MARGARET VISSER © Copyright 2001 by Harpercollinspublishersltd

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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 culture, 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. I try to them what I meant. I wanted to talk about something interest- account for it, talk about it. For instance how a mystical expe- ing, something that would intrigue people. So I explained how rience is turned into a building, which is the subject of my new it is that in Zambia, which was northern Rhodesia, Africans eat book, The Geometry of Love. insects but no one in Toronto does. Why is this? You have to understand anthropology to understand Ancient Greece. And Q. Many of your observations concern the role of men and the answer to this question can be reached through the study of women throughout history and in different cultures. Was anthropology. there any particular incident or experience that shaped your beliefs or led to your interest in gender politics? After that I was asked to return to Morningside. I talked about different everyday things and why it is that they are important A. A new view of male and female relations is one of the great in our culture, like oranges, potatoes, and sugar. This interest discoveries of the twentieth century. It has been a horrible cen- grew into a general fascination with food. My mother is an tury and perhaps because of all the destruction, a new way of English lady who never had much time for food. She can’t imag- looking at women has been able to emerge. It’s more interesting ine how it came about that I became interested in it. than even the technological revolution. Before this century men and women were caught in a system where it wasn’t possible to I spoke with Peter Gzowski about food quite a bit. People would look without prejudice at women. This new way of seeing call in and ask me about my book. I hadn’t written a book so I humanity is the one good thing that happened in our century. decided to do so. That was Much Depends on Dinner. I’d It’s the revolution of the twentieth century and it’s as big as the been teaching Classics at York University for about eighteen agricultural revolution. Being alive in our time it is impossible years and so after publishing my first book, I decided to give up not to react and think about the way we see the roles and lives teaching for writing. of men and women.

Q. You blend together many disciplines in your work. I was also raised by nuns and as a child I was only around Where did this approach to research arise from? women. This may sound medieval, but it meant that I was never under the thumb of men, I had to learn to be crushed A. Studying the Classics is the study of a whole culture. It after I had left school! Although there was nothing fluffy about includes history, language, anthropology, philosophy, art history, those nuns either. and methodology. It’s what being a Classicist is about. perennialcanada AUTHOR GUIDES ·MARGARET VISSER Introduction ·5 THE WAY WE ARE From the high-heeled shoe of male courtiers in sixteenth- Visserism 1. A concise socio-anthropological insight century France to the Venetian courtesan’s stilt shoes, which arrived at by comparing current human behaviour rose to twenty inches or more, we teeter along an anecdotal with various alternative models, e.g., Classical and amusing tribute to the history of impractical footwear Graeco-Roman, Martian, etc. 2. An entertainment in “High Heels.” In “Baked Beans: An Apotheosis,” we delve in which points are made by identifying and skew- into the mythology and history of cassoulet, to uncover the ering absurdities. 3. Any observation, esp. on con- relationship between a dish of baked beans and the proud temporary manners, that provokes shocked laughter; identity of a French town. a sly dig. 4. Archaic or literary. The doctrine that all scholarship, e.g., food chemistry, etymology, particle And in“In Flagrante Delicto” the delicate definition of a physics, etc., exists to prove that life is rich, funny, blush is determined to be a solely human characteristic, as and meaningful. animals flush and babies have yet to learn how to “submit to —John Fraser, from The Way We Are society’s hegemony over us.” Each of these essays taps into our fascination with our origins, our eccentricities, our foibles, and the marvellous details of everyday life that we B take for granted.

This investigation into the seemingly mundane from the One day in 1964, Margaret Visser was “fresh off the boat history of umbrellas to the modern meanings of the colour from England” and eating a burger in a New York City fast blue, calls our sense of the commonplace into question and food restaurant when she experienced culture shock. Like illuminates our shared humanity. most tourists of the day, she expected the glasses of ice water and the squeezable bottles of ketchup. But she was unpre- pared for how the mustard was served, flung onto the table in a clear plastic packet. This experience of what was an everyday occurrence for most North Americans made her QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION realize that living in North America was going to be very peculiar indeed. It also triggered Margaret Visser’s interest in 1) Many of these sketches have to do with the history of the anthropology of everyday life. From the history of knit- fashions. How do you think trends are started? ting to the mythology and meanings of Santa Claus, the sixty sketches that comprise The Way We Are add up to a 2) In “Greetings,” a professor of linguistics at Stanford witty and insightful investigation into the who, what, how University tried an informal experiment in which he and why of the way we live. ceased to greet people verbally or to smile when he met them. The strange looks and hostile reactions of The relationship between sun worship and class is delved into his colleagues and secretary soon made him give up in “Sunstruck.” From the 1730s to the 1920s the rich were the experiment and greet them in a normal manner. pale and the working class were tanned. In England, when the Why do you think people reacted so strongly to the wealthy took a dip in the sea they did so under the protection professor’s lack of greetings, when it is an everyday rit- of bathing machines. In the 1920s a group of artists and for- ual that people tend not to think about? Why are eigners, including Gerald and Sara Murphy, F. Scott greetingsso important? Fitzgerald, and Aldous Huxley, took a summer vacation in the south of France and suntanned. Sunbathing soon became a 3) “Blush, Cringe, Fidget,” uncovers the reasons for mark of leisure and wealth; from now on it was the workers embarrassment in our culture. Margaret Visser sug- who were pale—until they too began to take seaside holidays. gests that the most embarrassing situations happen to perennialcanada AUTHOR GUIDES ·MARGARET VISSER Section ·6 young people when they are trying hard to fit in. What is the most embarrassing situation that you can recall?

4) “I Mean, You Know, Like...” suggests that the Canadian lexicon and speech patterns are intertwined with Canadian identity. What do you think about the relationship between identity and language?

perennialcanada AUTHOR GUIDES ·MARGARET VISSER Section ·7