Against Food as a Benign Good with Lottie Hazell
Photo: Siobhan Calder
Welcome back to the Lecker Book Club. Every month I’ll pick a newly released food related book and talk to the author about the process of writing it. I’ll also be writing about it on Substack and Patreon. Join me there as well!
This month: Piglet by Lottie Hazell.
I first came across Lottie’s writing when she contributed to the first Lecker zine I curated and published in 2019: Plum Jam, a piece of short fiction about a funeral, an underset blancmange and a broken tooth. I still remember how the piece unsettled me, placing complicated family relationships alongside difficult or reluctant pleasure derived from feeding others; or being fed by others. Her debut novel, Piglet, came out earlier this year and its writing is deeply rooted in what food can mean to us: physically, emotionally and socially.
I loved talking to Lottie about Piglet so much! As you’ll hear me tell her in the episode, it was such an interesting experience to encounter such luscious, detailed writing about food in a fictional setting, particularly set alongside scenes of such discomfort. The book made me squirm, in a really intriguing way and I loved how the dishes and tablescapes Piglet makes and consumes dressed the set of her home and work lives.
Heads up that if you haven’t read the book, we do talk about specific plot points in it so if you’d prefer to be spoiler free, go and read it first! And the book does touch on themes of body image, weight and some implied references to disordered eating, so if those topics are sensitive to you please take care.
You can find a transcript for this episode at leckerpodcast.com.
Piglet is out now, published by Doubleday. Find all of the Lecker Book Club reads on my Bookshop.org list.
Buy a copy of either/both of the Lecker zines on BigCartel. You can also order print-on-demand merch at Teemill.
Support Lecker by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon, Apple Podcasts and now on Substack.
Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.
I'm speaking at Interesting24 on 15th May at Conway Hall in London! Buy a ticket to come and watch me talk about kitchens.
Find the transcript for this episode after the embedded player:
Please note the transcript is auto-generated by Descript and may contain unintended errors.
[00:00:00] Lucy: This is Lecker. I'm Lucy Dearlove. Welcome to the first Lecker episode of 2024. Yes, I know it's May at this point. I decided to take a little break from the podcast at the start of the year as, to be honest, I've been quite burnt out recently. And, uh, It made sense just to have a little rest and come back renewed.
[00:00:24] And that renewal, that break ended up being a little bit longer than anticipated, but I'm back now. Thank you for being here with me. I've noticed there's been a few new listeners and subscribers over the past couple of months. So I'm really delighted to be back. that you're joining me and I'd love to know what brought you here.
[00:00:45] I had a real spike in listeners at the start of the year and I couldn't figure out where it was from. So if you can help me solve that mystery and let me know how you found out about the podcast if you're a new listener, I'd love to hear from you. You can find me on Instagram at Leckerpodcast or you can get in contact via the Lecker website.
[00:01:03] That's at Leckerpodcast. com
[00:01:08] Speaking of my, uh, my burnout, it's probably a good time to mention that if you are in a position to make a financial contribution to the podcast, you can do that on Patreon, Substack or Apple Podcasts. They all Cost in the region of about three to four pounds a month, or you can save a little bit on the monthly cost.
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[00:02:23] The first edition is about the Ideal Home Show and it's available for everybody. So you can have a little, little trial of it there. The audio series I'm running on there at the moment for paid subscribers is wrapping up this month with four really interesting conversations to listen back to about food packaging that's called Out of the Box.
[00:02:39] And you can find that on Substack, Patreon as I mentioned. And if you're not in a position to pay for this, that's totally fine. Thank you for being here as well. And I'm so grateful to you for listening as well. One of the best things you can do to help me, that costs nothing, is to spread the word about the podcast, so if you like it, tell a friend, I'd be really grateful.
[00:03:01] And one more thing, before we start, if you're in or around London, on the 15th of May, I'm speaking at a super cool conference at Conway Hall, which is in central London, called Interesting24, organised by Russell Davies. It's a series of short talks about interesting things. My interesting thing is obviously to do with kitchens, which will come as a surprise to no one.
[00:03:25] If you'd like to hear me do a 10 minute talk about kitchens alongside loads of other great speakers, get your ticket. I'll put the link in the show notes. Okay, finally, on with the show. This month on the Lecker Book Club, Piglet by Lottie Hazel. I first came across Lottie's writing when she contributed to the first Leckerzine that I curated and published in 2019.
[00:03:52] Plum Jam, a piece of short fiction about a funeral, an underset blancmange, and a broken tooth. I still remember how the piece unsettled me, placing complicated family relationships alongside difficult or reluctant pleasure derived from feeding others. Lottie Or being fed by them. Lottie's debut novel Piglet came out earlier this year and its writing is deeply rooted in what food can mean to us physically, emotionally, and socially.
