Jean-Paul Sartre's Existentialist Cook Book

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We have been fortunate to discover several pages from the lost diaries of the 20th century French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, stuck in between the cushions of our office sofa. The wrinkled pages reveal a very young Sartre, obsessed not with the void, but with food. Apparently Sartre, before discovering Heidegger and phenomenological ontology, had hoped to write "a cookbook that will put to rest all previous notions of flavor, forever."

M. Beauchard, Paris (trans. & ed.)

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Spoke with Camus today about my cook book. Though he has never actually eaten, he gave me much encouragement. I rushed home immediately to begin work. How excited I am! I have begun my formula for a Denver omelet.

-October 4

Still working on the omelet. There have been stumbling blocks. I keep creating omelets one after another, like soldiers marching into the sea. But each one seems empty, hollow, like stone. I want to create an omelet that expresses the meaninglessness of existence, but instead they taste like cheese. I look at them on the plate, but they do not look back. Tried eating them with the lights off. It did not help. Malraux suggested paprika.

-October 6

I have realized that the traditional omelet form (eggs & cheese) is bourgeois. Today I tried making one out of a pack of cigarettes, some coffee and four tiny stones. I fed it to Malraux, who puked. I am encouraged, but my journey is still long.

October 7

Today I again modified my omelet recipe. While my previous attempts had expressed my own bitterness, they communicated only nausea to the eater. In an attempt to reach the bourgeoisie I taped two fried eggs over my eyes and walked the streets of Paris for an hour. I ran into Camus at the Select. He called me a "pathetic dork" and told me to go home and wash my face. Angered, I poured a bowl of bouillabaisse into his lap. He became enraged and, seizing a straw wrapped in paper, tore off one end of the wrapper and blew through the straw, propelling the wrapper into my eye. "Ow! You lung-sucking dog anus!" I cried! I leaped up, cursing and holding my eye, and fled.

-October 10

I find myself trying ever more radical interpretations of traditional dishes in an effort to somehow express the void I feel so acutely. Today I tried this recipe:

TUNA CASSEROLE

Ingredients: 1 large casserole dish

Place the casserole dish in a cold oven. Place a chair facing the oven and sit in it forever. Think about how hungry you are. When night falls do not turn on the light.

While a void is expressed in this recipe I am struck by its inapplicability to the bourgeois lifestyle. How can the eater recognize that the food denied him is a tuna casserole and not some other dish? I am becoming more and more frustrated.

October 12

My eye has become inflamed. I hate Camus.

-October 25

I am forced to abandon the project of producing an entire cookbook. Instead I now seek a single recipe which will, by itself, embody the plight of man in a world ruled by an unfeeling God, as well as providing the eater with at least one ingredient from each of the four basic food groups. To this end, I purchased six hundred pounds of foodstuffs from the corner grocery and locked myself in the kitchen, refusing to admit anyone. After several weeks of work I produced a recipe calling for two eggs, half a cup of flour, four tons of beef, and a leek. While this is a start, I am afraid I still have much work ahead.

-November 15

Today I made a Black Forest gateau from five pounds of cherries and a live beaver, challenging the very conception of the word gateau. I was very pleased with the result. Malraux said he admired it greatly, but unfortunately could not stay for dessert. Still, I feel that this may be my most profound achievement yet, and I have resolved to enter it in the Betty Crocker International Bake-Off.

November 18

Today I tried yet another variation: juice, toast, milk, and Cheetos. Again a dismal failure. I have tried everything. Juice, toast, milk and whiskey; juice, toast, milk and chicken fat; juice, toast, milk and someone else's spit. Nothing helps. I am in agony. “Juice-toast-milk” -- they race about my fevered brain like fire; like an unholy trinity of cruel denial. And the fourth ingredient! What could it be? It eludes me like the lost chord, the Holy Grail. I must see the completion of my task but I have no more money to spend on food. Perhaps man is not meant to know.

November 21

Camus came into the restaurant today. He did not know that I was in the kitchen and before I sent out his meal, I loogied into his soup. Sic semper tyrannis!

November 23

Ran into some opposition at the restaurant. Some of the patrons complained that my breakfast special (a page out of "Remembrance of Things Past" and a lit blowtorch with which to set it on fire) did not satisfy their hunger. As if their hunger was of any consequence! “But we're starving,” they say. So what? They're going to die eventually anyway. They make me want to puke. I have quit the job. It is stupid for Jean-Paul Sartre to sling hash. I have enough money to continue my work for a little while.

November 24

Last night I had a dream. In it I am standing alone on a beach. A great storm is raging all about me. It begins to rain. Night falls. I am struck by how small and insignificant I am, how the entire race of man is but a speck in the eye of God, and that I am but a speck of humanity. Suddenly a red Cadillac convertible pulls up beside me. In it are two beautiful girls named Coco and Babette. I get in the car and they take me to their mansion in Hollywood and give me a pound of cocaine and make mad passionate love to me for the rest of my life.

-November 30

Today was the day of the Bake-Off. Alas, things did not go as I had hoped. During the judging, the beaver became agitated and bit Mme. Crocker's wrist. The beaver's powerful jaws are capable of felling a blue spruce in less than ten minutes and proved, needless to say, more than a match for the puny limbs of America's favorite homemaker. I got only a third place. Worse, I am now the defendant in a rather nasty lawsuit.

-December 1

I have been gaining twenty-five pounds a week for two months and am now experiencing light tides. It is stupid to be so fat. My pain and ultimate solitude are still as authentic as they were when I was thin, but seem to impress girls far less. From now on I will live on cigarettes and black coffee.

[finis]

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(republished in the Utne Reader, Nov./Dec. 1993)