The pleasure of food

Notes on

The myriad pleasures of eating

**

One day

I walked into a restaurant

And ordered a big stone bowl

Of noodles heaped with vegetables

And dripping with sauce

I knew it was an order for two

I was really hoping

She would like it

 

When the bowl came

I took one bite and relished 

The rich, savory flavor

She took one bite

And turned away

 

Instantly

The noodles turned to 

Cardboard in my mouth

Why should they though?

It's the same bowl of noodles

Why should I enjoy it any less

Because she didn't?

**

This random research report

That I chanced upon randomly

On  instagram of all places

Keeps haunting me

Something about how

Mice were tested for cholestrol

And fed large amounts of 

Cholestroly stuff

But one group of mice never got fat

Nor develop any cholestrol

And after much investigation

It was found that the reason was that

The handler petted them

Stroked them, loved them

As he fed them

And so, the poison they ingested

Turned to ambrosia

There is so much poetry there

About the power of love

About how for food to be delicious

All it needs is to be prepared with love

And served with love

And so from mice and cholestrol

We jump directly into

unquantifiable, immeasurable

love, pleasure, poetry

**

But to leave poetry behind for a moment

It opened my eyes

To so many things

The way food seemed more delicious

When I was reading while eating 

Often in my childhood

Through adolescence

Reading and eating

Was my favorite hobby

The book felt less engrossing without food

And food felt bland without a book

And then I thought of how

Food is never just food for kids

You have to engage them with it

Like maybe let them play with it

Or you have to engage them elsewhere

Like in a story, a book

Or the way so many people

Painstakingly take hours to feed children

By walking them around, showing them sights

**

So this is inside us

This feeling

That food is not just food

It is to be enjoyed

With other enjoyable activities

Hence the way many communities

Make a celebration of mealtimes

Filling meals with talk and laughter

I am sure the food feels  more delicious that way

(Not Brahmins though

Our code of silence during meals

Is another long story, for another day)

 

**

At the risk of sound like a cliched blogger

(which I am,  incidentally)

I will have to put forth 

My reflections here

Which is that

Food is more than taste

No, let me correct that

Taste is more than taste

You don't like things because 

it has this much sugar and 

this much salt and this much fat

But because of how you eat it

In what company you eat it

Who cooks it, who serves it

How it is cooked, how it is served

And what memories you can make of it

And in this world today

Where we are accustomed to 

Judging the taste of food

by how much sugar and salt

and oil and fat it has

It might seem like a strange idea

That the palette 

Is not inscribed in stone

That it can be coached, 

that it can be molded

And that you can learn

To like things you thought yucky

Or dislike things you hungered for

**

After so much pointless rambling

I will go back to the story

And tell you that

That day

She did like the next bite of noodles

And the next, and the next

So ultimately, 

in my mouth

The cardboard turned back into

Rich, savory, flavorful, nutrition