[00:04:23] Lottie: I didn't want food to be like a benign good. Sometimes cooking can be a relief and a meditation, but that is a percentage of the time, and I just wanted it to be pervasive throughout the entire tech. I
[00:04:45] Lucy: love talking to Lottie about Piglet so much. As you'll hear us talk about in the episode, I found it such an interesting experience to encounter such luscious, detailed writing about food in a fictional setting, particularly set alongside scenes of abject discomfort.
[00:05:03] You'll know what I mean if you've read it. The book really made me squirm in an intriguing way, and I loved how the dishes and tablescapes that Piglet makes and consumes dress the set of her home and work lives. Heads up, if you haven't read the book, we do talk about specific plot points in it, so if you'd prefer to be spoiler free, go away and read it first.
[00:05:25] and the book does touch sort of somewhat implicitly on themes of body image, weight and some implied references to disordered eating. So if those topics are in any way sensitive to you just please take care with listening. We began with Lottie giving us a quick Piglet synopsis.
[00:05:51] Lottie: I describe Piglet as a story of appetite and aspiration and it follows a woman who is nicknamed Piglet in the couple of weeks before her wedding and in the days before she's due to be married her fiancé confesses this terrible truth to her that threatens to unravel the life that she has really carefully curated for them both and we follow her in the countdown to the day they're to be married and we follow her unraveling and her trying to digest this truth, food pun, not intended but inevitable when I'm talking about this book, and we see lots of her kind of grappling happen through the lens of food, which is really important to how she perceives herself as a person and how she perceives others.
[00:06:36] Lucy: And so how does she perceive herself as a person?
[00:06:39] Lottie: I think their class comes into this in a big way in terms of Piglet comes from kind of like a working class, I suppose, family from Derby and she is doing her best, I think, to distance herself from those people. Not for, the book doesn't really present us with any information why she would be doing that besides the fact that her family have nicknamed her Piglet and we assume that has a level of complication and pain attached to it.
[00:07:09] But it's more a case of we get a sense, we meet her when she's in a very aspirational part of her life, like Kit and his family are kind of like middle upper class and she's trying to assimilate. And lots of her food behaviours are, you know, lavish spreads, expensive pieces of meat and wine and alcohol.
[00:07:27] So I think that's all part of her perception is that she is kind of affluent and worthy in the context of her mind. compared to her family, I suppose.
[00:07:38] Lucy: I definitely want to come back and talk more about class in a minute. Um, but just to come back to the sort of writing of the book itself, when did you start working on it?
[00:07:50] Lottie: So I started working on it in 2019 when I started my, um, creative PhD, which that looks at contemporary food centric fiction. So I just was like, what would I really like to um, research for three years and just have a great time? Um, as if I was allowed to do that, it's wild. And I was looking specifically at narratives of disclosure and how food can be used in kind of, an experiment of satisfaction with the reader and with the prose.
[00:08:22] Um, so I started writing in 2019 and really got into my, really hit my stride when I was allowed to go nowhere like everyone else in 2020 and finished it in that year.
[00:08:33] Lucy: And so what were you looking at in your PhD? I remember hearing the title of your PhD or reading it somewhere and being like, oh my god,
[00:08:41] Lottie: that sounds incredible.
[00:08:42] I had a really wonderful time. I was trying to answer, or at least explore the question of the kind of satisfaction cycle. So, um, specifically in literature and specifically when food is used as a device, not necessarily. I think there are loads of wonderful books that use food that aren't necessarily foodie fiction or, um, like I think Piglet is pretty foodie, but there's.
[00:09:07] I think food is such a wonderful tool to explore, you know, class, gender, social dynamics, familial dynamics. It's just so ripe for creative play. But circle back to your actual question. I was trying to work out how disclosure could integrate with a novel that used food to offer kind of levels of satisfaction or release or kind of unclenching for the reader.
[00:09:40] And so in Piglet, I'm really trying to run Kit's confession and how much we know about that as a reader alongside Piglet's appetite as it grows and, um, kind of ask the question of what's satisfying.
[00:09:56] Lucy: How have readers responded to the fact that, and I don't know if this is a spoiler, maybe it is, that we never learn what Kit has actually done?
[00:10:06] Have you had people being like, why don't we put it
[00:10:08] Lottie: out? Mostly really well. I think my publishers have done a really good job of positioning the book because I think that if it was packaged differently you might think it's a kind of like a will they won't they romp about whether they get married and or maybe it's kind of more of a crime thriller.
[00:10:27] So I think they've done a really good job in setting up the expectation that I'm not going to necessarily follow the contract that is set up between the writer and the reader at all times and that's kind of by design. But I have also had, I had another one yesterday, quite a few irate Instagram DMs being like, I've read the whole book and it's never said anywhere what he does so can you please like chop chop what's, what's going on here?
[00:10:55] Lucy: Do you
[00:10:55] Lottie: know what he
[00:10:56] Lucy: does?
