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
