Feb 12, 2016 Daily Life, The Daily Post
Eat to Live, or Live to Eat, but LIVE!
©February 12th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram
Don’t we all? I mean, live to eat?
No? Which planet do you come from?
No, seriously!
Food is good. It’s beautiful. It’s … full of untold sensations that satisfy so many needs!
Yes, we may analyze in all sorts of ways, and perhaps we might be right, but food is beyond that. It’s mystical. It’s joy. It’s comfort. It’s love.
I remember there was a time when all I did was eat to live. I was too busy being worried about things I had to do, and places I had to be. No, no, I was never anorexic (even then, I liked food, just didn’t eat too much — except for my favorite, crunchy, Indian junk food, a craving which endures even today, and to which my husband and daughter object) — I was just busy with other stuff. I will say that that was when I was in my teens. I was too obsessed with playing music, singing songs, playing the guitar and sitar, writing poetry, and reading books, to be much interested in food.
In my twenties, I was too busy working, composing, writing songs and poems, and being newly in love with my future husband, to pay attention to food, although I ate all sorts of dishes with great enjoyment — I definitely wasn’t one of those dainty, pick-at-your-meal types. I still had my favorite junk muchies like tortilla chips and potato chips, but they were organic junk foods, don’t you know? (she said, with exaggerated pride). And I was slim, despite all that — walking everywhere, and not having a car had something to do with that.
Ah, feminine vanity! When I noticed I was a little heavier than I liked, I started exercising in a focused way, and even went on a diet of my own making, making sure that it was for only ten days, but very strict. After that, it was easy to eat more, and exercise to keep off unwanted weight.
When I reached the age of thirty, I decided I’d go to the gym for the first time. I became quite exercise-obsessed. I loved it. It gave me a rush. So, food, which I still loved, came a poor second. But oh, how I loved my salads, my roasted almonds, and polenta, and Indian food! And I started biking everywhere, so I stayed skinny.
Then, I became a suburban school-teacher, and caved in to the necessity of buying a car. That was the slow beginning of the end. Being in one’s thirties, and staying up many nights to grade papers, and having all sorts of tempting sweet baked goods in the front office on most days added to the slow creep of weight. I still ate to live, though.
But after my daughter was born, it began to change within a couple of years. Being in my early forties, with a toddler, as well as being a school-teacher, with no time for such indulgences as going to a gym, I turned into a full-fledged live-to-eat type.
“Living to eat” compensated for the sleep-hunger and loss of time that occurred when I turned my sleeping hours into grading hours (because I spent my after-school afternoons, evenings and nights with my baby girl, being the good, attentive and joyful new mommy that I was). It made up for the endless work, and the occasional spurts of depression that come when one sleeps less and works a lot.
Mind you, I was not obese — just slightly in the overweight category. So, I was grateful. Standing in the classroom, walking around while teaching helped to keep me moderately fit, and so did walking up and down the halls for this or that errand between classes. Sometimes, my walks led me downtown in my lunch half-hour to get a cappuccino and a cookie — which, of course, did not help!
Then, two years ago, came the arrival of a dog into our lives. With Holly’s entrance, we had no choice, any of us, but to take long, strenuous walks on most days, except during very, very cold (seven-degrees-Fahrenheit-type-cold) weather or rainy days. Holly made us all very happy and fit.
And now, retired after seventeen years of teaching, I look forward to balancing my now somewhat deplorable tendency of Living-to-Eat with my earlier Puritannical tendency of Eating-to-Live. I plan to do it by taking long walks, not eating out much, avoiding Indian junk food (that will be a serious blow for me), and taking the long road back to a balanced, physically fit life, I plan to spend time with my daughter, husband and dog, friends — as well as do music, and write poems and stories.
Back to food, however. Food is too beautiful to ignore. Don’t turn up your nose at it. Instead, turn your nose towards it. Savour its lingering, satisfying aroma, whatever your pleasure. For me, food-pleasure lies in things vegetarian: In the rich fenugreek-and-tamarind flavours of sambhar; in the bay-leaf-cinnamon-cumin-mustard-seed-ginger-and-ciantro flavors of mixed vegetable pulav; in the warm, ghee-infused savour of brown chappatis –Indian flat-breads, in delicately curried vegetables with fresh grated coconut, in toor, massoor, udid and moong dal, in pasta, polenta, in tempting hot South Indian idlis, coconut or mint chutney and dosai, in mint rice, palak paneer, malai kofta, chana masala, candied lemon and orange peel in the delicious cakes I bake; in upma and chakkarai pongal, in masala chai made with freshly chopped ginger and ground pepper, cinnamon and cardomom, with added milk and sugar. It’s in vegetarian Chinese food: Bright, delicate baby bok choy with garlic sauce, spiced tofu, juicy water chestnuts, tender, shy, baby corn, plus other vegetables, crunchy scallion pancakes. It’s in vegetarian Mediterranean foods I’ve tasted: Falafel, fresh, parsley-topped hummus, olive-oil-infused grape leaves, muhammara, pilaf, pita bread with baba ganoush, and more.
