We are helping to host a group of international students/interns as they attend a two-week seminar on leadership and get some good American cultural experiences. My husband is doing yeoman duty as the van driver, thus freeing up the actual leader to do more interacting with the group, and I’ve been lending a hand here and there. One issue that has come up several times is that some people in the group don’t eat pork. At our first group meal we had various dishes that were contributed. One was a big hunk of meat, wrapped in foil and baked until tender and juicy. The minute we opened it up I thought, “Oh, great—this is one of those pot roasts that you just throw in the oven and bake for hours.” It looked, smelled and tasted like beef—at least to me. But the other women weren’t so sure. They thought it was pork. We weren’t able to get in touch with the person who’d brought it, and our group was coming in to the tables expecting to be fed. My inclination was just to serve it, as it seemed fine to me. But the others were more cautious. Finally we got through to the provider. Oh dear, she said. It was indeed pork. She was so sorry! I made a lightning-like commando raid to the nearest grocery store and picked up a couple of those roast deli chickens. The guy was just bringing out a new batch, so they were fresh and hot, and he made sure that I got two of the biggest. Nice! I raced back, we hacked them up, and there was now a non-pork choice available. (But later, to add another layer of complication, the provider said that she wasn’t really sure what it was after all, as she’d just pulled it out of the freezer and cooked it. So I’m going to say that my original impression has been vindicated. Whatever it was, it was delicious, and I was reminded of how good a plain roast can be.)
Later on in the week we took everyone to a country-western dinner and music show. They served big plates of food—beans, beef brisket, baked potatoes, a canned peach, a biscuit, and . . . some pulled pork. This time, though, we’d had access to the menu ahead of time and our visitors were told that they should ask to have only beef if they didn’t want the pork. (And I’d have to say that if you’re ever in the Estes Park area during the summer you should totally go to the Lazy B Chuckwagon Dinner and Show. I’m not a big country-western fan—although I do like bluegrass—but these people were really phenomenal. If nothing else, you’ll enjoy sitting there and watching a group of super-talented performers serve and clean up a dinner for over 400 people, tend bar, manage the parking lot, and do a ton of meeting and greeting along with a fabulous musical show. It was pretty amazing!)
But this whole pork issue got me to thinking about the endlessly-fascinating subject of food and why we make the choices that we do. Pork has been a forbidden food for many people groups throughout the ages, of course; I’m not sure exactly what the rationale was for the people in our group, whether religious or purely cultural. It obviously fit squarely into the middle level of my “food choice pyramid” that I’ve written about before, that is, a food choice based on conviction, conscience or perhaps simply a respect for tradition. I just went back and leafed through my battered, falling-apart copy of The Silver Palate Good Times Cookbook* to find this quotation: “What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?” by someone named Lin Yutang. One of the big problems in our food supply these days is that this type of patriotism, that is, a love of food culture, is quickly vanishing. We don’t think of our food as being connected to much of anything; it’s just something that’s there, always on tap. The more I think about this whole topic the more I’m convinced it’s this social/cultural lack that’s one of the driving forces of our obesity epidemic. Since food is nothing special, we can eat it all the time. It isn’t tied to specific mealtimes, or special occasions, or our families and friends. I guess you could argue that food has become something that’s streamed, just like Netflix. There it is, ready to be binged on.
Well, I guess this is all pretty obvious, but it needs to be pointed out over and over again. Our food supply, and our attitudes about that food, are fueling a public health disaster. I was reminded as I was thinking about this post of the great writer Margaret Visser and her wonderful book Much Depends on Dinner* (1988) in which she does a rather Michael Pollan-esque thing of taking an ordinary meal and tracing its origins back as far as she can. When I was looking up the book I ran into a wonderful interview she did. She is asked, “What gives food, as an example of such ordinary things, such extraordinary power over our lives?” Here’s her answer:
Several aspects account for this power. One is the amount of time that people have always spent on food— getting it, organizing it, cooking it, and deciding who should eat it, when and where. Aside from such practical considerations, which are based on the fact that food is a necessity, we have the psychological aspect. . . . And, of course, in the major religions food is absolutely central to their symbolic religious system.
I had read this book years ago but just got it as an audiobook and am looking forward to revisiting Visser’s thoughtful ideas. I’m encouraging myself, and also my readers, to do some thinking about the role food plays in our lives now and how much we’ve wandered from what it used to be: life-sustaining and significant, treated with respect and honor. Hard to do these days, but I’m trying. How about you?
*affiliate links