The Hunger Artist

Feasting & Fasting with Gogol

“And bake us a four-cornered fish pie,” he said, sucking the air through his teeth and inhaling deeply. “In one corner I want you to put the sturgeon cheeks and the gristle cooked soft, in another throw in some buckwheat, and then some mushrooms and onions, and some sweet milt, and the brains, and whatever else, you know the sort of thing. And make sure that on the one side it’s—you know—a nice golden brown, but not so much on the other side. And the pastry—make sure it’s baked through, till it just crumbles away, so that the juices soak right through, do you see, so that you don’t even feel it in your mouth—so it just melts like snow.” As he said all this, Petukh kept smacking and sucking his lips.”  – Dead Souls