[00:10:56] Lottie: Yeah, I feel like one of the guests at the wedding in a way, and looking around at everyone on my table, like in a gossipy sense, being like, do you know what it was? Oh, it could have been this. And speculating. And in some earlier drafts, I did play with putting Labeled ending in being like, this is what he did.
[00:11:14] And I read them, I was like, this isn't better for me, for me to put my suggestion there. And I'm so much more interested in the collaboration that I can have with everyone who reads it in that they bring so much to the text. I, yeah. Um, really motivated by the blank space and the invitation that that leaves.
[00:11:33] Lucy: Yeah, that's such an interesting way of looking at it. When you said it could be a crime thriller, it made me realize how unambitious I'd been in my imagination about what he could have done. Yeah. I was like, I, I just think he's, he's obviously just cheated or something, but no, it could have been a murder.
[00:11:48] It is fascinating to hear people's
[00:11:51] Lottie: like, level of, um, The scale of speculation is wild and it's been one of my favorite things, I think, doing the press for the book tour to be like, okay, when it was acquired, um, the publisher who acquired it also publishes Lee Child and Lee Child's editor was like, it's murder, right?
[00:12:09] And everyone was like, that's too much Lee Child for you. No more.
[00:12:14] Lucy: And so you talked about how food is such another great, um, food metaphor. It's, it's a really kind of, it's The writing of a book with food positioned in it is ripe for, um, experimentation and I think that was one of the things that really struck me about Piglet is like how central food is to the kind of general world building, if that's not too cringe a phrase, but, I kind of did an experiment when I was just like recapping, cause I read it a couple of months ago and I was just like flicking through the things I'd underlined before we spoke today.
[00:12:46] And basically every page that I stopped at had a, and that was, you know, I was, then I started stopping every few pages and every single page had something about food on it, which is kind of extraordinary. Can you give me some examples of some of the ways in which food is completely central to the book itself?
[00:13:06] Lottie: Yeah, I find that very hard to answer because I feel it is the book itself. I feel like there's not a element that it hasn't touched. I feel like when I'm thinking, I suppose the main things that I was trying to explore, where I feel food is wonderful at illustrating that, are things like the gender expectations that surround women, but specifically at the wedding, which I think is the body plays into that as well and the physical self and I think food does so much in that space both in the kind of like the woman eating but also the woman being perceived to be eating so that was a big one I think also kind of social frictions Like the things that different people find acceptable or worthwhile to eat.
[00:13:56] So I've spoken a lot about Vinessa when I've spoken about piglet and the kind of importance of that as a, I think social and cultural touch point and how people, different people react to that. I, funnily enough, I found out that Vinetta in Canada is apparently a really like high-end. Like very posh thing.
[00:14:17] And I was like, this is, we didn't do the sensitivity read for Canada. Missed a trick.
[00:14:24] Lucy: I do think it's really, cause V& S is such an interesting, like British class symbol. And I think when you, I did write this down, um, that there's a line about they only serve Viennese ironically, which I think, I just think like encompasses so much about British food culture and like class and like the kind of obsession with wealthier middle class people often having this kind of like obsession with working class culture and almost like a cosplay, weird cosplay thing.
[00:14:57] So yeah, I do think that, that I can see why you've talked a lot about it because I think it says so much to us.
[00:15:02] Lottie: Yeah, but I also think it underlines the kind of cruelty. I think that there is For Piglet I think there's a cruelty that she thinks so freely in that sense that she serves a Vianessa ironically because it's so much of a, not only is she rejecting those familial customs, she's also refashioning them into something to kind of like step on them and to lift herself up and I think it's kind of like, I think it's kind of in conversation with what you're saying about the cosplaying, but there's a kind of sinister element.
[00:15:41] It's a ha ha.
[00:15:42] Lucy: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. You, she has to make it clear that she thinks she's better than it.
[00:15:48] Lottie: Mm, yeah. In some
[00:15:49] Lucy: sense.
[00:15:49] Lottie: Yeah. Which I think is, for me, part of the reason why I love writing her. 'cause it's part of the sadness for her character. Mm. That it's like you are missing out. Like her family failed her in lots of ways and she fails her family.
[00:16:01] It's, I think that I like writing characters that no one has, no one is the front runner of the good person . Um, but I think that. She really misses out there. She misses out on Vionetta and she misses out on a closer bond with her family. But, you know, it's complicated. They call her Piglet and that's obviously been damaging.
[00:16:21] Lucy: Yeah, yeah. Like you say, nobody is the frontrunner for the good person. Nobody comes out covered in glory. Yeah, and that is one of the really interesting things about it. Um, I also find the kind of dynamic between Piglet and Kit And how they, how food kind of like exists in their relationship. And the example I noted down was when, and I can't remember, I guess maybe this is after he's made the disclosure to her.
