I just started reading Eating Animals and so far it's a good, accessible read for an omnivore flirting with vegetarianism. All you smarties out there will have to forgive me for coming late to some of this stuff. I'm reading as fast as I bloody well can! The first thing that struck me about the narrative is that Foer talks about becoming vegetarian as fundamentally changing his family's story. He has a grandmother with a legendary chicken dish and a harrowing personal story of Holocaust survival and general obsession with feeding her family well and good, mostly with hearty meat dishes. He had to struggle with altering the fabric of his ancestors to make a new decision about eating for his own family and that was bleedin' difficult.
It made me think about my Italian family, my mother's cooking, holiday traditions and all those things that shape our eating as individuals and members of families with unique stories. It's not just about meat and struggling to understand how I feel about eating or not eating it, but about what a meal looks like, what we eat at Thanksgiving, how we all feel after feasting, all that stuff that makes up my family's story.
Like a lot of people, I'm trying to figure out what I want to keep from the family I grew up with and adapt to the new family I helped create. This may sound bonkers to those of you who just do what you feel is right or have a family without an attachment to homemade pasta, deep-fried dough bits with icing sugar and ambrosia salad. It's like trying to grow a big enough pair to rewrite not only my own story but tinker with my family's story and that's a bit daunting.
Let it be known that I'm getting zero pressure from my family on this. It's the opposite, man. They're unfailingly behind and beside me as I fuss around with this shit, are doing the detox right along with me and are completely open to learning about some of the stuff that I've been reading about. They're super groovy and I can only think about how much this all means to me in very small doses cuz it blows my mind how fortunate I am.
And yet still... I feel like I have to figure out whether I'm ever going to incorporate making homemade pasta with white flour and meaty rib sauce into my daughters' lives, whether that pasta and sauce will be made another way or whether the story will be completely new. It stresses me out, y'all, and I know I don't have to work it all out today, but it's something I ponder.
No need to stress, C. It’s not the tried-and-true-family-recipes-handed-down-from-generations that are the problem. What ails us most is food hastily prepared (or not prepared by us at all), using poor ready-made ingredients and then stuffed down our gullet as we rush from point A to B. Coupled with our tendency to frequently feast on foods typically reserved for celebratory occasions; well, you have a recipe for unhealthy overindulgence.
ReplyDeleteEating more vegetables and being better educated about nutrition is awesome. Who couldn’t use more of that. But, I’m not giving up my mom’s wonton recipe or any of my grandfather’s recipes. When I choose to use those recipes, I will try to buy the freshest ingredients, organic when I can and enjoy each spoonful because I know I am eating extremely healthy 99 per cent of the time.
There’s room for everything in moderation. And, I suspect, your mom’s cooking is exactly what the Slow Food movement is all about. Cook with gusto with fresh fine ingredients.
J-Bird
Maybe our family needs to redefine what its history really is … While food has been and still is a very important part of our lives, there is so much more to our current relationships that sitting at a big table with everyone around it – feasting on the fatted calf so to speak. We all love to tell stories, tease each other about past family stuff and generally share our hopes and dreams with each other, That is part of our family history too! When the family table is big enough to have all our extended family around it, we have more fun with our talk than our food. And yet, society’s tradition is that when families “break bread” together is when most of the good stuff happens. For the most part, I never remember exactly what I ate at the end of a big family visit, I only remember the other things like the laughter and the hugs and the hugs and kisses from the little ones.
ReplyDeleteSo, who says that the food that is being eaten has to be full of the worst, processed ingredients? Originally, people cooked with everything basic. When you made pasta sauce you bought tomatoes, added herbs from the garden and simmered it all for a long time. Meat was really more of a North American additive. Oil, garlic, anchovies, etc. were much less expensive. We made pasta (albeit with wheat flour). No processed, pasteurized food here – except for cow’s milk and I would never go back on that.
You can’t change history and who wants too. I have too much wonderful history that your dad and I have made together to ever change. But there is no reason why we can’t change the future if we want to, and still be the great family we always have been. I have never been one to live on what happened in “the old days”. I am still excited about the future, I want to be around to see as much of it as I can before I give my place at the table to someone else.
Tell me how it should change and I am more than happy to try anything – you know that by now sweetie.
beautifully written mom......right from the heart. you are so correct. amen to family and healthy eating. xo
ReplyDeleteHaving posted a long and winded comment already, I will try to be short-winded this time. In my experience (almost 70 years of it)if I want to change my diet (not the bad word it used to be) then for the long run I must try to use as many of the healthy ingred. that I (and my eating partner) have always liked. Since I am on the detox for Jan it is not too worrisome. But in the long run, how will we keep up eating this healthy? If I am to stay on this healthy regime I will have to find recipes that will satisfy my craving for "sweets" or specific "animal meats" by substituting other good tasting dishes, for me and my partner, or we will slowly slip into the same old rut ....
ReplyDeleteI see where your daughter gets her writing talent. I love your comments Irene. I agree that one has to rewrite one's history and make the changes necessary based on what we now know. It's so easy to take the other path and join the crowd. I believe you find the path that makes you the happiest and healthiest and that means changing and experimenting and forgiving too because some days you just have to slip back to the fast lane, but not for long.
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