The Snack

I first considered the meaning of the word snack in fourth grade while reading the children's book, The Giver. The main character, Jonas remembers elementary school, when pronouncing the word eluded him. He says “smack” instead and is punished with the literal smack of a ruler until he learns to pronounce the word correctly. The author uses Jonas’ confusion to highlight the book’s main theme: that knowledge and pain should never be tied together. 

Though the “snack” incident plays a minor role in The Giver, it made me realize that prior to pre-school there was no such thing as a snack . There were three meals a day that were prepared and consumed rather formally. Meals were pleasurable and nourishing and that was that. They had purpose – they knew who they were, followed a routine schedule, had a role, and happily filled their recipients. They gave context to a day and helped quell any hint of insatiable hunger, or bouts of melancholy. They maintained a steady daily course from kitchen to table to belly. They delivered.

A day without a proper meal seemed chaotic. TV Dinner? What the hell was that? Jim Lehrer came before dinnertime while Grandfather unwound from his round at the stables reeking of hay and horse feed. I’d watch him sip his Martini and anticipate dinner as the sound of cooking echoed from the kitchen. Then we’d march into dinning room.

Snacks were purpose-driven. But they had no set course or schedule – an insecure chink in their conceptual armor . Was 11:30 in the morning a good time? (But what about lunch?) Then there was 4 p.m., when kids are home from school. Orange slices and juice boxes between soccer practices?

It was not about eating, but about refueling. It was the refueling process – the snack’s trump card that enabled it to takeover, supplying an array of nutri-grain bars, gushers, and other sugar-laden faux fruit concoctions. Americans were quickly hooked as snacks tricked us into thinking they were a part of the eating process. They smacked us in the face - convincing us that we needed food. Artifice was the secret to the snack's success. 

I first sensed my unconscious dependence on snacks when I traveled to Europe for the first time. I was on a mother-daughter trip composed of two mothers and two teenage daughters. Prior to take off, we celebrated with a snack. My mother’s friend Sarah’s dutiful boyfriend had packed us Pepperidge Farm products for the trip, including Milano cookies, Goldfish crackers, and so on. We munched away and cackled like a bunch of magpies.

But then I noticed the crumbs on the aisle, which the French stewardess had seen, turning up her Gallic nose up. I couldn’t blame her. I felt disgusted. Eating before take-off on our way to Paris, where eating was practically a birthright, seemed absurd and unnecessary. I quickly stopped snacking and worked up my courage to order something in French to try to redeem us all in the eyes of the stewardess.

Paris was grand. I was a moody 17-year-old eager to explore and shake the shackles of adolescence. I wanted to feel European and cool. I never ended up feeling that way but I did enjoy the trip and its meals. In Le Petit Prince, which we’d been reading in French class, the fox says: “Il Faut des rites” — rituals matter.

This came up time and again when the Parisian mealtime gong sounded. Something as simple as a meal was also a ritual, one capable making sense of a day and providing a connection to it and to our foreign surroundings – bringing a place to life. We broke bread and let the crumbs  go unnoticed, something meals allow. Meals brought satisfaction, pleasure, and more importantly communion. The snack, by contrast, was insipid. It undermined the fox’s sense of ritual. It disguised itself as something authentic, worming its way into our circadian rhythms, when the snack was responsible for its disruption.

Snacks make you want to eat when you are not hungry. Their preemptive approach is tactless, artless but key to day-to-day life. The snack-pack habit would make food writers like M.F.K Fisher roll in her grave.

The American snack has created a gastronomic myth in which the snack is a bastion against starvation. The truth is the opposite: The snack starves us at a variety of levels. It convinces us we’re hungry, spewing nutritional diatribe, skewing the truth behind how why we eat. Like Jonas in The Giver, we ironically feel unprotected – vulnerable and exposed. Worse still, the meal seems further and further 

Comments

[Doug Hiza]

Nice piece. In Italy the aperitivo is popular. How do you feel the aperitivo fits in? Is it a snack before the meal or a part of the meal itself...a prelude?

[nina]

I merely wanted to thank you yet again for that amazing web-site you have made here. It really is full of ideas for those who are actually interested in this particular subject, specifically this very post. You really are all so} sweet along with thoughtful of others as well as reading your blog posts is a fantastic delight with me. And exactly what a generous present! Ben and I usually have pleasure making use of your guidelines in what we should instead do in the near future. Our checklist is a kilometer long so your tips are going to be put to beneficial use.

[sabina]

Virtually all of what you state happens to be supprisingly legitimate and it makes me wonder the reason why I had not looked at this in this light previously. Your article truly did turn the light on for me personally as far as this particular issue goes. Nevertheless there is actually one particular point I am not necessarily too cozy with so while I attempt to reconcile that with the core idea of the issue, permit me observe just what the rest of the readers have to point out.Well done.

[Bogumila]

Thanks for sharing these types of wonderful posts. In addition, the optimal travel plus medical insurance approach can often ease those worries that come with traveling abroad. A medical emergency can quickly become too expensive and that's bound to quickly impose a financial impediment on the family's finances. Setting up in place the suitable travel insurance bundle prior to setting off is definitely worth the time and effort. Thanks

[natalia]

Its superb as your other content : D, regards for posting . "The rewards for those who persevere far exceed the pain that must precede the victory." by Ted W. Engstrom.

[pożyczka gotówkowa]

I needed to draft you that very little observation just to say thank you once again on your amazing thoughts you've shared at this time. This has been quite wonderfully open-handed with people like you to present unhampered just what a number of us could possibly have advertised for an ebook in order to make some dough on their own, most notably seeing that you might well have done it in the event you wanted. Those guidelines as well worked to be a easy way to be sure that the rest have similar passion really like my personal own to find out more pertaining to this condition. Certainly there are a lot more pleasant times in the future for individuals who browse through your blog.

[kanar]

Thank you for another informative site. Where else could I get that type of information written in such a perfect way? I have a project that I am just now working on, and I have been on the look out for such info.