An Essay about Food

When I told my grandfather that I was moving to Chicago, he said, “at least you know where to go for a decent meal.” My relocation had many unknowns, but there was no doubt I’d be spoilt for choice with new and exciting restaurants. On the other hand, with new foods comes the anxiety of facing the unknown. I want to try and enjoy everything because cooking for someone is a generous act, but it feels involuntary and infallible when my body rejects something. Although, I was determined not to be left out. I decided to investigate my response to food, challenge my culinary value systems, and devise a way to expand my palate.
I began by thinking about what messages my taste system sends me and how reliable that information is. Pleasure and disgust guide us; the brain fires off the pleasure centers when we eat an apple to encourage caloric intake, and the apple tree gets help with seed dispersal in return. Inversely, ingesting an inedible item leaves a bad taste in your mouth. However, cooking is the complete transcendence of this system, modifying the chemistry of inedible things to create cuisine. Knowing that, why am I on alert for poison when I can be sure that anything on a menu is perfectly edible? Even if I was unsure, my tastebuds are a poor alert system. Ingesting arsenic, for example, is sometimes lethal but leaves no taste on the tongue. When I got to the illogical roots of my food aversions, a path to work toward a more objective relationship with food emerged.
I needed a new way to evaluate food that created positive associations, so my strategy was: I have the capacity to enjoy every dish. Mindset affects my experience, so I tried to stop assigning a negative value to any essential quality of an item. Chewy is good. Slimy is good. When I withheld negative judgment, I found great joy in being an investigator rather than an evaluator. When a dish I had never seen came, I tried to take it at face value, receive what it gave, and be delighted by the discovery. This objectivity helped immensely with new foods by alleviating my anxieties and quieting my biases. I certainly do not love everything, but when I abstain from sorting dishes into a binary of foods I like or do not, every meal becomes a clean slate.
Though the process continues, the most effective outcome of thinking through my reactions to food has been the decision and intention to enjoy. Being a critic with a distinguished palate is great, but that approach misses what one truly receives when eating someone’s food. There is immense care and love in cooking, in giving sustenance. Our dishes represent our history, culture, abundance, want, tradition, conflict, collision, and fusion. The act of sharing is the value of food, and I am enriched every time I try something new. As long as I continue investigating my biases and find joy in everything, I cannot wait for the next meal.

My Favorite Ad

The Bridgers Blog

La Songwriter Phoebe Bridgers, the bane of my existence and the object of my desire, is the clearest communicator ever known. No one said a word to me that I understood in my whole life till I heard her music, ya know? Here, I am going to listicle my favorite of her lyrics and evaluate the emotional wreckage.

“I will wait for the next time you want me, like a dog with a bird at your door” — Moon Song, from Punisher

I mean WHAT! Right into it. The image of a dog is PERFECT to describe longing. What do you do when the way you show your love is not received well by your beloved? Your dog has no idea why the dead bird doesn’t make you feel loved, so it just keeps trying.

“If I breathe you, will it kill me?” — Georgia, from Stranger in the Alps

Love is an airborne pathogen. <3

“I grew up here, till it all went up in flames, except the notches in the door frame” Garden Song, from Punisher

Here, I think Phoebe is thinking about the extent to which land has memory. Does it hold the trauma, the love, or the memories that took place there? Phoebe’s childhood home really did burn down, but her growth there (notches on the door frame being where you measure your kid’s height) MUST still be a part of that lot. I’m sobbing.

“You’re holding me like water in your hands.” – Moon Song, from Punisher

I can’t even pinpoint why this makes me cry, but it’s a gorgeous image.

“I wanted to see the world through your eyes until it happened. Then I changed my mind” — Kyoto, from Punisher

This is the best lyric about a father-child relationship ever. Your parents are the lens you see the world through growing up, and then you start to diverge. The growing pains are tough.

“The doctor put her hands over my liver. She told me my resentment’s getting smaller” — Garden Song, from Punisher

I mean, COME ON. This a great example of what Phoebe is great at, being so specific that it becomes universal, somehow. She has said this really happened to her, but what an incisive image about how we hold our anger and let it physically manifest.

“If you’re a word of art, I’m standing to close. I can see the brush strokes.” — ICU, from Punisher

This is so easily understandable and universal that it is SHOCKING that no one’s written it before. When you get too deep it’s hard to see the big picture.

“I am never anywhere, anywhere I go” – Ketchum, ID, from Punisher

Yeah, this is pretty much how it feels.

“Jesus Christ, I’m so blue all the time, and that’s just how I feel. I always have and always will.” – Funeral, from Stranger in the Alps

I thought I’d end with the song that put her on the map, and wow does this hurt. The crazy thing about sadness is that it’s the most universal and foundational part of the human experience, but when you’re in it it feels like it never begins or ends and you’re the only one. This lyric is so cathartic.

I couldn’t recommend Phoebe’s discography enough.

The Media That Made Me

A list of what made me love communications: