Truly Enjoying Food — The Pleasures of the Table

This post might seem contrary to my claims that when I’m hungry I redirect my energy to thankfulness, study, or service, but I can assure you, it isn’t. Writing about truly enjoying food comes directly out of reflecting on the blessing of food and community. When preparing food one thing I reflect on is being blessed by access to food, but another is the blessing of eating. Not just ingesting food, but actually *eating*. Enjoying the food; the presentation; the company.

Every Sunday night is taco night at our house.

Every Sunday night is taco night at our house.

This is not a new insight, but for quite some time, I’ve been painfully aware of people who feed, not eat. What do I mean? Well, feeding is done to keep you alive.  If you don’t consume food (or some major source of calories) you will die. For many people food fulfills exactly one function: it keeps them alive. And in fact, for many of those people it is keeping them alive in the short term, but very likely shortening their over-all lives.

These people actually can look very different in their habits. Some of them eat out constantly, but mainly eat pretty poor fast food. Royal or Irish/Scottish-sounding burgers and french fries that might not recognize a potato; something that might be poultry from a confederate state; Taco Bell. Others might generally eat-in, but they’re eating prepared foods, like frozen dinners (if you don’t take anything else from this, for the love of my sanity STOP EATING TV DINNERS),  tear-open and mix with hot water sauces, anything suffixed with the word “helper”. And there are even folks who make their own food from actual raw ingredients, but with no desire to make it taste at all good.

Feeding is often what you do while in college. Mac and cheese, ramen noodles, frozen pizzas. With me? Now, let me make a quick admission: everybody likes crap food sometimes. That’s perfectly okay. The problem is when crap food is mostly what you’re eating.

I know that for at least some people who only feed, it’s because they’ve never really experienced anything better. They’ve never pulled a loaf from the oven, spread Normandy-style butter on a slice, and had literally every sense engaged and pleased. They’ve never tasted a hunk of pork that has been sitting over a low hardwood fire for 18 hours. They’ve never had a funky cheddar with a glass of IPA.

Sadly, many people don’t realize that food is actually something to be enjoyed. Even when the Isrealites were in the wilderness, the food God provided, manna, tasted good. Even in a situation where it was a question of life or death, God thought “well, they should at least enjoy the stuff”. According to the Bible, it tasted like honey-wafers, which doesn’t sound too bad to me (although if you know the story, there was no shortage of complaining). I have no doubt, that food is meant to be enjoyed.

Giant Shrimp Po'boys are proof that God loves us and wants to be happy

Giant Shrimp Po’boys are proof that God loves us and wants to be happy

Feeders might not enjoy the taste of food, but there’s another type of person who does, but doesn’t truly enjoy food. I’ll call them soloists. This person may be a feeder, or they may love delicious foods. But they never enjoy one of the less obvious pleasures of food; community.

Food brings people together. Historically (and still today in many parts of the world) food procurement and preparation was energy-costly. It was a fact of life that you had to do it with other people. So by necessity food and community were linked. That so many people now forgo the joy of coming together, whether just with family or with a wider group, is nothing short of tragic.

People make many excuses, but the fact remains that too many people eat alone (or effectively alone; a family eating while watching TV is probably a bunch of soloists who happen to be in the same space, the same is true of families all using mobile devices while eating, etc).

Posting pics of sexy food to Instagram doesn't count...

Posting pics of sexy food to Instagram doesn’t count…

So what is one to do?

Eat together. Cook together. Be together. Cut that out of pine on a scroll-saw and artfully “distress” it then hang it over your dinning room table.

Probably the easiest place to start is with your meals at home.

The first thing is to change priorities. You can’t take time to enjoy preparing a meal if you’re working late. You can’t sit down to a family meal if Jimmy has soccer at 5, Sally has hockey at 6:30, and you go curling at 8. I’m not telling you to forfeit every aspect of your life that doesn’t include eating, but start out by choosing one night a week that everybody is home for dinner. This is as true for wacky Christians with 18 children as it is for a newlywed couple. If you are single and living alone, hang tight. There’s a great bit coming up about dinner parties.

Bring everybody on-board. As a family (maybe each week, after your together-meal) do a weekly meal plan. It’s not set in stone, but at least it gives you a framework. If it sounds too restrictive, it can be as simple as “Monday dinner: use up fresh basil” so you know you need to bake a baguette and buy some fresh tomatoes. As a family, shop together. Let everybody contribute to meal decisions. Once you know what you’re making and you have the raw ingredients, make it together.

Gracie loves sushi

Gracie loves sushi

Even my 2 year-old helps make meals. She’s great at adding chopped-up stuff to dishes; also dishes of pre-measured spices. My 5 year-old has a plastic vegetable knife that can safely cut things from bananas right up to apples. So he chops. You want to see a proud child? Get them to help make a meal, and then watch them brag to the rest of the family. They will also likely eat the food. Yes, kids slow things down, so make time (see above on priorities). Be smart, you probably can’t do a crown rack of lamb on a Tuesday night with your 3 year-old; but you can do pizza. Or club sandwiches and coleslaw.

Talk; even if your mouth is full. Know those people sitting around your dinner table? They’re pretty awesome. It’s easy to forget because you see a lot of them, and sometimes they really piss you off. But they are probably super cool folks who have all had experiences that are worth sharing, or opinions on current events, or ways to make the damned Leafs make the playoffs. Maybe you’re all really really bad conversationalists. That’s okay (and not surprising, it’s probably genetic). Write down a bunch of conversation-starting questions, and put them in a hat, or a jar, or whatever. Then, once everyone is seated and eating, pull out a question. Everybody has to answer. Discussion is welcome. Here’s a few to start you out:

  • What’s the most random thing that happened today?
  • What are the Seven Wonders of [your city or country]? (each person adds one until you have seven, debating is welcome).
  • What’s your favourite part of this meal and why?
  • What are you passionate about?
  • Where would you travel, if you could go anywhere?

Now bask in the glow of a delicious meal, the warmth of family, and the joy of a fine beer or wine.

But this isn’t just about family meals, nor is it only about home-cooking. I had a spectacular meal (despite not eating) with a group of friends celebrating a birthday a few weeks ago at Indie Alehouse. Their food was amazing, there was lots of getting-to-know and catching-up discussion, and everybody was trying new and different beers. Plan a meal where you bring a bunch of different people together, either at a restaurant or else at somebody’s home. This can be as simple as calling Indie for a reservation or as complex as hosting a multi-course themed meal. It can be small, like inviting your best friend over because you picked up a few Bellwoods Monogamy Mosiac pale ales, and you feel like ordering Thai, or big, like the time we dedicated our daughter at church and made pulled pork sandwiches for 120, got a keg of beer, and asked people to bring either wine or a picnic-style salad, then all sat out on the lawn together and enjoyed each-other’s company.

Pulled Pork

Pulled Pork

No matter how you do it, take some time this week or next, and truly enjoy some food.  If you’re cooking it, get the best ingredients you can reasonably afford and get somebody you love to help out. When you eat, think about what you’re eating, and what it tastes and smells like, how it feels, how it looks. Talk about it with the people around you. Enjoy the time you have with those people, whether they share your DNA, are old friends, or somebody you just met. When you’re in bed later that night, think about the meal, and be thankful. If you’re the praying kind this would be a good time for some heaven-directed thanksgiving.

There is nothing wrong with grabbing a late-night burrito and downing it like a hungry teenager from time to time, but there is a big problem with never truly appreciating a great meal in it’s entirety.

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