Feeding My Passion

Wow, I’m only four months into my contract, but I start to tear up just thinking about having to say goodbye to my kids, especially the kindergartners.

Food is a lot of things to a lot of people. For those who don’t have much of it, it’s critical. In fact, besides breathing and sleeping, it’s the only other thing we have to do to stay alive. Because of the circumstances of my life, lack of food has never been even a consideration for me.

For many other, food is fuel. Or pleasure (I raise my hand.) Or community. Or heritage. Or memory. Or therapy (ok, my hand has to go up again.) Or tourism (me again). It’s work, for everyone, whether you get directly paid to do it, even when we love to do it.

And food is gratitude. I feel it means more when you make food rather than buy it, but I like cooking more than most people, so that feeling would be self-serving. But I still think it’s true.

Food is also geography and culture, and history. And migration, economic trade, and craft. It can even be art. With vegetariansim and veganism, the natural, locavore, and organic food movements (they’re not necessarily the same thing, though there is some overlap among them), food can also be philosophy. Food is one of every human being’s most basic needs, though we can make it as complex or as simple as we want it to be or when we have the means.

I’d really love to read a lot more about food and I have a pretty long Amazon wish list (this is not a hint, this is merely my way of collecting books I’d like to read later) of food history- and anthropology-related books that beckon me. It’s clear I’m not alone in my interest.