A bite into a culture’s past, present, and future.
How food remains one of the constant reminders of where we come from and where we’re going.
What is the first thing that comes into your mind when you think about pizza? Probably Italy. How about soul food? Likely the south. Tea? Probably Asia but also the United Kingdom. Food throughout different countries and cultures isn’t just a way we associate them with their geographical location, they’re an intimate look into a culture and country’s identity.
“Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are. ”
The quote above was professed in 1852 by French gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin in his book “Physiology of Taste”, and still today in 2020, rings true. What is my interpretation of his words? The food that we eat is an anthology of our experiences, who we are, where we’ve been, and where we are going. In a world that is quickly growing more and more multicultural, our mouths are opening to new culinary wisdom.
The United Kingdom, which once during Roman and Victorian times had its streets filled with oysters and fish offerings, along with local fruits, vegetable and meat pies due to local availability and demand, is now a cultural melting pot. The national dish is chicken tikka masala which although has Indian origins, was invented in Glasgow.
The city of Los Angeles has the taco as it’s most symbolic food, and when we think of Ireland we still think of potatoes.
Revolution:
Food has brought on revolutions; rising prices of bread in Paris brought on the bread riots and became one of the initial catalysts to the beginning of the French Revolution. The Boston Tea Party, was a political protest against the new tax upon tea on the colonies, and was a significant development to the beginning of the American Revolution.
Serious conversations in government, families, and romantic relationships happen also happen over food, which personally I think creates a commonality and can increase stress in a conversation and ultimately lead to more favorable outcomes. One of our greatest inherent needs as a human, is to eat. And when commonality is hard to find in certain situations, food is our hand to hold.
A Proustian memory:
Food is also a bridge to our memory and our emotions, and taste will very easily transport us to our childhood, our greatest memories, and one taste, the whiff of whatever is in our mouth or oven, and a close of our eyes creates a sort of magic that cannot be duplicated with anything else.
In author Marcel Proust’s classic masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time, Marcel experiences this exact bridge between his taste and memory while eating the treasured madeleine:
“No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shiver ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory — this new sensation having the effect, which love has, of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it was me.”
A Proustian memory is something of a quick moment, usually due to taste or smell, which abruptly transport us back to a time and feeling that we had forgotten about and otherwise would’ve probably not remembered. For Marcel Proust it was a madeleine, and who knows what it could be for you, or for me. There is a reason when we’re feeling sad or unwell, we usually crave the foods that bring us the most comfort, and they’re usually the same ones that we had throughout our childhood. When we feel lost and disconnected, an ingestible piece of our identity can temporarily fill that gap. I want a fried egg on toast or a bacon sandwich when I’m feeling down, and my partner wants her comforted Greek tomato and orzo that she had as a child. The thought itself brings comfort and we know immediately what will hug our stomachs and sooth our souls for a brief moment.
Food not only has the power to transport us back into time and fill us with comfort, but it can ignite a revolution, bridge gaps between culture better than any political leader, and in my opinion, can improve us as a human race and tell the story of who we are as individuals and a culture better than any university history course.
In closing this, I will finish my cup of Yorkshire tea, put an order in for my new favourite meal, kebab with rice, and ask you the same question that was posed by Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin in 1852,
“Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are.”
