I just finished lunch a little while ago. a totally scrumptious bowlful of lentil-and-vegetable-and sausage salad with my homemade creamy Italian dressing. I enjoyed every bite. And now, if I’m wise, I’ll consider myself to be off the eating bandwagon until dinner, at which time there will be another good meal, perhaps some spinach lasagna with whole-wheat pasta. Or we might go out, it being Friday night and all.
(Note to grammar geeks: Yes, I know that previous sentence should read, “its being Friday night and all.” I am fully aware that I often fail to use the possessive in front of a gerund. Sometimes being correct sounds so weird that I can’t bring myself to do it; sometimes, as in this case, the non-proper usage seems idiomatic to me. But I’m slowly coming to the conclusion that I can’t keep on breaking this rule, so I’m going to go with the correct usage or re-write the sentence to avoid the issue most of the time. Just so you know!)
I’ve become more and more conscious of eating well since realizing how close I am to the dread prospect of diabetes. So the subject of food fits into the overall topic of this blog because staying free of insulin and other medications makes me happy. But even if I weren’t walking along this particular cliff I would still need to make sure that food has the proper role in my life. On the whole, Americans don’t do this. Food is either an idol, something to make us better because hey, if I eat a certain way I must be a good person, or it’s an addiction, something that we think we can’t resist. But food should be neither. Food is just food. It’s to be enjoyed, savored, and then put aside. It shouldn’t be consumed mindlessly, and it shouldn’t be an obsession.
I have mentioned the Frank Bruni memoir Born Round and his description of how differently his Italian-American family dealt with food than did the actual Italians he met when he lived in Rome. For his family, food was way more than food: it was a status symbol, an idol. Why was it necessary to have so much plenty weighing down the table at every meal, especially a holiday one? Because food symbolized the family’s prosperity. The grandparents had come over to America during the time of the Great Depression and struggled to get into the middle class. Not to have vast amounts of every conceivable dish was shaming because that meant that you couldn’t afford those things. Not to eat until you were full to bursting meant that you didn’t appreciate what your family had accomplished. But if food doesn’t have all that baggage attached to it, then you don’t have to prove anything with it. You can, as Bruni relates, serve one lamp chop per person, as happened at a classy dinner he attended in Rome, as opposed to three chops per person, as he typically served in his own home. Food can and should have great importance and be treated with great respect. Certain items can remind us of our childhoods, or be a part of a beloved ritual, or give us a sense of identity, and yet still be no more than food.
Well, lots more to say on this subject, but perhaps that’s enough for today. I will just say that if you like to cook you should head on over to the Smitten Kitchen website. I’m planning to make her strawberry-cornmeal pancakes for tomorrow’s breakfast. We’re inundated with beautiful strawberries from our garden and I refuse to make jam. I’m also going to make the cucumber-avocado salad that I noticed. (Not for breakfast, though.) She does tend to go on and on sometimes, but her food and her photography are simply great. Give one of her recipes a try.