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The Way We Are MARGARET VISSER © Copyright 2001 by HarperCollinsPublishersLtd All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without prior per- mission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews. For information address HarperCollinsPublishersLtd, Suite 2900, Hazelton Lanes, 55 Avenue Road, Toronto, ON, Canada, M5R 3L2. This author guide has been written by Samarra Hyde. perennialcanada AUTHOR GUIDES ·MARGARET VISSER Contents ·2 BIBLIOGRAPHY ABOUT THE AUTHOR The Way We Are Margaret Visser was born in northern Rhodesia, now 0-00-639106-0; $18.95 Zambia. The landscape of her childhood was dry, hot, and HarperPerennialCanada paperback edition colourful. Raised in a mining town, she recalls huge anthills covered with morning glories in her own and the neigh- bouring gardens. Her family became known for their Siamese cats, as they were the only people in town to have them. As a child one of their cats went missing, and it was returned to them tied by its feet to a pole which was carried between two men. Thankfully, the cat was fine. She left Africa at the age of seventeen to study journalism in London, England. She quickly realized that journalism was not for her, after working at her first journalistic job for the obituary section of a newspaper. Aside from visiting and having to question the bereaved, her job entailed answering the phone, something that she found quite terrifying as there were no phones in the Rhodesia of her childhood. Leaving journalism behind, she decided to study French at the Sorbonne. In Paris, she met and married Colin Visser. Margaret and Colin both taught English for the British Council in Baghdad for two years, but they imagined a life filled with travels and adventures, living a couple of years here and there, for the rest of their lives. Their next stop was America. Colin Visser, who had studied at Oxford, decided to finish his graduate work in Rochester, New York. They found it difficult to adjust to American cul- ture, and shortly thereafter they moved to Canada. In Toronto, Margaret decided to take an undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto. Initially, she had wanted to study archeology, which she had learned to love during her time in Baghdad. She recalls her fascination with the ancient cities surrounding Baghdad, many of which dated from 3000 B.C. and earlier. No degree in archaeology existed at the undergraduate level, and her advisor suggested that she study an ancient language. When she suggested Latin, her advisor said that she must also study Greek. Margaret Visser grew to love the Greek language and the study of the Classics. She earned a Ph.D. at U of T, and then taught Classics at York University for eighteen years. perennialcanada AUTHOR GUIDES ·MARGARET VISSER Introduction ·3 A classicist by training, Margaret Visser often shares her wis- The Way We Are is a collection of vignettes from Margaret dom with the masses. She has contributed to CBC Radio’s Visser’s column in Saturday Night magazine; she was a con- Morningside, The Arts Tonight, Ideas, Open House, Radio Noon tributing editor to the magazine from 1988 to 1994. John and Women’s Hour on BBC4 in Britain. She also researched Fraser, who was editor of Saturday Night magazine at the and wrote twenty television programs on Food and Festivals time, describes the typical experience of reading a Visser col- which were shown on PBS in the United States. Margaret umn as starting off “from a comfy, well-bolstered position— Visser has appeared on such television programs as CTV’s a nice tan makes us look healthier, for example, or Lifetime, Canada AM, CBC’s The Journal, the Today Show in Valentine’s Day cards are tacky—and then, before we even the U.S. and BBC Television’s Barbara Live in Britain, and have our seatbelts fastened, find ourselves whisked away in a has been interviewed on Australian radio and television. A series of brisk paragraphs through historical contexts and feature program on her life was produced in 1988 and aired cultural cross-references to a destination that is neither on CBC’s Monitor, and a television feature on her work was comfy nor commonplace.” made for ABC in Australia. She also wrote a six-part series on everyday life in six European cities that was broadcast by Margaret Visser recently published The Geometry of Love: BBC Radio Four in the winter of 1998. Space, Time, Mystery, and Meaning in an Ordinary Church with HarperFlamingoCanada. She currently divides her time Margaret Visser is the author of three bestselling books: among Toronto, Barcelona, and southwestern France. Much Depends on Dinner, The Rituals of Dinner and The Way We Are. All three of these titles were recently re-released in paperback format in PerennialCanada editions. AN INTERVIEW WITH MARGARET VISSER While chopping onions for sauce soubise, the idea came to her for Much Depends on Dinner. “Chopping onions is not Q. In the essay “Yes, But What Does It Mean?” you write an occupation which favours dreaming. Perhaps it was bore- about the culture shock that you felt when you saw a pack- dom or annoyance or simply that when you chop onions et of mustard in a New York restaurant. You wrote “I have you had better keep your mind alert, and my concentration been trying to understand what we participate in and spilled over, but I started wondering about onions.” A what is going on around us ever since.” Can you comment search for the where, how, and wherefore of onions led her on this? to “at least eleven different collections of books and…arti- cles in scientific periodicals, journals of anthropology, soci- A. The culture shock that I felt at the time far surpassed what ology, and folklore, histories of religion, culinary-historical the essay conveyed. We’d gone to New York City straight from writings in various journals, business, and trade maga- Baghdad, and we were disappointed when we were told that we zines…” and the realization that the subject of food was in couldn’t go to Rochester, New York, by the canal that was so need of a book. The resulting Much Depends on Dinner won clearly marked on the maps. So we took the train. All our world- the Glenfiddich Award in Britain for the Food Book of the ly goods were wrapped in carpets and we had a beautiful trunk Year in 1989, and was named one of the best books of the that we had bought in Baghdad because it was so cheap but it year by Publishers Weekly and The New York Times Book is now one of the finest pieces of furniture we possess. We reached Review. Rochester feeling raw. Colin was studying at the time, and I remember feeling hysterical at the height of the buildings and The Rituals of Dinner, a sequel of sorts to Much Depends on the speed of the cars. My husband had to come fetch me from a Dinner, explores how and where we eat. It won the phone booth because I couldn’t walk home. We had no idea International Association of Culinary Professionals’ Literary what America was going to be like. It’s very valuable remem- Food Writing Award and the Jane Grigson Award in the bering what it’s like not to belong. How amazing, bizarre, and U.S. It was also a New York Times Book Review Notable Book extraordinary a culture is that of North America. of the Year. perennialcanada AUTHOR GUIDES ·MARGARET VISSER Introduction ·4 Q. Through the media of radio, television, and books, you Modern people who are specialists tend to dig down a narrow have taken potentially academic subjects and made them but deep hole. Many new truths and insights come from outside both accessible and entertaining. Did you choose to make of that hole, from things all around. So when I research, I go off these ideas popular with a general audience? the subject, research around it, and that research often gives a whole new point of view. A. I was pushed into writing. While teaching at York University in Toronto, I didn’t have a car and was given a lift home one So it’s partly from the way I was educated and partly curiosity, afternoon. My friend asked me, “Do you ever listen to which leads me to take in more than you need. Morningside?” “No” “I was on Morningside yesterday. You should try it; it’s fun.” So I called Morningside and said that I In radio I had to think “what will I talk about?” Modern peo- wanted to be on the show and that I wanted to talk about ple are so educated, how will I know if people already know Ancient Greek mythology. They showed a lack of interest. It was that? Will it be boring? So I take a thing and try to account for the eighties at the time and so I said, “You know nothing about that thing. Like a church or an orange. I try to account for an Toronto society in the 1980s if you know nothing about Greek object and not an idea. An idea can be put into someone’s mind, mythology.” Five months later they called and asked me if I was but not an object. Taking an object for a subject enables you to the woman who wanted to talk about Toronto and Ancient digress, to talk about all sorts of things. Everybody has a mysti- Greece and would I like to come down to the studios and show cal experience whether or not they want to call it that.

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