I went to the Farmer’s Market a few days before Christmas. People were standing in line at all the meat and pork shops. One seller told me that he finished the whole batch of pork neck in a few minutes. He was very kind and competently sliced a piece of pork leg very thinly for me, gave me tips on how to cook it, cracked a joke… I thanked him gratefully, smiled and left. Trying to avoid the people who were going about their business, not caring about those around them, we went to the shop where my husband buys bread. I said hello and asked the seller to weigh me a smaller piece of bread than the ones she had on display. She gave me a murderous look, slammed a bag of bread on the table, weighed it, then threw the bread in my face on the counter. I paid, thanked her, took the bread and left. Leaving the store I told my husband, half joking, half seriously, to exorcise that bread before he ate it.
Moving on, again careful not to get hit, I went to the poultry shop. I can’t stop wonder how people can walk without paying attention to those around them, without any empathy for those smaller than them, as I think that if I was 1.80m and 95 kg they would have bypassed me. There was nobody in line for poultry, on holidays people “hunt” for pork. The seller, bored, looked at me with lifeless eyes, with a mute question. I asked for turkey liver, with a smile and a “please”. I didn’t impress him, he threw the liver on the scale. “Anything else?”. “And 8 chicken wings, please.” Again he looked at me: are you bothering me for 8 chicken wings!? I paid, thanked and left. I said to my husband, ok, let’s go, I don’t like the energy in the market today. He is used to my “fancy moods”, he knows that if I don’t like a place or a person I leave. With no explanations. I took lettuce, radishes, green onions, dill and parsley on the way out, and had one last interaction with a lady selling cabbage. She made a joke: I don’t sell cabbage to people who don’t also buy dill. I understood that it was a joke, and I said: ah, what did I miss, I just bought dill from somewhere else. We both laughed, took the cabbage and left the market.
Food is energy. In addition to proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, minerals and vitamins, food also has another kind of energy, less measurable. I am not talking here about what kind of food to choose, animal or plant based, plants have been shown to suffer as much as animals when they are uprooted or cut down. It’s just that we don’t know how to recognize their pain as they don’t have eyes, voice and muscles. I don’t want to talk here also about how to prepare food, some cooked foods have more nutrients than raw ones, just as some raw foods only retain their nutrients for a short time after harvesting, then they are lost. I want to talk about people’s attitude towards food.
We eat too much
As I said before, we eat too much for the amount of physical effort we do. Our ancestors ate less than we do and put effort into everything from carrying water, washing clothes by hand, to walking, chopping wood and shoveling, and they processed every food item themselves, in their own household. They didn’t stop to nibble on a pretzel or drink a beer while working. They didn’t have a varied diet like we have, and that was a minus. But we took variety to unprecedented heights, until we no longer knew what real food meant. And we eat much more and more calories than them.
We have no respect for food
“Give us today our daily bread”. That means respect for what feeds us, what keeps us alive. Respect and gratitude. We look at food with appetite, that’s how we were taught, that’s how it’s shoved down our throats every day, through adds and packaging, but we don’t know how to look with gratitude and respect at our everyday food. Or we look cautiously, maybe that food is contaminated, dirty, comes from unsafe sources or has unhealthy additives. Let’s reverently take a fruit, a vegetable, a bunch of parsley leaves in our hands, as if we were taking an icon. To thank it, every cell in our body will feed on that food.
During the Holiday Season let food be the bond that unites us
When you buy a new pair of shoes what do you notice? The material from which those shoes are made, the sole, the color, how light and comfortable they are, or elegant and sophisticated. You don’t notice the glue that holds all the components of the shoe together, yet that shoe wouldn’t exist without it. But the glue is used sparingly, just enough to make the shoes comfortable and waterproof. We do not cover the shoes in glue, it is useful, but invisible.
That’s how people are brought together by food during the holidays. It’s just that lately we’ve been thinking too much about food, using too much energy and resources for food, and eating too much food. We wrapped the Holiday shoe in food glue.
All the people emptying the shelves and the storefronts seem to be the sign of the Apocalypse, not Christmas. We don’t buy a few gourmets for an appetizer platter, but whole kilos of cured meats, cheeses, we make big bowls of boeuf salad. We don’t make a cake and a small, festive cake, but whole trays of heavy cakes, lots of cakes, cookies, rolls. We don’t put one piece of meat and one piece of sausage for each member of the family in the oven, but we fill the tray with many pieces, to be plenty. We rarely make salads from raw vegetables, because it’s winter and vegetables are expensive, we don’t have money, we forget how much we paid for excess food (some of which we will throw away) or for drinks, juices and crackers. We will accompany the food with mustard, mayonnaise and other heavy sauces, or pickles, mostly made with vinegar. We don’t clear the tables during all these days, but we eat continuously.
Let’s shift our focus and energy from food to people! Let’s fill our souls to the brim, not our stomachs! Let’s empty our arms of meatballs and buns and wrap them around our loved ones! Let’s empty our mouths of food and drink and use them to say nice words to those around us! Let’s take our eyes off the sausages and cakes and look at people in their beauty, the smile in their eyes and their kindness!
These days are about love and togetherness, about rebirth and hope. In the coming year, let’s be healthy in mind and body, and realize that the world is made in our own image! Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year!
