In New Orleans, Lafcadio also contributed articles to the New York City-based Harper’s Weekly, among them “Saint Malo,” an incomparable example of his eccentric choices in subject matter. His attraction to the obscure and the “exotic” led him less than one hundred miles from New Orleans to a small, isolated lakeside village populated by Filipino fishermen. The article was a kind of literary census of these “cinnamon-colored men.” In addition to their atmospheric enclave, he documented their first names, sometimes their age, and for the lucky few even a partial family history. In a characteristic gesture, he also included a detailed listing of the way that they called out the numbers during their card games. The number twenty-two was “two ducklings,” thirty-three was “the age of Christ,” and so on. It was a glimpse into the metaphors and visual imageries that enlivened the imagination of these men. This was Lafcadio’s gift to the inhabitants of Saint Malo and to us. It was a rare writer of his era who recognized not only the exterior but also the interior lives of the “exotic.”

Also for Harper’s Weekly, Lafcadio wrote “The New Orleans Exposition,”7 which at first glance was a straightforward feature focusing on the Japan exhibit and its displays of art objects. This article was, in fact, a template for his literary preoccupations, which would bloom fully upon his arrival in Japan. In this article, he wrote of a decorative figure that “haunts” him. He mourned the “passing away” of the “old national costume.” He reveled in the motifs of insects and birds, even claiming that he could hear their singular songs.

Saint-Pierre

By 1887, Lafcadio was the literary editor at The Times-Democrat, and he was writing his first novel. Shortly after his thirty-seventh birthday, he resigned from the newspaper and traveled to the French West Indies on what was essentially a two-year writing retreat. Published in 1890, his travelogue, Two Years in the West Indies, included among its pages a compact compendium of the dishes and essential ingredients of the cuisine of the island of Martinique. This was arguably his second cookbook. Always appreciative of the cultural meaning and significance of what we placed in our mouths, Lafcadio also wrote of the superstitions, sayings, and class and racial divide rooted in the foodstuff of the island. He showed his prejudices as well, declaring the ver-palmiste a “barbarous” ingredient and siding with the “white creoles” who shun it.

Matsue