Summer 2004
Damn You to Hell, Food Court
The Kitchen Samurai
I am trying not to eat crap. This sounds odd, I suspect, coming from me, but gawd knows, I eat my share of utter shit. I have, at any number of times over the past year, munched junk food both from bags and store fronts beneath golden arches, mediocre take-out, bad meals in burger joints, and meals of my own devising that were not just less-than-inspired, but truly phoned-in. Now, really, I'm sick of it. Now, really, I want to stop. I'm finding it's as hard as quitting smoking.
The idea came to me while reading Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage Cookbook, a cookbook that's as much manifesto as it is a collection of recipes. Though I'm sympathetic to Fearnley-Whittingstall's ideaology in general, it was a casual remark of his that caught my attention. In his introduction to River Cottage, Fearnley-Whittingstall mentions his aversion to eating food that makes him stop to wonder why he's bothering eating "rubbish." This stopped me in my tracks and caused me to sit up blinking. I'm not British, so "rubbish" isn't the word I'd choose, but I knew the feeling he described so well -and I had so consistently failed to frame that thought in any concrete form-that I was taken aback. How often, I wondered, had I idly wondered why I was bothering putting another gawdawful Dorito in my mouth when I KNEW I wouldn't like it any better than the last dozen. It was a strange thing for me to realize that, though I was devoted to good food, I ate just as much bad food as someone who knew no better or didn't care.
The problem, one on hand, is the ubiquity of crap food. For instance, at work I can either: a.) bring my lunch; or b.) hunt down one of the few decent eateries in the area (Bless you, Café Tirolo, you have saved my soul); but the easiest option by far is to c.) go get crap from the food court across the street. And, I must confess, though I normally avoid malls and their crowds in general, and their food courts in particular, I do, occasionally find myself standing in line in front of some horrid counter selling greasy Chinese food or dry-as-dust kabobs because, well, it's easy, and I'm tired, and I can only afford a few minutes to scarf down food before I have to do something "important" for that job I already have begun to dislike more than the last one. Likewise, if I find myself starving at 10 a.m. in the morning, I find the convenience of munching on a bag of nasty chips from around the corner often beats out the allure of eating something a tad more edible from a block further away. And here, I think, we have the other hand.
If the first problem is that the "rubbish" is everywhere, the second is that I've decided, somehow, that its omnipresence makes it "convenient." Some part of my addled hindbrain believes that it's easier or better or the least of evils to stuff myself with food I don't want to eat rather than to take the time to prepare or seek out food I might like and might actually provide me with a modicum of nutrition. As obsessed as I am with the pleasures of the table, I find that there's a bit of me that happily accepts the idea that, sometimes, it's best to just eat without caring what or why it is you're eating. I am, today, declaring war on that bit of me. It is wrong, and it needs to know it.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not claiming everything I eat needs to be a three-star meal served on bone china. I don't need linen tablecloths, nor am I swearing to never darken the doors of another McDonald's (hangovers require sausage, egg, and cheese biscuits- everyone knows this), but, dammit, I want to WANT what I eat, even when I eat junkfood. I have known for years that I hate most sodas, that I hate Doritos, that it is not necessary to munch on whatever's set before you at cocktail party, and that, sometimes, you just don't have to clean your plate. From now on, I'm going to do my damnedest not to eat anything that doesn't call out to me, and if this means I have to walk another block to find fruit instead of Smartfood, I'm going to do it. I'm tired of eating things that bring me no more pleasure than the joy of working my jaws.
The sad thing is how difficult this all is. For, if I keep harping on how easy it is to eat well if you care to, the sad truth is that it's also very, very easy to eat poorly, without noticing you're doing it till it's too late. I can't tell you how often, since I first decided to give up the rubbish, that I've thought, halfway through a slice of free (Free!) pizza provided for an office meeting, "Lord, but this is dreadful, why am I even… DAMN! I'm doing it AGAIN." I mean, Fearnley-Whittingstall has it easy: the bastard moved to a nearly self-sufficient farm in the English countryside. I'm not quite able to do that (yet -- send donations C/O Evil Robots and get a free rabbit terrine!), but I can, slowly, train myself only to eat what tastes good when I want it. I'm just sad it that it takes effort.
