If you start trying to come up with definitions for the word
“spot,” you’ll be here all day. That’s what happens when ambitious words want
to be good at everything — like that obnoxious kid at school who’s on all the
teams, plus the chess club, plus band, plus yearbook, and then decides in his
(or her) spare time to run for student government. Spot excels at being a noun;
a verb; an adjective; can be found cozied up to anything as a modifier;
straddles all classes on the social ladder; and can also boast being an
excellent example of onomatopoeia.
Spots even cross existential lines. They can appear as
words, in speech, in actions, and as actual stains. While a book which has been
spotted is usually considered ruined, like a maid whose reputation has been
sullied by a feckless youth, a cookbook is usually considered improved, if not
validated, by such attention. It means it has been used — like the maid — but
in a good, socially responsible way. The book has served its purpose.
Such is the case with old cookbooks in particular,
especially ones which have been used so often over many years that they have
become — like a woman — soft, wrinkled, supple, and forgiving. If you can find
a pristine first edition of Julia Child’s The
Art of French Cooking, that’s great, but not nearly as valuable as a
well-loved, well-thumbed, stained and spattered one, its pages a palimpsest of
print and dried organic matter identifiable only by the recipe upon which it
rests. Those brown spots next to roasted meats are gravy. The ones adjacent to
pancakes are batter.
All of them are spots of bother — trouble and love
(something akin to what the maid has gotten herself into).
Mastering The Art Of
French Cooking, Julia Child, 1961
Also from this book: Breaking Eggs
