TEDtalks: Smorgasbord
Three times I sat down to write this column for “Deliciously Humboldt.” And three times I got sidetracked into the wonderful wilderness of essays on cooking, jokes about food, nutrition and science, stories about childhood and friendship and romances that began over food.
That’s a cautionary tale about the temptations of the internet, of course (and about my fickle attention span), but it’s also testimony to the diversity and importance of food in the lives and culture of homo sapiens, a social being that eats. Food connects us and the planet. For me, opening a cookbook is a wondrous thing; it can take an hour to find a recipe, by way of flan, soufflé and baby-back rib marinades.
French gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826) famously wrote, “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.” If his adage is literally true, America is in deep trouble: McDonald’s alone sells about 6.5 million burgers per day (75 per second), which says something about us too terrible to contemplate.
Food connects us to everything. “Breaking bread” is more than eating; it symbolizes connection between people, hospitality for a friend or a stranger, peace, harmony and community. “If you really want to make a friend, go to someone’s house and eat with him,” one observer wrote. “The people who give you their food give you their heart.”
Because food is such an all-consuming topic, this issue is by necessity incomplete. It’s impossible to cover all of Humboldt’s food diversity and bounty, as Pat Bitton (page 1) and others describe. From fish to hotdogs, Native foods to s’mores to oysters, our contributors take us on just the kind of haphazard tour of food, cooking and eating that befits a smorgasbord. And Bob Doran recalls sharing overcooked hamburgers and Jack Daniels with singer-songwriter John Prine when he came to perform here around 2000.
John Ash describes a different meal, waxing unabashedly poetic about Humboldt Bay Kumamoto oysters — “six small seas,” he calls them (page 4). Jonathan Swift once observed, “He was a bold man that first did eat an oyster.” But Eleanor Clark, author of “The Oysters of Locmariaquer,” said, “Obviously, if you don’t love life, you can’t enjoy an oyster.”
Food is sustenance, of course, but “the joy of eating goes beyond just satisfying hunger,” writes foodie Marianna Cuomo Maier. “It engages our senses, influences our emotions and shapes our relationships” — with food and with each other.
We hope this issue of Senior News does that as well, engaging both your mind and your taste buds and — who knows? — maybe prompting you to call up a chum to share an oyster or two or a Dick Taylor hot chocolate on a chilly day. And a good time together, connecting.
••• Public Service Announcements: Big changes coming in the first week of November. First, remember to Fall Back to Daylight Standard Time on Sunday, Nov. 1, setting your clocks back an hour. And don’t forget to vote by Election Day — Tuesday, Nov. 3. Then there’s Thanksgiving, of course, Thursday, Nov. 26. Have a great month!
Ted Pease is editor of Senior News.