[00:16:48] I actually can't remember and you can probably correct me on this. Um, but it's when he's making the porridge for her. And she's basically, cause she normally makes it, like she's very, the kitchen is very much her domain and she has specific ways of doing things. And that's how she kind of. expresses mostly, most of her emotions really.
[00:17:09] And Kit basically does the porridge wrong. And I, I really related to, I like, I saw myself in this in a really negative way. Like I, I have definitely been guilty of what she does, which is that he cooks it, you know, it's too hot. It burns. burns, it's the wrong texture, like it's very like three bears, which is not, it's not the perfect thing and that's really interesting because it felt to me that that was her way of having power like within the class struggle between the two of them that doesn't really need to be there but is nonetheless, like would you say that's, that's a
[00:17:45] Lottie: fair reading?
[00:17:46] You're right it comes after the confession and interestingly enough to me I don't perceive Piglet and Kit as having a conscious class struggle. I think that she is with his family as, I think that reading is totally valid. And I think that surely it must play into their relationship as well, because of who they are and the way they've been shaped.
[00:18:08] But for me, that scene is a kind of, It's kind of a domestic tension and fraughtness that that's what I was thinking about at that point was purely kind of the, I suppose the land grab game of the kitchen of, you know, kits tentative and I suppose quite brave decision to inhabit that space because When you call that behavior out, it's totally unreasonable.
[00:18:33] But so, I also feel like it's so understandable why she feels so angry at that point, because it's kind of, all that is, all of her anger is manifesting via the porridge. You know, he's betrayed her and also he makes terrible porridge and it's, life is bad.
[00:18:49] Lucy: Yeah. It is really, it was also, I found it fascinating how, like, Piglet basically can't get away from food.
[00:18:55] Like, it's, it's, it's her, you know, it's her hobby, it's her social life. It, but it's also her job. So I guess I'm interested in, was, was she always, did she always work in publishing for you? Was that a central part of her? As, as a character. Yeah,
[00:19:11] Lottie: she always worked in food, and there was briefly a bit of catering, but she moved quite quickly into publishing because firstly, I have experience in that, so I'm like, I can be detailed here, as much as I want to be.
[00:19:22] But also I think there's something kind of equally foreboding about, um, someone that knows how to package food to readers, and especially in the food publishing industry, there are so many diet books or, you know, various books that aren't necessarily about enjoying food and enjoying the sensation of it as, as an eating.
[00:19:46] It's, you know, coded and complicated. And so I thought that was a interesting, kind of, sideshow to be going alongside that. But I also felt that her monetizing something she enjoys feels very present and very contemporary and very relevant to the extent where it's like, well, do I like this anymore? Or have I just, have I, have I ruined it?
[00:20:09] And you know, now I've made it my entire personality, but I can't get away from it. Yeah. But, um, But yeah, yeah, I feel that as well. Yeah.
[00:20:20] Lucy: Yeah, we can't win. No, piglet can't win. So maybe if we could just come back to, I know we've talked about it quite a lot, but just the kind of talk explicitly about food and class in the book.
[00:20:33] I'm curious. It really, this sort of reading it really made me think about my own experiences as somebody that definitely grew up middle class, but there is like, it's just so nuanced. And like, when I moved to London, I just had this completely different experience. I was around people who had this completely different experience with food.
[00:20:53] Like the only time I'd eaten pesto, like up until the age of like 18 was like in a supermarket salad buffet. And that's, That was just because that was what existed around me. And like, I think, yeah, you're kind of like how class and food interacts in your life is dependent on so many things. So I guess I'm curious if this isn't too personal question, like how your own experiences kind of impacted how you wrote about it in the end.
[00:21:19] Lottie: Yeah. Oh, I think totally. But I think that. If you ask, like, if you ask you that question, for example, you know exactly what I'm trying to say because I think to a degree, we all have that journey of whether it's, however our culinary horizons expand once we leave the home, they do expand, and for Piglet it's a class journey.
[00:21:44] And I think for most people, at some level of my parents or whoever was feeding me, have, they didn't do this, and I'm doing this and I'm exploring it, I think it's kind of like the folly of the child, of the younger person, of the younger generation to be like, I am so aware and cultured and you know, whatever.
[00:22:06] I am discovering. Yes, precisely. And also, um. Yeah, that's totally my, um, I think has lots of roots in my experience as well. Like when I went to university, I was not, I liked to eat, but I wouldn't say I was, A kind of explorer of the culinary world. That sounds so terrible, doesn't it? Um, No, I know what you mean.
[00:22:31] Yes, I'm one of the dickheads who is, is being like, I'm so refined and interested with the food I eat. But yeah, but I think it's kind of like an unavoidable, I think that must happen to everyone in some capacity. Even if it's just, you know, eating a different type of food. I don't know, bread or whatever it is.
