Picking the low hanging fruit. Literary critiques, you can do better.

A whole new bucket of crazy has been tipped on Romance novels.

Romance writers are NOT overreacting or 'too sensitive'. We are FED UP. That's why we react the way we do when literary fiction sniggers at romance, like my previous post about Margaret Atwood's claim that romance writers, especially those who write for Mills and Boon, follow a mad-lib type formula.

Heidi Cullinan has done a superb job of taking the 'criticism' apart, in which Lit-lover and romance shunner Kelly Bohan compared Nora Roberts to Vladimir Nabokov.

Ahhh the halcyon days of being a university student, when I was so keen to impress people I hid my uncultured tastes and joined in the snobbery with abandon.

Now it's my turn.

I shall compare an Imperial Mandarin to a slice of gorgonzola in an effort to sound completely superior to everyone on the planet.

Just as Nora and Vlad write BOOKS, so they can be compared (?) I'm writing about two FOODS things that are seemingly unrelated and for completely different tastes. But hey, they're both for consuming, so why not eh?

"I was talking food with a friend the other day and somehow the topic of citrus came up. I mean, this is such a popular thing, and everyone's into it, but really, eaters have no taste. No taste at all.

I stumbled upon a mandarin at the shopping centre. They're the number one all time selling citrus, apparently (I wouldn't know, being such a food snob). Somehow the ended up in my trolley. This is by means of explaining that I didn't voluntarily get something popular. It just happened that way.

The skin was so soft and dimpled, it quite perplexed me. Then of course I realised it must be the ease of use which appeals to so many people. You don't have to THINK when peeling a mandarin, it all comes apart in your hands. You don't even have to work for it.

Which it why I always want to come back to gorgonzola. The difficulty to get inside makes the eating all the more rewarding for solving the puzzle of the rind. Also, it's not for immediately savouring. One simply must remove the rind and allow this most beautiful and ancient of cheeses to sit on the bench, stinking up the place, so that everyone can truly absorb how very important this cheese is.

Sure, there is a lucrative market for citrus, and that must be why it's so popular. But for the truly gourmet experience, the pure level of human suffering, you can't go past a particularly odious slice of gorgonzola."