Letting Food Matter and Mean More

False solutions and the ordinariness of cooking

"Food is 'everyday' - it has to be, or we would not survive for long. But food is never just something to eat." So wrote Margaret Visser in Much Depends on Dinner: The extraordinary history and mythology, allure and obsessions, perils and taboos, of an ordinary meal (1986), and it struck me because of its subversive obviousness. I could scoff; of course, food is every day. But Visser is getting at more here. When I think about modern US culture, there are potent suggestions that food can and should be minimized, delegated, or rushed so that we can spend time on (supposed) more important things. This "we" is those of us who have reliable access to enough food and money to buy it with, the same "we" that is sweet-talked in every fast food, pre-made dinner, and meal kit advertisement.

The title of Visser's book comes from Byron, in Don Juan, and is the epigraph: "Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner." Some gleanings: The back of the book says she's a "classicist by training," and Wikipedia tells me she was born in 1940 and was a Greek and Latin professor at York University in North York, Toronto for almost 20 years. Many different places say something like her work is the mythology of everyday life. After the 1986 publication of Much Depends on Dinner, she published five more books, including The Rituals of Dinner in 1991 (reviewed in The Guardian in 2017 when it was reissued), which I'll read next. She was a commentator in the documentary "At Your Service" (1997) (available on YouTube) about "how people around the world are served, and what qualifies as 'good service.'" Also worth noting, her website is delightfully out of date.

As I continue writing about food, eating, and hunger, I'm embracing my interest in the mundane. I'm drawn to writers like Visser, who bring the total weight of their expertise to the everyday, the ordinary. As someone who writes from home, takes care of my children at home, and was homeschooled, I'm not surprised by the breadth and depth of meaning that can be found in a small space.

The standard definition of ordinary is "with no special or distinctive features; normal." Long ago, ordinary used to mean an inn where you could get a meal for a set price or a person's daily allowance of food. In the Catholic tradition, Ordinary Time is the time between Christmastide and Lent and Eastertide and Advent. It's "a time for growth and maturation," of pondering mysteries and beliefs. The distinctive features of these other definitions of ordinary seem to focus on ritual and repetition.

Visser wrote, "Food - what is chosen from the possibilities available, how it is presented, how it is eaten, with whom and when, and how much time is allotted to cooking and eating it - is one of the means by which a society creates itself and acts out its aims and fantasies. Changing (or unchanging) food choices and presentations are part of every society's tradition and character." Food is so much more than something to eat. All aspects of eating are worth consideration and the time needed to consider them. Get to know your food more, and you'll get to know yourself and your context.  

What I'm saying (echoing Visser) directly opposes how food and eating "solutions" are advertised in the US and often talked about. Every meal kit makes the promise that it's so much easier than shopping and preparing. Every burger and fry or frozen dinner whispers that you've done enough; you couldn't possibly be expected to cook, too. Modern life has evolved to the point that, if you have the means, cooking is almost beneath you – unless it becomes a hobby, a time to unwind and recover from the burnout you're courting at your high-power job. Or so the dizzying array of solutions to the "problem" of dinner would have us believe.

An imaginary meal kit salesman (yes, it's a man) would look with confusion at me as I save the onion peels and ends, carrot tops, parsley stems, parmesan rind, and other bits and pieces in a bag and return it to the freezer. He wouldn't ask me anything, assuming I was a weirdo who liked saving garbage. Surely, he'd think, everyone would be happier if their onion and carrots came pre-chopped and sealed in plastic – imagine how much time they'd save. 

Le scrap bag

I'm picking on the meal kit companies because I think they prey on people's lack of time to cook and desire to eat healthy meals, all to sell a sub-par product. Absolutely no shade to any other human beings out there who have sought out the meal kits; I've been there. Five years ago, I signed up for a HelloFresh trial because I was exhausted and frustrated in the kitchen (this was before my husband learned to cook), and finally, after seeing the millionth ad, I thought, sure, let's try it. One box arrived with a packet of chicken breasts punctured – the juices everywhere. Another box served me limp, chopped bell peppers, tiny packets of shredded cheese, and some of the worst tortillas I've ever eaten. It didn't save me time when I had to clean up the chicken goo. And the food itself was bland at best. The solution sucks! We all deserve better.

