’d waited until I’d swallowed the thing to announce that it was seven months old, and that he’d found it in the trunk of his car. Now, four hours later, I gladly would have killed him for the other half. You don’t have to spend long in the backcountry to know how it magnifies the attraction of food. When I was in high school, camping with friends, we used to sit around the fire wolfing down freeze-dried goulash reconstituted with boiled river water full of spruce needles and dirt, raving about the exquisite taste, declaring our undying love for the cooks, swearing to God that the second we got home, we were going to recreate this matchless meal in every detail. Those of us who followed through learned that in a kitchen, away from the smell of evergreens and soil, away from the chill in the air, the stuff we were eating wasn’t merely bad. It, but wasn’t even food. Out on the trail, in our weaker moments, we’d give ourselves over to fantasy. If the backcountry can make the sorriest slop taste delicious, what could it do to fine cuisine? What might happen if we somehow procured a platter of Beef Wellington? Would we ascend directly to Nirvana? We concocted elaborate plans to get good food into the backcountry. Much brainpower was expended on schemes to keep it hot on its the seven-mile journey from the trailhead. Before long, we realized that if one of us fell off a small cliff, we could order a helicopter medical evacuation, and while we were at it, maybe a roast duck in cranberry chutney, a whole bucket of Olympia oysters, two supreme Mountain Pie pizzas from the original Beau Jo’s in Idaho Springs, and a twenty-pound variety pack of Little Debbie snack cakes. Soon the food fantasies went would go horribly wrong. Crazed with hunger, we’d start eyeing each other suspiciously, wondering who was going to be volunteered for the cliff dive, and who would get to call in the food order, and whether he would insist on anchovies. We were starting to understand what might drive a wild-eyed, cabin-fevered mountain man to cannibalism. “It’s not that I felt like eating old Jeb, particularly—it’s just that he wouldn’t quit talking about juicy, medium-rare strips of grilled venison sirloin marinated in burgundy wine, with Kalamata olives and fresh oregano...” As the word “oregano” escaped my lips, I snapped out of my feverish reminiscence and realized I’d been talking aloud. Ryan and Ali and Andrew were staring at me with desperate eyes, measuring the distance between us, clearly wishing that they had an axe, and a cooking fire, and a bottle of burgundy wine. Three hours later—dangerously , slaveringly, terminally ravenous—we stumbled like drunks into the restaurant at the Echo Lake Lodge. We demolished greasy bacon cheeseburgers with fries and chilled coleslaw and salads of iceberg lettuce squashed flat under the weight of a ponderous bleu cheese dressing. The well-being started in our stomachs and crept slowly outward from there, as successive layers of body cells gasped collective tiny sighs of relief. It would’ve been a mediocre meal if we hadn’t been crazy with hunger. Under the circumstances, it was beyond exquisite. It was divine. And that was when I realized where the magic comes from:. nNot from the smell of evergreens and soil, not from the chill in the air. The magic is in the fantasies. If you didn’t marinate for hours in detailed dreams of texture and flavor, you wouldn’t get the juicy reward. If you obeyed the rules and never talked about food on the trail, then when you finally got fed, it wouldn’t taste so goddamn good. I explained my new theory to the others. We thought about it for a long time, licking the congealed grease off our fingers. As they started to drift off into food comas, I could see that I had convinced them that maybe, just maybe, there is a time and a place for talking about food on the trail. “Sure, you can talk about food all you want,” said Andrew dreamiliydreamily. “But next time I’m bringing the axe.”

I really like how you are able to build up the suspense for your reader. I felt like I was in your shoes the entire time … getting more and more hungry as I read. What also made you writing work well is the fact that you placed adjectives (specific to food) in the right places at the right time … your descriptions helped me see how desperate you became for food, especially when 20 pounds of hostess cakes were mentioned. I think there are some parts where background knowledge is needed, such as the Colorado mountain references and the Alfred Packer cannibalism comment. But, I do not think they would have caused someone who is not familiar with the story or the mountain names of Colorado to not read or be interested in what you had to say.

Also, you have a clear message and do well executing it. You do just enough when it comes to elaborating on the topic, but also bring your audience back to the main point. You also resolve the “issue” of your story at the end, which concludes your writing well.