Food for thought or thinking about food?!

Dear Reader

The history of the journey of Food demands more than three blog posts, really. This February has been a rich experience researching and writing about 'food'. The search and the research began with so many confusions that have become visible about food in the recent past --questions of identity, taboo, purity, quarrels and so many . . . these confusions are mischievous and create further harm in human relationships. And the search has been a flavorful and tasty culinary adventure.    

  Some information about food is known to all of us as commonsense viz. that food is community culture, that food has travelled across the globe, that salt and sugar are used as a preservative food and that pickling began as a method of preserving food for tougher seasons. With the evolution of technology (not only as it has reached us today but even in the earlier centuries) food and its connotations changed.

  Certain food was available only to Kings, queens, and aristocracy viz ice cream was brought to France by the Italian Duchess Catherine de Medici in 1533 who brought chefs along with her trousseau when she married the French Duke of Orleans, and one hundred years later, King Charles in England was so impressed with the 'frozen snow' that he paid his royal chef a lifetime pension to retain him in his palace. . . and in India, down south, the accidental sweet made by the Royal Chef of Krishna Raja Wodeyar a connoisseur of food earned royal patronage-the famous Mysore Pak; Hyderabadi Biryani, now common man's royal food, evolved in the kitchen of the Nizam of Hyderabad is a blend of Mughlai and the Iranian flavors. . . the list is an exciting one and never-ending.

      But, there are some more interesting evolutionary 'strange but true facts about food. Here they are:

1. just as we were evolving into homo-sapiens, it is
   believed that our stomach was more significant than the brain.

2. So, basically we were 'stomach on legs' and didn't bother so much about 'good food'. So much for our food fetishes and binge eating and most importantly, our prioritizing food over almost anything 😁 But, today, we know that the brain uses about one-fourth of what we eat

 

3. The change over to 'cooked food', 'culinary expertise' emerged when the human race learned to cook using fire and also control it--about 1.7 million years ago👏

4. Fermentation is a highly ancient method of preserving food and nutrition. The first thing we did when we learnt the advantages of fermentation is that we get drunk👀 because we had yet to understand the chemical process that made 'alcohol', many thought of it as a 'magical potion'!

Here are some more veggie facts:

1. Potato began her sojourn in South America, reached Europe, almost synonymous with any country of Ireland and was introduced to India around 1600 CE. There are supposed to be 4000 recognized varieties of potatoes!!

2. Tomatoes have a transatlantic journey. It was first introduced to Italy in the 1500s. (And there was no tomato sauce in Italy before that time.) It reached the Indian home also sometime during 1500 CE. The traditional Bengali homes do not use tomato in the dish made as an offering to the Mother Goddess because the pulp looks like meat () but fish is offered to the Mother. And many South Indian homes avoided tomatoes in their preference for tamarind which is original to South Africa. So much for Indigenous epistemologies, veggies and offerings

3. Chilies were brought to India from South America and today we can't think of cooking without this veggie

4. Cocoa beans were used as currency in Aztec communities

5. The word 'restaurant' comes from the root word 'restoration' and restaurants were, thus, the place where one got nourishment. Here, people were served delicacies and exclusively nutritious food for upper-middle and middle-class people. The first restaurants arose in Paris before the French Revolution, around 1760-1770.

6. And the Byzantine emperor's niece used a gold fork at her wedding in 1004. A Venetian onlooker was disgusted and commented 'God in his wisdom has provided man with natural forks- fingers. Therefore, it is an insult to God to use artificial metal fingers-forks to eat." And the cherry on the top-- as late as 1608, the use of forks was ridiculed in the UK. 

     No wonder food, preservation, fermentation and the making of an Empire go together. But, for a passionate student of literature, food is 'thought' as well as the literature of food. Won't you believe me? 

 

Dear Reader, just watch this exotic representation of literature as food!! In the Australian Master Chef, watch Reynold Brendon's creation of the first chapter of Alice in the Wonderland-the Rabbit Hole as the theme of his dessert. Here is the link: 

 

(link courtesy YouTube)

And after all these rendezvous with food, am more hopeful than ever that surely we'll come to respect 'food' as 'nourishment' and just enjoy it, forgetting all the politicizing that happens around it 😃. 

Looking forward to hearing some stories from you  And if you are happy to read my posts do hit the follow button👉

And share your response to the blog post  👇

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