The Wrong Way
By Lynn Holt - 2006
Food is a connector for all men. Rich and poor alike eat and enjoy food. Male and female, Christian, Jew and atheist, lovers, fighters, friends and foes. Everyone eats. It is the tribute to humanity that even the saints must make. It is our survival. It is our reward. It is our humanity.
In my family, food is our method of communication. My father is angry when he makes bread, and thoughtful when he makes pasta. I make brownies when I’m antsy, and spinach salad during my moon cycle, my mother makes soup when she’s worried about finances, and drinks champagne when the day was good. Even our verbal communication is most unrestricted when we sit around the table, or vie for space in the kitchen.
There has never been a time that food wasn’t quintessential to our lives. We’ve always sat down to dinner. Maybe not every night, we had soccer, play, choir, class, dates and friends, but two or three times a week the four, or five when there were, of us would sit down together and eat. But it wasn’t the food that was important. Sure, we’d labored over it and we enjoyed it as it should have been enjoyed, but we convened at that hour to converse. My parents asked us that age-old question, “what did you do today?” And we had never gotten away with the answer “nothing.” They knew we’d done something even if it was mundane and we didn’t want to talk about it. So we told them the trials of our days. The crazy teachers and the horrors of the pep assemblies. The fighting friends and the attractive lab partners. They knew things about us, and it wasn’t until I reached high school that I realized how strange that was. My parents knew what I liked to do with my free time. My parents knew why I did the things I did, and they knew who I was. Because we ate together.
The ancients believed that sharing a meal with someone made that person your responsibility. You were family. I have shared meals with many people. Many of them, I must admit, I am no longer in contact with. Friends and lovers who have just… drifted away. There’s something in that primal part of my soul that cries out that I should never have let them go. I should have held on. I broke bread with these people, they should be in my life and I should be caring for them. Some of them sat at the table with my family and ate. I know that my family feels responsible for them too. Something inside us that hasn’t fallen prey to modern indifference still believes that the hospitality of a meal shared is a bond that should not be broken. The people who have shared our meals, however, are modern. They don’t feel a bond. They don’t need to. I tell myself to get with the times, but perhaps my soul belonged to an ancient.
Food is the great sensual experience. The sense of taste and smell are tantalized by the fare offered upon the plates, flavors and odors blended to create a crux of sensation. The eyes feast upon the contrast of vegetables and meat, light and shadow, and the warmth of the light upon the wood of the table. The touch is stimulated by a blend of textures and temperatures in the food, the chill of the fork and the warmth of the air. And finally, the ears thrill in the sounds of the voices around you. It’s not the true experience of a meal if no one joins you in it. The most fantastic meal is sawdust when unshared. The wrong way to eat spaghetti is alone.