Seasonings
We pruned the trees in our yard last weekend. It was warm and sunny and eventually we shed our coats to stay cool as we worked, cutting limbs and branches overhead and then stooping to gather them up. It is a different thing to work overhead: to grasp and use a tool at the limits of your reach above head height. Even just to study the structures overhead, looking for problems to be solved by a pruner or a saw.
It was warm and sunny, but there was still over a foot of snow covering the entire yard. Walking back and forth between the backyard and the driveway was an effort all its own. At some point I realized I was actually thirsty, which can sneak up on you sometimes in cold weather.
We wrapped up late that afternoon and then went for a walk with a friend, making the most out of the pleasant weather. It was dark when we got back home. We had leftovers for dinner, but they tasted better than they did a couple of nights ago. They were perhaps even better than some freshly prepared meals I’ve had.
There are many ways to prepare food, but that’s only one part of a meal. How we come to the meal is just as important: the dinner and the one who dines both benefit from preparation. It wasn’t that I simply worked up an appetite and was hungrier than usual. I think that food simply tastes better somehow after being active outside most of the day. Perhaps our senses are sharpened or our blood flow is increased or we are simply more alive…
Activity, exertion and adventure are methods of slow-cooking our perceptiveness and appreciation. They are seasonings we add to ourselves that improve our ability to savor.
It’s Just Not That Exciting
My wife and I embarked on a journey 3 years ago when we did the Whole 30 program. I lost a bunch of weight that I didn’t even know I had, temporarily reset my taste for sugar and gained a really strange craving for kale salads. I’m not kidding: if I don’t have a kale salad every few days I feel like something’s missing. Anyway... I tried to be mindful during this time and there were a couple of things that I observed:
I did not really have hunger pangs, I had habit pangs. I wanted to have a snack because I was used to having a snack.
There is an absurd amount of sugar in nearly everything. Seriously, reading labels carefully will change your view of food forever.
At some point, I simply got bored with eating. It was just a thing I needed to do.
The last one is curious. I had gotten used to food as entertainment or recreation. Why eat just for nutrition when it can be an extravaganza? Why shouldn’t it be amusing and delightful? Every. Single. Meal.
And, of course, food is delightful. And it is delicious even if it’s not loaded with sugar AND dextrose AND corn syrup. (That’s not a joke: I’ve seen all three on the same label.) But sometimes you just need to have lunch and it doesn’t have to be a big deal. It’s some chicken and vegetables. It’s some fish and vegetables. It’s some vegetables and some other different vegetables. Or some fruit. And it’s healthy and satisfying in every way except that it’s not French fries dipped in BBQ sauce.
There are traditional foods that are only prepared for special occasions: celebrations, holidays, religious observances. The thing is, we’ve gotten used to being able to have anything we want almost any time we want it and subsequently erased nearly every association it may have had with a special occasion. That may not be quite as true these last few months as it used to be, but my last trip to the grocery store suggests that it’s still mostly in effect.
There are people struggling with being bored because they’ve got too much time on their hands (envy...), but I wonder if they’ve gotten bored with their food choices. I wonder what this time would be like if we ate pretty much the same thing each day and got used to not being surprised and delighted the way we’re used to?