Politics and an Impoverished Diet

In this age of plenty, the British have yet to resolve their historical hang-up of needing food merely to fuel the body over the virtue of food as a sensory pleasure which deserves to be appreciated with as much respect as music on the ear or art on the eye. Interestingly, many of my chosen chefs have music or art deeply ingrained in their backgrounds. But out there in the trenches, the philosophical war between the ‘eat-to-live’ and ‘live-to-eat’ camps is being waged as furiously as ever. However, unlike food, wine appreciation is accepted as a serious pursuit – a pleasure touching the intellect and worthy of debate among the educated middle classes. It has even acquired a ‘tasting’ language of its own – but no such vocabulary exists to the same degree in food criticism because, relatively, this is a newer phenomenon. Of course, again like anything artistic or musical, food as a sensory and emotional human interest does not have to demand intellectual attention. Its place in our community is as important as a civilized background to social or business contact as architecture is on the street or taped music in the home.