[00:22:49] You, you don't always eat the same things you've eaten growing up.
[00:22:52] Lucy: Yeah, yeah, do you know what that is? That is so true, and I think, I feel like you're making the point, and yeah, again correct me if I'm wrong, that it doesn't, it doesn't really have to be about class, like it, it sort of is for lots of people, but it also, that is often because we are poisoned in this country to just be, like, everything is rooted in class, so.
[00:23:14] Yeah,
[00:23:14] Lottie: yeah,
[00:23:15] Lucy: yeah. Yeah. But you're right, it doesn't have to be about that, it can just be about a different experience and a different context. I wonder
[00:23:20] Lottie: if there is a way, I can't think of an example where it wouldn't be about class in some way, because I suppose the quote, bettering of the self by eating a wider diet, whatever that width is, maybe that always has a class kind of element to it, even if it's something that's, you know, that doesn't seem to be particularly coded in an upper class way.
[00:23:45] Lucy: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think, but that is the interesting thing about, I think, British attitudes to many foods is that, and I don't want to get too rude, too kind of stuck in a rut with this. I feel like it's something I could talk about all day, but like the idea that, you know, buying a takeaway coffee is like the liberal metropolitan elite that, you know, belongs to that.
[00:24:07] And it's just so ridiculous that like, there are so many countries that have these amazing rich food cultures and it has nothing to do with class. Everyone eats well and. A curiosity about food is a positive thing, rather than seen as this kind of like, desire to prove you're better than others.
[00:24:23] Lottie: Yeah, but also I think there's kind of like a very sinister routine, the division of peoples as well.
[00:24:29] It's kind of has a political edge, like if there's a, the liberal elite drink coffee and eat avocados, and they're, you know, ruining the conservative, you know. I could go on for, but I totally, I, I get you entirely. Absolutely.
[00:24:43] Lucy: Yeah. Yeah. And you've touched on this already, but another thing that was very present in the book is the kind of relationship between eating and the body, which sounds like a really basic thing to say, because obviously there is a relation, there's a very clear relationship between eating and the body.
[00:24:59] But that was where so much of the discomfort in reading the book came for me kind of reading about this. Yeah. And it really kind of struck a chord for me, the idea of we're not able. To separate the kind of like public perception of our physical body from what we eat. Like it's kind of always on display and it's always under scrutiny, particularly for young women, like not to oversimplify, but that is the truth.
[00:25:29] And like the very fact she's called piglet is immediate, just immediate kind of, Like it, you know, it gave me a real like cringe like inside, like not in a kind of awkward, just like, Oh God, like imagine having that nickname that's awful. And you know that even though if it did, it does come from a place of affection on some level, it's also like horrible.
[00:25:55] I feel like people wouldn't know the, yeah, the impact of how that would feel in the society we live in. There's not really a question in that, but I guess, yeah, I'm just interested in, yeah, how it felt to write about the body in that way, as well as the food. It was very much positioned alongside each other.
[00:26:15] Lottie: Essential, I think. It felt essential to write about that. And I think all the things that you've just, um, very eloquently outlined were things that I was thinking about. It was the fact that as an individual, especially as an individual in a, um, female body, there's a level of. power that has been wrested from you, that you don't get to choose the way you move through the world in, um, its entirety.
[00:26:45] And, No one does, I'm sure, but it feels like a particularly compromised position in relation to women and food. So my key goal for Piglet was for her to be able to use her body in a way that felt powerful to her and that power isn't necessarily a positive thing. We see her struggling with, I suppose, ordered food behaviours, but I was very keen not to label those things as quote bad because I wanted her just to reclaim a sense of yeah power and agency via the body even if that is is unsustainable for her.
[00:27:29] Lucy: And even if that is, in some sense, quote, socially unacceptable.
[00:27:34] Lottie: Yeah, exactly. I guess.
[00:27:37] Lucy: Also, like, I'm fascinated
[00:27:38] Lottie: by that socially unacceptable. I think that plays into the whole question, um, and the kind of, issue of the writing because, like, why is it, why? There's some extreme, more extreme, quote, eating behaviours in the book, but still, if you're a passerby, you probably don't witness all of it, I think.
[00:27:57] But I think there's a level of discomfort with the idea of women that eat. And I just wanted to put on that string and see how far that would go.
[00:28:06] Lucy: And she, and I feel, you know, Piglet is very much aware. of the potential for shame around that. And yeah, one of the most uncomfortable scenes for me was when her colleagues find her in the restaurant alone and I just, yeah, the kind of like level of exposure gave me like a sort of full body horror.
[00:28:28] And I think that it made me reflect a lot on how I think I have some of, I think some of my sort of thinking and behaviors around food, like something I very much keep private because it does just feel so exposing to that. I was like, I never would have sat in the restaurant and had seven burgers. Like I would have just gone.
