"We should look for someone to eat and drink with
before looking for something to eat and drink."
-- Epicurus
 |
| Squirrel with nut 11-26-14 |
"If you really want to make a friend,
go to someone's house and eat with him ...
the people who give you their food
give you their heart."
-- Cesar Chavez
You know what makes me sad?
It makes me sad that schools now have rules prohibiting students from sharing their food in the cafeteria at lunchtime.
I even read a story recently about a kid and a friend who were both served detention for swapping lunches.
Say I wanted to trade you my Doritos for your Moon Pie. We'd both be fucked.
Or say you forgot your lunch and I gave you half of my sandwich. Again, both of us, fucked.
Maybe you don't have money to buy a school lunch, so I treat you to a tray of hamburger gravy. Both. Fucked.
School officials say the strict rules and penalties are only an effort to protect kids with serious food allergies from unwittingly ingesting something that could kill them. You know. Foods like shellfish or peanut butter.
The rules also protect the schools' asses from lawsuits.
The USDA says the rules help ensure kids will eat lunches that comply with the National School Lunch Program's nutritional protocol.
Well, I've been in my kids' school cafeteria at lunchtime. I've seen the school lunches up close. You know where I've seen them? Uneaten, in the trash can.
Maybe the USDAs tactic for fighting childhood obesity is to serve food so disgusting that even fat kids lose their appetites.
On the other hand, I also read an article about a study that revealed how sharing food actually makes us better, less selfish, more altruistic people.
I agree.
I did it yesterday.
My incredible friend Jill stopped here on her way from Chicago to Cleveland, so I baked her a delicious, bubbly cherry crisp for us all to share. Jill's vegan, so I got some vanilla Tofutti ice cream to make it a la mode. And when she left for the next leg of her journey, I gave her an extra dish of cherry crisp to take along for her breakfast.
Giving another person some of your food is extremely intimate gesture of love. It's not quite as intimate as sex. But nevertheless, it involves one person offering another person something to put inside their body. It's about filling an emptiness.
Sharing food is absolutely essential to human togetherness and relationships.
It's primal.
Take away that elemental urge and you take one more step toward isolating people from one another.
If we persist in punishing kindergartners for sharing their Gogurts and Teddy Grahams, we'll create a selfish, isolated, love-starved generation.
Aren't we already selfish, isolated and starving enough?
Anyway.
All of this is by way of saying, with the Thanksgiving season upon us, I believe sharing good food is a good thing.
Go ahead.
Make extra.
Pass it around.
