Feast Quotes

“She could distinguish each element of the potato dish: the potatoes themselves, gently vegetal, their cloak of hot buttered cream, a black-note of garlic, a whisper of nutmeg. Matthieu had told her how it was made, proud to be cooking, not at the sinks that evening. The warm, subtle waft of Camilla’s bread, piled high in a basket and at the back of the procession, made Minha smile. But the duck was the star of the show. She detected red wine in the glaze, still a little tangy, offsetting the sweet, earthy meat. The darkly caramelized skin, that would be crispy, irresistible from Gustave’s efforts at the rotisserie.”
― Catherine Kurtz, Feast

“It was a market. She hung back as she found it, better to take it in, to manage her overloaded senses a moment before she tried to step closer, step in. Market stalls laden with the bright fruits of high summer, with verdant banks of vegetables, glistening with newly caught fish. The multilayered sweetness of every fruit in season— some she knew: apricots, grapes, greengages; some she didn’t. The slick saline memory of the deep, from the arrested body of each fish and crab. Each new scent she encountered was a puzzle, a challenge to the senses, to her memory. But there were a dozen here, a hundred. She reeled a moment. Steadied herself, feet to cobbles. Roasted meat and toasted pastry. The funk of horse manure, the bitter tang of coffee. The many-colored perfumes of late-morning townsfolk, sweat and cotton, youth and age, hair and soap, garlic-on-skin and hunger-on-breath.”
― Catherine Kurtz, Feast

“Minha's gift was her sense of taste. Her ability to savor. Big, bold tango and fandango on her tongue. The shift, the hint, the smallest component of flavor eked out and found, considered, remembered. When the unwanted fairy godmother, unseen and unknown, turned up at her birth, she did not bequeath a prophecy, or a fairy-tale ending. No. She endowed the infant Minha with the ability to experience, wildly, vividly, appetite.”
― Catherine Kurtz, Feast