It Is Just Food

“It is just food.”


Those words will always echo solemnly in my head. Why, you might ask yourself, will such a simple phrase conjure up ill feeling?

Because it is more than “just food” to say that is to simply denote consumption as a means to gain nutrition; yes that plays a vital role, but that is a foundation to build on, not a period. Food at its base core, is more than just sustenance and a means to relieve the pangs of hunger. Like religion and culture it is a way in which people gather – the focal point for a meeting of persons and people. Though, unlike religion and culture, it excludes no one (except the anorexic).

Food is such a primary term for something that is so utterly magical when it is done correctly. The experience of a dozen or so friends and a pig roast is something that will remain in the catacombs of one’s head forever. Something like Thanksgiving has begun to have something of a negative moniker or air about it in the last few decades, but one needs to separate the anxieties of sufficing the needs and wants of overly ambivalent relatives to the goal at hand: your family, your friends, and all the people you care about are here, eating, and enjoying a good time before returning the drools that is life; that is what food is.

It is an escape. Though not necessarily parallel to drugs or alcohol, food is an act of escapism. In a world of way too much drama, tension, stress, and overall lack of civility we need acts that replicate nostalgia, calm, trying to get to a stasis in life.

It is an escape that is, more or less, healthy – if one ventures carelessly down its path then after years of abuse it will catch up to you. But food has been delineated into fitting a very concise box that has no openings or ways out. Food = a removal of the physical sensation of hunger. Something some people have a hard time dealing with, this, in my estimation, is a feudal attempt at subjugating consumption into something it is not.

Food’s primary goal is for nutritional satiation, but so often that aspect is over looked and ignored. We can see its abuse in every context, but, honestly, to focus too much on this abuse can be directly correlated to why there is a convoluted view on food. Food is food is food, if you try and achieve something from the word food by dubbing a Styrofoam, packing peanut “food” of course people will not be able to deter their prejudices from real food.

There is a lot of distance put between food and the consumer, but that is for another posting. It makes sense, though, because of this distance that people will not put importance on food, on its source, or how it was made – as long as it is in their supermarket at low prices and packaged correctly, few people would be hard pressed to have an issue with food. It is more than that though, when one reconnects with how something as simple as a sausage is made it is a revelation (one I have proudly done on many occasions). Putting together your own pasta dough is beautiful (my favorite recipe just click here). Making bread (BREAD!) for the first time (Jamie Oliver’s focaccia) was so exhilarating, seeing something taken for granted go from a pile of flour to a beautiful, savory, herb studded piece of bread was astounding.

Those moments – seeing a pile of ingredients turn into dinner – were the first memories I have of my family. At age 4 my parents allowed me to make mac’n’cheese, something that most parents would never allow their children to do at that age, I still remember the splash of the noodles into the salted water; the salt crystallization that occurred on the side of the pot; the ever mounting anticipation of something so simply delicious, something so synonymous with Americana, was waiting for me just 6-8 minutes away (depending on sea level); watching, emphatically, as the butter melted and the neon orange powder turned into the slick, unctuous, and cheesy mass that I was anticipating so.

Still, even with the passing of fifteen years, I can reminisce on the smells of a Taiwanese food stand as an onion pancake is divided and packaged for my dinner that night. Food is not a means to a nutritional end, it is much more impactful and important than that. As the continued food revolution moves forward people will be more apt to take care in their food, place more importance on what they do and do not eat, and, finally, realize the way food can unite.