Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table

Miriam Brudno Reichl (1908-1992) was Ruth Reichl’s mother. Miriam Reichl was an intelligent woman who dreamed of being a doctor, but her ambitions were thwarted by her parents’ opposition. Her first marriage produced one son, Bob, before the marriage ended in divorce. After her subsequent marriage to Ruth Reichl’s father, Ernst, Miriam tried various careers—running a magazine, giving lectures at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and so on—but nothing seemed to work out for her, and her home became her main outlet for her intelligence and creativity. She introduced her family to foods considered exotic at the time, threw elaborate parties, and decorated her New York apartment in her own eccentric style.

In Tender at the Bone, Reichl portrays her mother as manipulative, impulsive, self-centered, and impractical. As a result of Miriam’s tendency to serve spoiled and otherwise unappetizing food, Reichl developed an interest in food as a kind of self-preservation, paying close attention to how dishes were prepared and preserved in order to save herself and others from food poisoning. Miriam’s inability to meet Reichl’s needs meant that Reichl developed parent-child relationships with people like Birdie and Alice, increasing the influence that these quasi-parental figures had in Reichl’s early life. In her teen years, Reichl reacted to Miriam’s neglect and selfishness by rebelling and rejecting her parents’ “bourgeois” values.

During Reichl’s early adult life, Miriam was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and began receiving treatment—but this served only to lessen her symptoms, not eliminate them. Because Miriam was still a difficult parent—needy, controlling, and mercurial—Reichl chose to attend college in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and then later moved to Berkeley, California, to put some distance between herself and Miriam. This flight from Miriam led to Reichl meeting Doug in Ann Arbor, getting the opportunity to work at an elevated French restaurant in Ann Arbor, and having some early successes on the West Coast food scene. Even at these distances, Reichl was often overwhelmed by Miriam, and she attributes the panic attacks and phobias she began to suffer to her relationship with Miriam. By the end of Tender at the Bone, Reichl is not reconciled to her mother; she devotes a later book, For You Mom, Finally, to the long process of learning to understand and appreciate Miriam.

Ernst Reichl (1900-1980) was Ruth Reichl’s father. Ernst was born in Germany and immigrated to the United States in 1926. He put his PhD in literature to use in a career as a book designer and became prominent in New York’s publishing world. His first marriage was to a woman named Hortense; unfortunately, Hortense was later involuntarily committed to a mental health facility, and the two divorced. Ernst remained close to Hortense’s mother, Birdie; Birdie’s devotion to Ernst is presented as evidence of his good nature. His second marriage was to Miriam, and together the two had one child, Ruth.

Ruth remembers Ernst as “a sweet and accommodating person” who was powerless to contradict the force of her mother’s often impractical desires (4). Indeed, as Reichl grew older, Ernst tended to look to his daughter to solve the problems that Miriam created. Ernst himself often retreated into his work—both because of his passion for books and because of the stress of the chaos Miriam created in their home.

Reichl longed to know more about her retiring, somewhat formal father, who had always longed for a son rather than a daughter. When she brought her then-boyfriend Doug home for the first time, she hoped that through Doug she might learn more about “the German gentleman who was [her] father” (171). Although Ernst was more supportive of Reichl’s ambitions and desires than his wife Miriam was, his own nature made him relatively ineffective at heading off Miriam’s constant criticism and grandiose plans, and Reichl’s portrayal of him makes clear that, although Ernst might have been a kind and well-intentioned person, he was not always present enough in Reichl’s life to make a significant impact.

“Aunt” Birdie was actually the mother of Reichl’s father’s first wife, Hortense. She was not biologically related to Reichl, but because she had always longed to be a grandmother, Birdie showed up at the hospital after Ruth Reichl’s birth and “applied for the job” of being newborn Ruth’s grandmother (20). Reichl was taught to call her “Aunt” Birdie and spent a great deal of time with the woman, who lived nearby in New York when Reichl was a child. Birdie took Reichl for overnight visits about once a week and sometimes cared for her for weeks at a time when Ernst and Miriam were traveling.

Birdie’s loving, warm, and generous spirit sharply contrasted with the parenting Reichl received at home. Birdie was attentive to Reichl, treating her “as if [she] were the world’s most fascinating person, buying her ice cream sundaes, and letting Reichl explore her budding interest in food by spending time in the kitchen with Alice, Birdie’s housekeeper (21). The one subject that Birdie found too difficult to discuss was her daughter, Hortense. Hortense’s illness and hostile behavior deeply saddened and wounded Birdie. Birdie served as an important role model in Reichl’s life, teaching her to be a generous and attentive host and inspiring her to enrich others’ lives in her own way—through food.

Alice was Birdie’s housekeeper during Reichl’s childhood. She had a warm relationship with Birdie; she had worked for Birdie ever since Birdie was first married decades before, and by the time Reichl knew the two women, they were more like best friends than employer and employee. Alice became such an important person in Reichl’s life that later, after Alice retired and moved home to Barbados, the two kept up a correspondence for many years.

Alice was an excellent cook and found the routines of cooking and keeping an organized kitchen calming. She cared passionately about the quality of her ingredients and devoted considerable time to sourcing and bargaining for them. This earned her the respect of local merchants, a fact that Reichl took note of even as a child. Alice’s approach to cooking was foundational to Reichl’s own approach; she was Reichl’s first real mentor in the world of food.

Mrs. Peavey was a housekeeper who worked for Reichl’s parents when Reichl was eight. She was an older woman who had been raised in a wealthy home and acquired a taste for the finer things, including European foods—particularly French foods. She had been married and had three adult sons, but after her husband’s death, she found that he had left all of his money to their sons, expecting them to take care of their mother. During her marriage, her upper-class husband was controlling and tried to enforce his ideas about appropriate behavior for their class, allowing Mrs. Peavey to take cooking classes in Europe but prohibiting her from actually cooking in their home. Once his sons inherited his money, they also tried to use the money to control Mrs. Peavey’s behavior. She became estranged from them and decided to support herself by entering domestic service.

Mrs. Peavey was only in Reichl’s life for a short time, but she had a significant impact on young Reichl. Her rebellious behavior and rejection of her husband’s and son’s bourgeois values taught Reichl to stand up for herself and be independent. Her belief in a hierarchical system that assigned high status to European foods and cooking techniques strongly influenced Reichl’s understanding of what “good” cooking was.

Serafina was Reichl’s college roommate. She was the adopted daughter of a Guyanese immigrant couple living in Detroit and was raised to believe herself Guyanese until, during a visit home from college, she learned that she was adopted and that her biological parents were Black Americans. Although Serafina and Reichl had grown very close in the years before Serafina learned the truth about her ethnicity, after Serafina learned she was Black, she gradually withdrew from the friendship, seeking instead to cultivate friendships with other Black people.

Reichl was devastated at the loss of this friendship. Serafina represented a badly-needed source of support and validation for Reichl, and the two had built a life full of cooking, friendships, and political action together that Reichl found very rewarding. Her portrayal of the relationship, however, makes it clear that she struggled to understand the racism Serafina faced as a working-class woman of color at the University of Michigan in the 1960s and that she could not really relate to the barriers Serafina had faced to get there in the first place.