8th
The Love of Food.
I may be crunching on bland celery, but if I fix my eyes on the Food Network, that stringy stick of celery can transform into chicken liver pate in an instant. Ritz crackers that I have been shoving down my throat could morph into gruyere crisps. That nasty 3-in-1 coffee could suddenly taste like freshly brewed espresso with a side of Laduree macaroons.
I am astounded at how food has become a spectator sport that can grip my attention even more than the Fashion Channel. What shocks me is that I am so transfixed by the process of creating food that actually tasting it becomes irrelevant. Mixing bananas with bacon in dessert. Cooking sweet potatoes in duck fat. Counterbalancing acidity with rich full flavors. The creativity and innovation demanded out of these chefs in shows like Chopped and Iron Chef is so taxing that food should justifiably be considered an art form, one where the creative process is more fulfilling than the end product. It is like a dance, where the choreography and the clever twists and turns are more revealing than the grand finale.
Considering the mastery involved in creating what we casually term “food,” I get severely offended by people who see food as merely a chapter in the survival manual, where the only instruction is to “eat something because if you don’t you will die.” These are the people who resign to eating microwave mac n cheese every night instead of discovering a new spice. These are the people who look at sushi and think ew, raw fish. The people who would not venture near a sweet sesame and red bean dessert because wait, isn’t red bean a vegetable and hence…salty? These are the people who are perfectly content noshing on their mashed potatoes, where the only complexity they can retrieve from their food is salt and butter.
Of course there is always that trite excuse about not having the time or the money to explore foods. These are the people who choose to make a run to Safeway and buzz straight to Aisle 2: Frozen Foods rather than take a trip to the farmers market on Saturday. These are the people who invite their Church friends after Sunday Service to “grab a bite” at Carls Jr. rather than to the local seafood shack just across the street. It is a choice, and the excuses are just embellishments to a truth that is difficult to digest: their resignation to explore foods is simply a symptom of their resignation to explore life’s more interesting offerings. Their fear of daring dishes is just a reflection of their inhibitions toward adventure. Their haughty “I am really picky about what I eat” is just a nasty euphemism for “I don’t know much about the world and I intend to keep in that way.”
I cannot be friends with these people. It’s not a matter of refusal, but a sheer inability to connect with them. Choosing to close oneself off from a gastronomic adventure is literally an act of disregarding complete cultures and civilizations. In fact, choosing to “politely abstain” from even trying a dish simply because it does not look like a whopper is perhaps the most personal assault upon a person. You just insulted the entire family. It’s like “your momma’s so fat” except it’s not just the momma; it’s also the uncle, the woman your uncle left your aunt for, and the nocturnal couple upstairs.
So please stop being ethnocentrist in your regard for food; push yourself to experience something else. Sure you’ve tried salty. But there is an entire spectrum of salts, and within each a gradient of nuances yet to be noticed. And if you still don’t have the time (which I doubt) or the money (again, excuses) then at least watch the Food Network to know what is out there, and more importantly, what your puny little mind is holding you back from. And never talk to me.
