Jump to content
  • Welcome to the eG Forums, a service of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters. The Society is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of the culinary arts. These advertising-free forums are provided free of charge through donations from Society members. Anyone may read the forums, but to post you must create a free account.

A Fascination for Food


Recommended Posts

I'm Cantonese. We're all obsessed with food.

Jewish ... same idea ... :laugh:

Double whammy. Half Jewish, half Lebanese...Not only am I obsessed with food, I am obsessed with making other people obsessed with food. I'm like a Pod person of eating.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey, what SHOULD a person be obsessed with? Sex -- naw, you could get a horrible disease, or go blind. History -- naw, too depressing. Mathematics -- naw, you lose sight of everything except the minutest of patterns. Psychology, sociology, anthropology -- HELL NO! Fine Arts -- naw, you'll starve to death. Performing Arts -- naw, ditto, plus you'll be severely embarrassed every time you lose out on an audition. Government -- naw, for more reasons than I care to mention. Business -- naw, too jumpy and ulcer-inducing. Family -- ARE YOU CRAZY????

So what's left as a safe, positive, self-affirming, nurturing, etc. etc. thing to be obsessed with? FOOD!!! Yay!!!!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

and my whole take on the sex vs. food discussion....

orgasms are great n' all but they don't vary THAT much, and there are only SO many positions (even if you are into tantric looove)...

but FOOD--endlessly versatile :wub:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

as we're getting into bed rob says - you know...that was delicious, but they would have been happy with a crappy jar of sauce. i felt a little ridiculous for exposing these poor hungry people to my weirdness. they ate well - and serving my guests well is a very important part of being a hostess in my opinion - but what was the point? it wasn't that i was trying to impress them (this wouldn't be the way) it was more like i couldn't help it. i really couldn't buy a jar of sauce.

Yup, I am so with you there. Part of hosting guests is making sure they eat well.

I am food *aware*. I am food *appreciative*. I believe a great meal shared by good friends is a religeous experience..............and I am fortunate to have a small circle of friends with educated palates and generousity of hearts, so that we cook dinners for one another on a weekly basis. This is heavenly.

The only persons who have ever told me I am working too hard for a meal are the same ones who mindlessly consume it (barely tasting the flavors), while complaining mightily about their quotidien lives. If they weren't in-laws, we wouldn't be breaking bread again!

I'm a canning clean freak because there's no sorry large enough to cover the, "Oops! I gave you botulism" regrets.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

thank you susan - it's always nice to feel justified in indulging myself in that way...but was this a time when i should have just sucked it up and gotten the darn Classico?

it's important to me to cook (and eat) a good meal - especially for guests - to cook something i can get excited about. but really - it was one dinner - which i made them wait an hour and a half to eat. is that good hostess behavior?

i'd be willing to wait - and let me be clear - they're lovely people and no one was rushing me or being impolite (in fact - they insisted on doing the dishes) but wasn't i selfish - to use owen's thoughtful criteria - wasn't i letting my passion interfere with my "real" job...in this case - feed the people.

i think this is sticking with me because i know they were baffled by why i made tomato sauce from scratch after working all day. i think they felt guilty - like it isn't something i would ordinarily have done and that they were burdening me. i think i was extremely clear that i was just doing what i would have done in any case, but i don't think they got it, so i don't think they trusted it...which makes what i wished to be a nice thing into something that makes me feel a little guilty.

from overheard in new york:

Kid #1: Paper beats rock. BAM! Your rock is blowed up!

Kid #2: "Bam" doesn't blow up, "bam" makes it spicy. Now I got a SPICY ROCK! You can't defeat that!

--6 Train

Link to comment
Share on other sites

thank you susan - it's always nice to feel justified in indulging myself in that way...but was this a time when i should have just sucked it up and gotten the darn Classico?

it's important to me to cook (and eat) a good meal - especially for guests - to cook something i can get excited about. but really - it was one dinner - which i made them wait an hour and a half to eat. is that good hostess behavior?

i'd be willing to wait - and let me be clear - they're lovely people and no one was rushing me or being impolite (in fact - they insisted on doing the dishes) but wasn't i selfish - to use owen's thoughtful criteria - wasn't i letting my passion interfere with my "real" job...in this case - feed the people.

i think this is sticking with me because i know they were baffled by why i made tomato sauce from scratch after working all day. i think they felt guilty - like it isn't something i would ordinarily have done and that they were burdening me. i think i was extremely clear that i was just doing what i would have done in any case, but i don't think they got it, so i don't think they trusted it...which makes what i wished to be a nice thing into something that makes me feel a little guilty.

You were expressing yourself the way you wanted to. You were being true to yourself. If you had served the classico...you'd still be upset because you ...served the classico. These guests are friends and family, why shouldn't they see the 'real' you? You should not be feeling at all guilty. You absolutely did the right thing.

If you are worried about the hour and half wait...feed them some nibbles!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

reesek, I hear you! The people who don't understand why I'd want to cook an elaborate meal after working all day -- they don't understand that the cooking is fun! It's relaxing. It chills me out! I'd much rather be cooking (even in my hopelessly inadequate kitchen, with cats meandering inconveniently underfoot) than sacked out in front of some mindless TV show or whatever.

A few years ago I was in the Amateur Play from Hell. It was awful. From about the third rehearsal to closing night, a nightmare. And after every evening of rehearsal, I'd come home (this at nine or ten o'clock) and bake something more or less elaborate, because I was simply too wound and cross to go to bed.

"I didn't know when I met you," my husband once said testily, coming bleary-eyed downstairs at one in the morning, "that I would be marrying the Midnight Betty Crocker. Are you ever coming to bed?"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is nothing wrong with being obsessed with food. I was bred to it in a family of foodies.

My earliest (about age 3) memory is of riding my little tricycle around the big round table in the kitchen and having a chunk of buttered biscuit loaded with molasses tucked into my mouth as I paused next to my grandfather's chair, then continuing on and getting a bite of bacon at the next stop by my grandmother, on to my great grandmother and another treat, and so on.

I had already had had my breakfast but because I was indulged by reason of being the only girl born in a generation filled with boys, I was allowed a lot more leeway than the boys, it also kept me busy and stopped my constant asking "why"....... Apparently a work that I used thousands of times during my early years.

Food was very important in a house inhabited by a large number of people in an extended family, visitors were frequent and hospitality was a keystone.

Almost everyone took part in the planning of special meals, dinners, picnics, luncheons, teas, breakfasts and the enormous holiday dinners.

Daily there were usually more than 20 family adults, 10 children, at home for most meals. At holiday time when relatives from away came to visit, that number expanded greatly.

We also had the farm manager and the vet who both lived on the farm at most meals.

Everyone enjoyed food, and the life of the family revolved around it. When my dad and my uncles came back from WWII they brought new and different foods which were incorporated into the family lexicon. When any of the family traveled, they searched out local foods and collected recipes and ingredients and many became family favorites.

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...