I find meaning in managing my pantry, shopping, and cooking (which I don't do alone). The routines of saving vegetable scraps, cooking from the pantry, and eating leftovers foster a reverence for the ordinary—and a daily reminder of how much I have when so many in my town are hungry. Paying attention to something makes it matter more and mean more. It’s still a relentless chore. Some days, ordering pizza from Clockwork, my favorite local (Palestinian-owned) shop, is necessary. The pizza tastes extra good because I'm extremely grateful for the labor of whoever made it so that I could sit down and rest.

Imbuing the daily act of feeding ourselves with more meaning is good. Good for me, good for local communities, good for the environment. It's easy to slip into fatalistic thinking: Nothing I do matters–it's just a drop in the bucket. That thinking scares me because it makes my world smaller with less room for others as my gaze focuses on my own insignificance. Not surprisingly, those thoughts are sometimes triggered by ads encouraging me to take it easy because I've worked hard enough—time to embrace the time saving powers of the meal kit!

Isn't it concerning that so many messages would have us believe our actions don't matter? Yes, it's true that, "approximately 71 percent of carbon emissions can be traced to just 100 fossil fuel producers since 1988," Oxfam reports. I can’t singlehandedly stop a corporation from doing anything. And, I hold true in the same moment that every individual action (mine and yours) matters, too. Whitney Bauck wrote a great list of efforts we can take (in the form of resolutions) to become more sustainable in our food practices. Not only can individual action have an impact, but it's essential for my mental health, my purpose, and my soul to believe what I do matters. So that's why I save vegetable scraps to make broth. That's why we eat leftovers until they are finished or frozen, to be eaten on a future date when I don't feel like cooking.

I'm used to feeling weird on the internet, but after watching too many "day in the life of a private chef in the Hamptons" TikToks, I was unmoored. Was I envious that she got to cook all day long, going from a bountiful garden to a gigantic kitchen? Was I disgusted by looking into the life of some one-percenters who hired her? Maybe I was simply sad that the "peak" of life under capitalism entails delegating cooking. Maybe I was also sad that her videos felt so aspirational when all they portray (minus the expensive trappings) is the act of intentionally preparing a day's food. Why does that feel so far out of reach to so many? 

"Food shapes us and expresses us even more definitively than our furniture or houses or utensils do," Visser wrote, and I agree. To continue her thought, what about the minimizing of food? How does food shape us if the aim of modern life is to have minimal contact with cooking through means of meal kits and fast food, or private chefs and meal replacement products? How does a lack of time spent with food shape us? What conditions do we live under that make us believe saving scraps is useless, or cause us to eat in a way where there aren't scraps? The onion skins and carrot tops were disposed of by someone else—this is a solution?!

Who should we be angry at? Definitely not ourselves or each other, for surviving in this system. I know who, or what, I'm always angry at: Those people and businesses profiting from our exhaustion. It's a good thing we can resist by cooking what we can (enjoying convenience food when it's a lifesaver), saving the odds and ends, eating leftovers, and sharing our surplus. 

It's ordinary time again in the Catholic definition, and in the way that every day is ordinary. Each day we have is a time for growth, pondering mysteries, and questioning beliefs. Food is just as good a topic for this questioning and pondering as any other, and it's right here, already part of our days. 

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Happy new year, all! I hope it’s treating you well thus far. Next week I’ll be sharing a list of what I’m reading, cooking, and writing instead of an essay as part of the new schedule around here. Jan. 19th I’ll be back with an essay. Thanks again for being here.

Reading anything good? I absolutely cannot buy any more books this month, but I’d love to hear about your stack (links, too.)