[00:28:49] You take them a takeaway. Yeah. Don't be an idiot. But that felt really interesting that she, she kind of didn't mind. being perceived in that way but it was just when the world collided and people that she knew saw her doing it that that's where the shame came in and i found that yeah really kind of illuminating yeah
[00:29:09] Lottie: yes it's interesting that she kind of walks a line of like she kind of courts the the attention when it's when she's anonymous but as soon as she yes is named it's like oh dear god i've melted into this i have to go and die now because i cannot come back yeah yeah
[00:29:26] Lucy: yeah exactly Let's talk about the croquembouche, uh, which is the wedding cake that Piglet chooses to make herself, which is an unhinged thing to do, at the best of times, which it is not.
[00:29:42] Why a croquembouche?
[00:29:46] Lottie: There was a kind of irresistible pull to the, uh, French cuisine for the wedding. I think it says lots about, you know, piglet as a kind of aspirational person. In the book we discover that Kit's parents import foie gras from France because it's obviously illegal in the UK. Um, and I think there's this, there's the commitment to, I think it's just a commitment to assimilation and to showing off.
[00:30:15] It's a look at me opportunity and irresistibly because it's a dessert you traditionally smash, I was like, when it. When we get to the end of the book, like, I need someone to take a baseball bat to this, and I thought, I just like the inverting of the, let's smash it together and push one in each other's face to destroy it.
[00:30:37] Lucy: Yeah, yeah, I think for me, it was kind of, obviously, like it's, like you say, it's a construction that is very durable in a sense, because it does need to be smashed in, but there's also this, like, innate sense of fragility. Because it's such a complicated, delicate thing to make. And. It doesn't go to plan, like her making of it, there's kind of this like, it ends up being this sort of like, a sass, grog and bouge, which I thought was really, and the bit, one of the bits I really liked about this kind of, you know, this thread was her family getting involved in the making of it, which felt actually really sweet.
[00:31:20] In kind of a horrible situation. Yes, I
[00:31:24] Lottie: think the croquembouche is really, it's kind of a metaphor for Piglet herself, it's an overreaching, for no reason, like there's no reason to do this. And when Franny comes in to try and help her with the glue gun at the end, and it's like, no one cares. And, yeah, I, I find that really tender as well, just to be like this, let's get ready, you crazy, crazy lady.
[00:31:44] Lucy: And again, like, not to make it all about me, but I definitely, I have not made a croquembouche, but I definitely related to that idea of when you actually break it down and you think about something, you're like, I'm entirely doing this for myself, this isn't only for me. Yeah. And this is only because I want people to say to me, aren't you so clever and brilliant, look what you've made.
[00:32:03] 100%, exactly, yeah. Yeah, um, this is something we've definitely touched on already, but I was so fascinated by how these beautiful descriptions of food that you kind of wrote throughout the book, um, you know, like absolutely gorgeous table spreads of like wonderful meats and like plates and salads and, um, Like really like delicious descriptions of food and they sort of sit in this very uneasy place alongside like pure disgust.
[00:32:40] Like one of the, one of the lines I wrote was, You described the artery on a cigarette packet as like a skirt steak oozing yogurty plait. And I just thought it was so interesting to think, like, when you say that food touches on everything, is that what you mean, that it's not just the food itself?
[00:32:59] Lottie: Yeah.
[00:33:00] That is a particularly disgusting description, isn't it? That is a terrible one.
[00:33:03] Lucy: Isn't it? Like, but it's so visceral. I can see it immediately and like, that's also kind of like, you know, a huge part of, we all know what you're talking about. Like we've all seen those packets. Yeah.
[00:33:14] Lottie: Yes. Yes. Yes. It is kind of what I mean when it touches everything.
[00:33:19] I think I didn't want food to be like a benign good. Like I don't, I never wanted it to be like, When she interacts with food, like, you know, the weight lifts and, you know, and she's good and her mind can float because I just don't perceive that to be truthful. I don't perceive, sometimes, cooking can be a relief and a meditation.
[00:33:40] But, that is a percentage of the time, um, and I just wanted to, um, It to be pervasive throughout the entire text to kind of manifest all the emotions because that to me felt more honest.
[00:33:55] Lucy: Yeah, your use of the phrase benign good there is, that is so accurate I think because I do think that is how food is portrayed in so much writing about it.
[00:34:06] And I think it's kind of seen as this very like cozy, yeah. But we can't ignore the fact that there are so many. internal and external factors
[00:34:20] Lottie: that
[00:34:20] Lucy: bring discomfort to our thinking and eating.
[00:34:23] Lottie: Exactly. But even when it's cosy, like, why is it cosy? Are we thinking about a childhood and, you know, a dead parent or an absent, you know, absent parental figure?