My point is, why deny oneself innocent pleasures? As Oscar Wilde said, “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it,” and “I can resist everything, except temptation.”
So, go ahead, eat to live, but also live to eat. It cannot hurt you, unless you overdo it. Oscar Wilde might say, “Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess,” but this is where I disagree with my literary God.
Mangia, mangia! Chappidu, chappidu! Kha jao, kha jao! Mange, mange! Eat, eat!
And LIVE joyously!
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Tags: #vegetarian, Eat to Live, Food, Live to Eat
Jan 26, 2014 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries, Essays: On Books, Art, Literary Appreciation and so on
Meditations on Food
©By Vijaya Sundaram
January 26th, 2014
I want to talk about food today.
Food is to live for, isn’t it?
Consider its texture. It’s crunchy, it’s crackly, it’s squishy, it’s pulpy, it’s juicy, it’s munchy, it’s crisp, it’s burnt, it’s caramelized, it’s boiled, it’s sauteed, it’s roasted and fried. It’s baked, it’s broiled, it’s raw, it’s oiled. And it’s barbecued, an elegant, but barbaric practice. (I mean, would you like to be seared and singed, burnt and bruised over hot coals? I hear you say, “No, but I like my food that way! Now, move aside, while I gnaw hungrily at this former-animal-turned-grilled-thing!”)
Consider its shapes. It’s square, or rectangular, and round or oval, or triangular or purse-shaped. It’s shapeless, disk-shaped, sometimes encased in glowing red (pomegranates), or translucent white (lemons), sometimes lumpy and pendulous (jackfruit) sometimes star-shaped (star-fruit). It’s chunky, it’s stringy, it’s beady, it’s linked, it’s cylindrical and semi-spherical and it takes the shape you wish it to be.
Consider the egg. It’s yellow in the middle and white around, which I hate, but then I think of the sun, and it makes sense. I may not want to eat it, but I respect it for what it could be — a possible chicken, descendant of a dinosaur. I become a hypocrite when I eat it in its disguised form in cakes or pancakes, or muffins or cupcakes, or pudding or flan. It’s okay when it’s in quiche (I cannot stand it sometimes) or in latkes (yum!)
Consider fruit. Made to hold the future of the race of whatever tree from which it bends, pendant and pregnant, the casing for the seed, the womb within which the seed or seeds will send forth future seeds, and they, their seeds, the fruit we covet lies just beyond our reach, taunting, tempting, trembling lest we sink our teeth into its juicy flesh. (Gosh! I feel positively brutal when I eat the poor, hapless fruits I love. Of course, I do so lovingly, giving thanks for each exquisitely satisfying, sensual bite.) Consider the deep orange of the Alphonso mango, its lovely paisley shape, its juice the apotheosis of richness, herald of early summer, its pulpy ambrosia running down between one’s fingers, as one closes ones eyes, and licks each finger in an ecstasy of greed and pleasure. Consider the pomegranate, its ruby-rich, glowing red jewels surrounded by protective, beautiful, red, inedible skin. Seed after pearly seed dies between our teeth, while the transparent blood of the fruit stains our hands and tongue. Consider the jackfruit, so lumpy and ugly on the outside, so velvety and pendulous and multi-fruited on the inside. Dip one of those (de-pitted, of course) in golden honey from Kerala, raise it to your mouth, bite into it, let the nectar flow down your throat, and close your eyes. You are one with the gods. Consider the purple bleeding jamun of Pune and other cities in Maharashtra. Another ungainly-looking fruit at first glance, but then, pop one, de-pitted or not, into your mouth, and sigh in bliss as purple tartness flows down your throat. (Take care to spit out the seed, of course!). Consider the fig, whose sweetness and million-seeded flesh makes me think that it was the original fruit of temptation in the fanciful Garden of Eden. It is a fruit that speaks of forbidden things. Then, there is the koyyapazham, known as the guava, the seetaphal, or custard apple, and the pearly, water-filled palm fruit known in Tamil as nongu, otherwise known by Maharashtrians as tadgole, so translucent, so rich and yielding to the tongue, whispering of sensual pleasures. And of course, there’s the watermelon, and gleaming purple, red and green grapes, the many faces of the apple and the orange, plus the kiwi, the plum, the apricot, the peach … all gifts from the gods, but not really for us — just for the tree’s own self-generation and for the earth. Unfortunately for the tree and the earth, but fortunately for us, we got there first.
