Something more substantial than it looks

My kittens set upon this book and made short work of it, jealous that I found it so fascinating. And I did. It lived up to its name. Looking (from the outside) like any other chicklit but being something more substantial, a lot more...

The book follows the misadventures of one Lois Clary (remember her first name, it is actually a plot point) a computer programmer, smart but fairly normal, from Michigan, who is headhunted into a job into San Francisco for a substantial rise in salary (though the gains are balanced out by the prohibitive cost of rental in that great city). When we first meet her, her life is fairly typical of a programmer (though somewhat strange to the rest of the world) and in nothing so much as how she sustains herself.

On Slurry, a nutritive gel, that comes in tubs. In fact, at the office cafeteria, she sits at the "Slurry" table, with other colleagues who imbibe this gel rather than the offerings of the expensive chef her big boss, Andrei, has hired to keep his overworked (12 hours a day is par for the course) employees happy. 

Her job? Programming robot arms to do a host of human tasks, so as to replace humans in those tasks. This is way beyond the normal, repetitive tasks normally assigned to robots such as those on an assembly line: here, they are programming the robot arms to do tasks that require feeling and sensitivity, such as breaking an egg into a bowl.

For all her high salary, Lois's life is extremely circumscribed. She develops a stress-related stomach complaint (even if what she is consuming on a daily basis provides the necessary vitamins and is easy on the stomach) that the company doctors diagnose as being "stress-related". Her work is not up to

par. She worries about it. She is not good enough for this job that takes up all her time and energy.

Then one day, she comes home to a flyer advertising a spicy soup and orders it on a whim. It comes with sourdough bread and from the first taste, she is hooked. It is made by one Mazg (a country neither she, nor anyone else has ever heard of) brother and delivered by the other. Their names sound slightly Slavic, slightly Middle Eastern (Beoreg and Chaiman) and she simply LOVES the soup. Despite being as spicy as it gets, it nourishes her in a way the nutritive gel simply cannot...and her stomach begins to feel better.

But then...the brothers leave for Edinburgh, leaving her some of the starter for their amazing sourdough bread.

Now, Lois, is no baker.

But going back to the nutritive gels for sustenance, she craves what she has lost. And so, she buys a book on making sourdough and gets going.

First, she has to keep the starter alive. This involves not only feeding it (like a normal starter) but playing Mazg music to it. The starter responds to the food and music. And the bread baked with this starter has a face on it.

There is more than a little element of the mystical in this book, a spot of magical realism, to go along the descriptions of programming computer arms, detailed instructions on building your own oven, the ideal for sourdough, etc. In fact, there is a a LOT of technical detail in this book, but it is woven in so effortlessly that rather than detracting from the text (as technical detail is wont to do, believe me, I know about this, I had to write articles about technology) it adds to it. It makes it more substantial, gives it a better mouthfeel, you are actually crunching into something with texture, rather than the souffle of most chick lit books.

And here, there is no love interest, unless you consider Lois and the starter. There is an email  relationship with Beoreg, however. And soon, Lois is baking bread, not only for herself but one neighbour and the office cafeteria (because the bread is so good). And soon, she is convinced to try a farmer's market in San Francisco.

I didn't know getting into one of these markets was so complicated.

But she doesn't get in.

Instead, she is re-routed to an underground market that is seeking to disrupt the quaint farmer's market "natural" paradigm by marrying food and technology. In fact, to get a space, Lois has to buy a robot arm from her company to add pizzazz to her offering -- she is given the spot by the door of this market. At first, her robotic arm can only mix the batter. But soon, Lois figures out how to teach it to break eggs into a bowl, the killer app, so to speak. And once one arm is trained, all the arms are because the programme goes out to all the arms in the system.

What is sourdough? What is natural food? What price nutritive gels or genetically altered food?

Why does the spicy soup taste so damn good? Who are the Mazg?

This book attempts to grapple with some of these questions. But there is a vein of dark humour running through everything. 

I loved it. I rushed through it. The kittens could see how much I loved it. Which is why they attacked it with such gusto (to be fair, they attack all my books with similar gusto).

Here's an extract:

"There's a great realignment coming," the fish intoned. It will be equal to the upheaval of the 1950s. You have heard me say this before. In those years, the entire experience of eating in America was remade. Packaging, refrigeration, the interstate highways -- you can trace it all back. These systems were invented by particular people, at particular times, in particular places." The fish paused. "Times like now." Its glittering eyes scanned back and forth. "Places like this." Another pause. "We can build a new system."

The shiver of pleasure that ran through the assembled vendors was so intense. I felt it like a rattling gust. They believed the fish. The fish was their prophet.

"On both sides, they've failed us," the fish said. "Of course, we know about the industrialists. Their corn syrup and cheese product. Their factory farms ringed by rivers of blood and shit, blazing bonfires of disease barely contained by antibiotic blankets. These are among the most disgusting scenes in the history of the planet."

Murmurs of agreement and apprehension at  that.

"But on the other side...the organic farms, the precious restaurants...these are toy supply chains. 'Farm to table,' they say. Well. When you go from farm to table, you leave a lot of people out." The crowd was silent. "I think more poorly of these people than I do of the industrialist, because they know better. They know it's broken, and what do they do? They plant vegetables in the backyard."

Read this book. I highly recommend it. And you're in luck. There are still copies at BookXcess.