[00:34:33] Like, why? I don't think it's ever. It can feel good. But I don't think that good feeling is ever without depth and something to explore. Yeah. And I think that was really important for me for writing a female character as well with a food interest, that she isn't a benign good, like her feeding of people isn't selfless, it's very selfish.
[00:34:55] She's getting so much from it and it's not the nurturing and kind of feeding of others that is her primary goal.
[00:35:03] Lucy: And that, and I think what I really liked about the way that you wrote that is again, it's not, it's not a. bad thing. It's not a negative thing or a positive thing. It's just, it is what it is.
[00:35:13] Yeah. Yeah.
[00:35:15] Lottie: Yeah. Yeah. When I was writing and generally when I'm writing, I just want to try and put words on the page that feel like they're truthful. And that feels like a truthful thing to me. Like I relate to that. Like when I make, you know, a big lunch with friends or family, like I enjoy doing, I enjoy eating the food, but also I enjoy being like, look at this, look at it.
[00:35:36] Absolutely. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah,
[00:35:39] Lucy: I think it can be very easy given the conversation around this idea of like food as servitude. Um, and obviously, you know, for some people it is, and that's, that's fine. But it made me think about what I actually do get from cooking for people. Yeah. And that it is selfish.
[00:35:57] Yeah. And that is to an extent, fine. Yeah. Yeah,
[00:36:02] Lottie: absolutely fine. Also, I'm kind of like, I'm not that interested in food as servitude. I just don't, I don't want to, I feel like it's just, uh, not a particularly interesting space to explore. I don't think that it's, I think it exists, like you say, but I just don't feel like that is contributing anything particularly interesting.
[00:36:24] Like if Piglet was just, you know, a kind of browbeaten person.
[00:36:28] Lucy: Hmm. Well, I think it's that it comes back to the gendered expectations, doesn't it? Because I feel like food, a servitude is something that was expected of women in the home for so long. I mean, servitude is the wrong word there, but it was an obligation.
[00:36:43] And actually like, maybe I, cause I, I, you know, I've kind of talked about this and stuff I've made before. I have like a bit of a, a weird relationship with how much I enjoy domestic aspects of my life because it feels like. Regressive, in a way, like I can't separate it from feeling like I should want more than this.
[00:37:04] But actually, positioning it as something you're doing for yourself makes it very different and I've never quite thought, yeah, I've never quite thought about it from that angle before. So yeah, that's something new for me.
[00:37:17] Lottie: Yes, yeah. Yeah, that's so, that is so true. But it is hard, isn't it, because we all live in this conditioned environment where it's like, yeah, yeah.
[00:37:25] Do I like cooking because I've been told or because I like it?
[00:37:29] Lucy: Oh my god, it's my eternal, yeah,
[00:37:31] Lottie: my eternal
[00:37:31] Lucy: dilemma. Yeah, and then does it matter? Do I like it because, yeah, people can see me doing it and it's, I'm, yeah, showing this great image of what can be done in the home. Yeah,
[00:37:43] Lottie: and then it's like, well, we are what we are.
[00:37:44] I'll just enjoy the feeling.
[00:37:46] Lucy: Yeah, maybe we make ourselves feel bad enough of the time. Yeah. Have you ever written? Non fiction food writing. I was curious to ask you. I
[00:37:58] Lottie: have, but not particularly good non fiction food writing. I used to, like, in the mid teens, what do you call that decade? Who knows? Like, I did some food blogging, but it was mostly terrible.
[00:38:13] I relate. I don't, yeah, I just,
[00:38:15] Lucy: I feel like often the novels that I've read in the past and there are so many exceptions to this that I could immediately sort of prove myself wrong by saying this but I think there is this perception of like people who write novels about food are people who've come at it from this, like, the idealized place that we were talking about and I think I'm really interested that, you know, I'm interested that, You've primarily, sort of, professionally used food to create fictional worlds.
[00:38:43] I think that's a really unusual, in a sense, place to come from in this. And it, because we're so used to reading the sorts of descriptions and writing about food that is in Piglet, that for me, like, felt very familiar in a non fiction sense. And so that was really interesting to me, that it was, Fictional.
[00:39:05] And I, yeah, I don't quite know how to articulate why that feels significant, but it does to me.
[00:39:11] Lottie: Yeah. I think I understand what you mean about, because in the novel, for the most part, I was attempting to put as few words on the page as possible and be really sparse with my descriptions. But when we got to the, when it's in the food sections, that's why.
[00:39:28] try to let the writing bloom and kind of exhale and take up space and so maybe that is, I don't know, maybe it's the relief, that's the sense of relief in that, in those passages that allows a sense of goodness, whereas in the rest of it I'm being very, or trying to be, kind of fraught and tight and withholding.
