How and Why Food Matters

The reality that food influences identity is addressed on a number of levels in the readings of this semester. The role that ethnic identity has played in our discourse on food is especially prominent in the writings of Bryant Terry, Lily Wong, Jill McCorkle, and the Times Staff writers of What the World Eats. Incorporating a recipe, and musings on his ingredients, the first of the authors mentioned gives insight into the “diverse [and] creative” (82) way in which soul food is prepared, eaten, and enjoyed by African Americans. Similarly, Wong’s vivid step-by-step description of how she prepares and consumes her beloved Chinese dumplings using a fork and a “glob of ketchup” (41) gives readers insight into the intersection of her ethnic background and her Americanized lifestyle. McCorkle expresses her own ethnic tradition, stemming from the southern United States, in her loving rendition of  the “Carolina style” (31) barbecue and “homemade biscuits” (31) at the heart of her junk food addiction. Finally, What the World Eats, gives an easy comparison of the many foods owned and enjoyed by the greater world community. All of the works mentioned in this paragraph exemplify, and draw attention to the fact that food is in many ways a symbol of ethnic identity.

By discussing eating disorders in her piece Not Just a ‘White Girl Thing’: The Changing Face of Food and Body Image Problems Susan Bordo brings attention to the fact that not all people have a positive relationship with food. She describes the “fierce battles… at dinner time” (266) and “compulsive eaters” (268) who stand out as a minority among those who live to eat. These quotes draw attention to the inner lives of those who do not conform to the normalized model of food lovers.

Anne Lamott’s Shitty First Drafts also includes the perspective of an individual with an unconventional relationship to food. As a culinary critic, she writes about her “stupefying descriptions” (7) of what she eats. This quote demonstrates how Lamott’s, or any critic's experience with food, can be set apart from those who think less about what they eat.

Deficiencies in the public’s knowledge of food science are addressed by the pieces Taking Local on the Road and You Can’t Run Away on Harvest Day.  In the former work, Camille Kingsolver mentions that “so many young adults can’t guess where their food comes from” (38). This quote draws attention to Camille’s point that there is a lack of understanding about food science in the current generation. Likewise, in the latter work, Barbara Kingsolver dispels radical veganism by explaining that “gentle domestic breeds… would never have… [existed]” (187) without meat based agriculture. This quote demonstrates the scientific response to a commonly held fallacy that premeditated animal slaughter is always wrong.

In this work I have called upon the work of several authors to examine how food can intersect with national identity. I have expounded upon both common and unconventional relationships with food. And I have taken a critical look at the complex relationship between food, science, and the public. All in an attempt to summarize my ideas on why food matters.

Organic Mysticism

This work  responds to the following questions posed by Dr. Jessica Pisano: "Does [food] matter? How does it matter? Why does it matter? Or, why doesn't it?"
It was inspired by the poem Mushrooms by Sylvia Plath.
It was written for, and is devoted to, my chickens. 

Organic Mysticism

Sustenance is spiritual. 

If one holds that life is a worthy thing,

fleeting,

and fundamentally unknowable, 

then sustenance is likewise abstruse. 

For sustenance is derived from life, 

and becomes life,

in an infinite chain of events which summarizes existence and reminds us that we are ever its fellow, its leader, and follower in an infinite circle

greater than death. 

Sustenance is identity.

It builds bodies to bid them find it. 

And crafts rationality for fights, flings, and fellowship over it. 

We are crafted in the image of that which we crave. 

Sustenance is reunion. 

For we,

the eaters,

are even now the eaten. 

Sustenance is respect. 

For if one holds that an individual is of value, 

for if one holds that life -all life- is of value, 

for if one holds that the great bracelet of life, beaded and fragile, is of value,

then one must hold that the fluctuation of these elements is of value. 

That it unifies. 

That it creates. 

And that it is the universal "Us."

Sustenance is law. 

For one takes from another. 

The sun sets. 

The wild scavenge. 

The sun rises. 

The forest quakes again. 

It builds too many predators. 

So, 

by covenant bound,

some die. 

The sun sets again. 

The scavengers bloom on second hand meat, 

and once unsupported, 

by covenant bound, 

their bodies are erased. 

The soil speaks,

and keeps respectfully, 

their memories. 

The sun sets again. 

Preamble

Ode to the Nihilist:

Since its foundation, the philosophy of nihilism has questioned the pragmatism of human endeavor. As it relates to literary work, many of these organized pessimists have colluded to form the viewpoint that all possible words have already been written. That all concepts have been covered, and that the work of a single author is simply a remix of established phenomenon. They argue, then, that there is no benefit to having yet another work from yet another old hat hack churning out the same Times New Roman twelve point jargon as so many before. 

I agree. Writers are readers. We borrow from one another just like the visual artists, the inventors, the civil rights activists, juris doctors, ad infinitum. The moment we build something, it's already old, it's components picked out, sometimes with minimal discretion, from the great litigious clunker of human thought. 

I object, however, to the notion that this is useless. That it serves no purpose. That humanity as a whole reaps no benefit from its endeavors. Literary or otherwise. 

What we write is old, but the community we build is not. Perhaps the words have been said and said again. But the writers are new, and their readers too. It is for the consistent and spontaneous genesis of new writers and newish ideas that I dedicate this page. 

I acknowledge the communal effort that is every work. I will give credit to those who have inspired me at the beginning of every applicable post; while maintaining that the content of my own posts are wholly original. 

With that being said, I invite you to my work. Nihilist or not.