Consider the vegetable. So many kinds, so dewy, tender, rich, succulent, fresh, squashy, snippy, crisp with water and flavor, so leafy, so root-flavored, so tear-inducing, so satisfying to cut into and release their various fragrances! Arrayed before my mind’s eye are ripe tomatoes and emerald-green ones, russet, white, yellow and red potatoes, crunchy bright green beans, peas whose green skin is so easily removed, the bitter karela, the curmudgeonly but divine eggplant, whose exterior tempts, but whose interior demands more work, the humble cabbage whose smell once released and allowed to escape, makes any vegetable better, especially with grated coconuts, green peas, talchukottal and shredded carrots, rich green spinach and cucumbers laden with water and tight, bright skin encasing it. Broccoli (which George H.W. Bush petulantly disdained, revealing even more of his lack of good sense), cauliflower, kale, lettuce, carrots, beets, radishes, onions (so many types of onions — pearl, baby onions, red onions, brown onions, green onions, shallots, scallions, leeks, each of whose flavors creates an entirely different dish when one is substituted for another)! Oh, and so many, many varieties of peppers, and green and red chillies!
Consider taste. Syrup-sweet, honeyed, sugar-crisp, lemon-sour, tamarind-lip-curling-sour, lime-tongue-tingling sour, spring-fresh minty-ness, basil-so-holy, parsley-sprigged, coriander-maddening, spicy with curcumin, spicy with capsaicin, spicy with pepper, spicy with mixed, ground masala, mouth-freshening cardamom, throat-soothing cloves, fragrant cinnamon, face-twisting bitter-gourd, nose-wrinkling asafoetida… all of these call to us, and offer themselves up to our ravenous appetite for a departure from daily-ness.
Consider all the different cuisines of the world. All the different grains, the heavenly baked breads that give up their essence when cracked open by rough, loving hands, the simmering, spiced stews, the creamy, or sour, or tart, or cumin-seed-imbued sauces, the flaky and crisp dishes served up in so many guises. I do, and it pleases me. I cannot say I am brave enough to try them all, but I like reading about them. That’s what turns me on, more than the food itself might. Charles Lamb, when he wrote about roast pig and crackling, made me desire that hitherto repellent-sounding food. Even Enid Blyton, when she describes tomatoes and tongue, sausage and pudding, makes me hungry. When a mystery writer like Sue Grafton indulges in a sensual description of whatever her private detective, Kinsey Millhone, desires in terms of food, it makes me want to snarf up that quarter-pounder (disgusting though it really is to my eyes, nose and mind) and bite into fries crisped in deep fat — fortunately for me, I’m a vegetarian, so I won’t ever taste the quarter-pounder, and I steer clear of French fries in real life! Not quite in the same vein, but still vicariously, I read Ruth Reichl’s description of sushi (which I’ll never eat), described in such loving, ecstatic, sensuality that it makes me almost moan, I close my eyes and swoon with pleasure, imagining it all. When she describes some exquisite French or Italian dish, I am almost jealous, because I know I shall never, ever bring myself to taste it, because it’s almost invariably non-vegetarian food that she rhapsodizes over! (Damn it!)
Still, all those descriptions make me feel part of the culture of tasting it.
Words can do that.
Who cares for the real thing, when words can make it all better? Words, enticing waiters all, carrying trays beautifully balanced with fragrant dishes, take a message to my hungry mind, as I wait, poised at a table set for one, with a tender rose in a small glass vase in front of me, and a single, rose-shaped candle in a crystal bowl of water, bringing to my mind’s palate an experience which cannot be matched by the real thing, while Persian or Turkish classical music plays in the background, and censers waft perfume into the air, and silken curtains billow in a world that can be so much more real (and much less messy) than this one!
On the other hand, I do like to eat. So, all you vegetables and fruits, all you delicacies and dishes that are made for the likes of me, tremble, for I shall come for you all! And all you textures and tastes, you colors and aromas, you finger-friendly, tongue-delighting treats awaiting me in my future, I draw ever closer to you, for I love you all!
_____________________________ The End __________________________________
Tags: aromas of food, cuisines, delicacies, essay on food, Food, senses, sensory pleasure in food, textures of food, words as reality
Mar 20, 2013 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries
Food is Good — A Meditation Upon Humanity
©By Vijaya Sundaram
Published on March 20th, 2013
I am always amazed and grateful that there is so much good food in the world, and yet people starve. Soul-crushing tyrannies, rampant capitalism, war, famine, flood, indifference … All of the hatefulness of humans conspire to keep people hungry in so many parts of the world — it’s a matter of intense shame to me.
If you have food, share it.
If you have the time, feed people.
If you have the money to spare, give it to the starving, the weak, the poor.
There is no excuse for indifference.
Don’t moralize piously about how the poor, the weak and the hungry should work for food.
Give them food FIRST!
Try working on an empty stomach — after many days of not eating.
How easy it is for you to prate on and on about how the poor expect handouts! What about you? You got plenty, only it came in the form of unquestioned privilege.
It is as simple as this: Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, tend to the sick, offer love to all living creatures. Leave, don’t take.
You don’t need religion to tell you this–you need what my mother would term “manusha thanmai” — a sense of humanity.
It is this, and only this which will save us all.
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Tags: #humanity, #Ishmael, #Love, Daniel Quinn, Feed the Poor, Food, Gandhian Socialism, Sharing