[00:39:53] Lucy: Withheld, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's really interesting. Maybe that is what's coming across to me. I think it's also just, it's unusual, or uncommon. I don't, like, I don't know what the best way to put it is, but I don't read that many books where food is talked about with such, like, passion, but also nuance. It's not just, yeah, it's not just creating, you're not just using it to describe a great party, but yeah.
[00:40:23] Yeah,
[00:40:24] Lottie: well I was just thinking about, um, the kind of commonality of food writing that is mostly positive. And maybe it's more of a publishing trend than it is a writer preoccupation. I think so much of what we read is dictated by what people want to publish, which is, you know, a very small sect of people that are trying to sell books that have sold before.
[00:40:45] Lucy: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It's very true.
[00:40:49] Lottie: Not to be too depressing about that.
[00:40:51] Lucy: No, but it's fair, isn't it? Like, as much as we want to see it as a kind of, we want to see publishers as like patrons of the arts or patrons of culture, at the end of the day, many of them are just, you know, Publishing what sells the most.
[00:41:04] Yeah,
[00:41:05] Lottie: yeah. Maybe our expectations should be lower, I don't
[00:41:08] Lucy: know.
[00:41:09] Lottie: Yeah, I think it's that complicated position of being both, where it's like, I want to, but equally, I also want my bonus.
[00:41:15] Lucy: Yeah, and I think that is like, that's how a lot of publishers want to be viewed as well. It's, it is that this, this.
[00:41:24] cultural significance attached to what they do and that's appealing much as, you know, Piglet making the big Ottolenghi spread. Yeah, absolutely. Are there any other books or writing in general where you've found how food is talked about really inspiring or? interesting or illuminating.
[00:41:51] Lottie: There's a couple that um, I really enjoyed for what one of them is particularly food centric and that's Supper Club by Lara Williams.
[00:42:00] I think that's an example of a novel that disproves your hypothesis where the food is allowed to be complicated and expansive and interesting and nuanced, which I think is Really wonderful. And I like, um, The Harpy as well by Megan Hunter. I don't know if you've read that. Oh, I haven't read that. Okay, great.
[00:42:22] It's really interesting in domestic food and a kind of sense of putting together a more virtuous self by the way you feed your family. And also has a portrayal in it, which is interesting, um, the way that she fuses those together. And Eliza Clarke's boy parts I also like for the way it talks about absence.
[00:42:44] Of food. Maybe not talks about but the way it deals with. Okay. I haven't actually
[00:42:47] Lucy: read that. Yeah, I've read penance but I haven't read boy parts. So, yeah. That's good. Oh, penance. Penance
[00:42:52] Lottie: is on my list. Is, was that a good read?
[00:42:54] Lucy: I really enjoyed it. I listened to it on audio book. Yeah. Which was really interesting because I felt like it really added, 'cause it's, you know, it's kind of like a pastiche of a true crime.
[00:43:04] Yes. Podcast, right book. And yeah, and that, yes, exactly. But obviously, like, listening to it in audio, really, kind of, I thought that's
[00:43:11] Lottie: the way to, I felt like brought
[00:43:13] Lucy: an extra layer. Yeah. Yeah. I really enjoyed it. I think she's a great writer. I found it really horrible and fun. Yeah.
[00:43:20] Lottie: Yes. Horrible and fun. What a vibe.
[00:43:22] Yeah, exactly. That's very much the boy parts energy as well. And if you liked Penance, I'm sure you'd like that one.
[00:43:28] Lucy: Obviously they're very, very different books, but I can see Supper Club and Piglet maybe somehow existing in the same universe. Yes.
[00:43:36] Lottie: Oh yeah, I think so. On some level. Yeah. They feel in conversation in a way, don't they?
[00:43:40] I feel like they'd have much to talk about.
[00:43:42] Lucy: I feel like if Piglet had found Supper Club, that would have been really good. Like, she could have happened? Yeah.
[00:43:48] Lecker is hosted and produced by me, Lucy Dearlove thanks to my guest on this episode, Lottie Hazel. Piglet is out now. Published by Doubleday. As part of the monthly Lecker book club, I'll be writing about the book over on the Lecker substack and Patreon. I'd love to hear from you if you've read it too.
[00:44:15] Come over to the comments and let's talk about Vionetta. And I mentioned in my intro that Lottie wrote a piece for the first Lecker zine. That zine is still available to buy and it includes contributions from so many other amazing people. Octavia Bright, Holly Gawne, Rina Marijuana, Mina Miller, Rosie Daskyr, and many, many more.
[00:44:36] The link to order that is in the show notes as well. And you can also get a copy of my second zine, Kitchens, if you so desire. Music is by Blue Dot Sessions. Before I go, one more reminder that you can sign up as a paid subscriber to support Lecker on Apple Podcasts, Patreon and Substack. Links in the show notes.
[00:44:56] And to any paid subscribers who are listening here, thanks so much for your continued support. Thanks for listening. I'll be back very soon.