LesGensFaims

Love in Your Dish?

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." And so begins Leo Tolstoy's, Anna Karenina, a masterpiece that relayed and exposed certain universal truths about the human condition, even in its opening line. 

Fast forward a few centuries later to late 19th century Burgundy, France - where Brillat Savarin that gastronomic sage and gourmand astutely observed and concluded that, "The way in which mealtimes are passed is most important to what happiness we find in life." I think Tolstoy would agree that how a family breaks bread is not only connected to their physical well being, but also their happiness both as individuals and as a collective unit. 

The table does come first as Adam Gopnik's latest homage to France and its long-standing traditions both haute and basic observes - as long as it welcomes a meal which includes participants - whether its newlyweds, an old couple, or a raucous family (I am thinking of my own lovely lot). If they can learn to dine with one another, they can learn to enjoy the food and each other's company.

It is fair to say that some meals are painful - I have been there and have chosen to block them out of my own memory. But for the most part, they have forced me to forget myself and to remember others, to learn how to listen, to talk with both adults and children. My family is far from perfect, but one thing I have observed is our enduring ability to still have a proper dinner and to talk and to laugh. There can be great magic at a meal- if you choose to truly participate. Like a Babette's Feast it can enliven the shyest soul ( sometimes with the aid of a glass of wine), enable that irritable grumpy self to shine, and instead, listen, talk, observe, as we eat and drink. 

It's a pause in the day's endless montage of busy nothings. Such a meal is freeing, but more importantly, I think -no, I am convinced as a veteran of the family meal, teaches us how to love - both food and people. To separate the two will only lead to unhappiness - like any divorce or familial separation, nourishment is dependent on two variables - nutrition and the nurturer. Their connection to one another is invaluable and certainly a life-giving force. To separate them goes against the grain. 

To conclude, "breaking bread" is no fire and brimstone stunt. It has real stock value and demonstrates that sharing food with one another, whether it is a simple bowl of soup, a hunk of crusty bread, and a glass of wine can truly nourish the soul. It is civilizing, but more importantly stimulating - both our need for love and our capacity to give it. It is as MFK Fisher beautifully asserted, "Love in a dish."

There can be no warm, rich home-life anywhere else if it does not exist at table, and in the same way there can be no enduring family happiness, no real marriage, if a man and woman cannot open themselves generously and without suspicion one to the other over a shared bowl of soup as well as a shared caress. 

I concur. Santé. 

 

 

In Vino...

I once casually drank a bottle of 1998 Barolo wine. The sanctity of this esteemed vintage slipped past my lips and palate only to quickly quench my thirsty desire to sustain my immature buzz. I had stumbled across the bottle in my parents basement hidden between the forgotten pool table, cobwebs, and WWII military helmets collecting dust. I don't even think I looked at the label and instead hustled upstairs relieved that "there was still wine in the house." I was 21 and at age where quantity took precedence over quality. Barolo was on par with a case of Bud Light, when in reality it was the foie de gras of booze. My then boyfriend and I - both ignorant of taste guzzled it down with buttery popcorn over Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (attempting to imitate Sean Connery's accent - I credit the Barolo here). 

 

The next morning my Mom informed me that that lonely bottle was in fact my father's prized possession. I gasped knowing that my Dad hardly bought himself anything nice aside from the cigars that perfumed his car and at one time my all girl's boarding school dorm. My guilty hangover prompted me to look more deeply into this Barolo matter. Soon, I began researching the "Italian king of wines" slowly discovering its true market and historical value, while I cringed at my Dad's potential reaction. Fortunately for me, he barks but never bites and quickly forgave me and now I buy him a Barolo every year for Christmas or his birthday.

 Four years later, I found myself ironically attending graduate school near Barolo headquarters in Piedmont, Italy. I had an entered a new phase of life - one inspired by taste and driven by a thirst to study why and how it is so inextricable to our lives. 

 At 21, I was still a Philistine half-heartedly making "gourmet meals" and stocking up on cheap French wine from the local Harris Teeter. My palate was ignorant and sullied by the weight of collegiate excesses. The Barolo incident was my first experience of true taste, but one whose significance had gone unnoticed. Interestingly, it had taken place during my last semester of college foreshadowing the exit of  my semi-destructive phase of gross quantity ushering in a new era, one rooted in the simple elegance of fine food and wine. Barolo had been humble that evening and I would argue, a tad sly, coyly hidden in our murky basement as it patiently waiting to be uncorked to meet an unromantic demise at the mouths of two wine amateurs. Its value and perhaps, lesson later arose in an "enlightened hangover." Although I wish I could remember my first taste of Barolo, I am sorry to say, I do not. But the memory of the delinquent act still persists and occasionally haunts me - proving that like a fine wine, taste also improves with time.