The Acrobatics of Eating
A child knows there is a playful acrobatics to eating, a compelling excitement in the potential of a knife, spoon, or fork, a heirarchy whereby a spoon might be promoted to a laddle, or a coup where chopsticks or skewers take over.
To adults it may be more difficult to imagine. We may see playfulness as an exercise in futility, a way of alleviating boredom, an activity relegated to nursing homes, where stroke victims and geriatrics struggle to choke down their food.
Yet if the young and the old--by necessity or compulsion--play with food, wouldn't we do well to embrace our younger and elder selves, and determine, from a mature standpoint, what is inherently playful about meals?
This is something we might call the acrobatics of food--something that is careful and generally grounded, yet participates gracefully in the great demonstration that is society.
You cannot tell thoughtful people not to be thoughtful with their food and if they do not prepare it, they must be creative through accessory of consumption.
It may take the form of accidental gesticulating, or may be a simple engagement with the obligatory movements, with the occassional embellishment or flourish.
Forks are directed upward into the mouth and reversed toward the plate, creating a dynamic between being target for something good or ill tasting, and a hunter for that target.
A knife is a single unit, undivided, without a fork's tines or a spoon's reservoir for something foreign, yet serves the purpose of dividing or portioning dishes. Its role is more functional than ruminative, its inflexibility serving as an ironic counterstatement to its utility in dividing unmanageable portions.
Spoons have a specialized role in reaching deep into fluids, stirring, cooling, laddling a medley of broth, vegetables, meat, or noodles. It is nearly alchemical, the coherence of fluids, which already cohere.
What about finger food? With finger food we have to be careful not to eat our fingers, as though we are one step closer to the circle of harvest. We are emboldened to dream that our food is itself a body, and not a body part.
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The preceding, as well as all other parts of Nathan's Philosophy and Writing are pending copyright (c) 2006, Nathan Coppedge
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