Rachel Black

This morning I read an article in the New York Times entitled “Table for 2? Get Ready to Wait in Line” and it got me thinking about the social aspects of waiting for food (something this article missed entirely).

Sure, I can understand the inconvenience of having to wait to be fed but I can also see a positive side–the social side of the ordeal. It seems to me that Americans have forgotten how to socialize in public spaces and why spontaneous sociability is important. Hey, it can even be pleasant! Waiting in line is an opportunity to meet new people, exchange a few words and maybe even some ideas. Have we forgotten that it can be a good thing to check in with the world around us? This mundane activity can also build solidarity!

On my first shopping trip to Eataly in Turin, Italy, I was fascinated by two very socially different worlds of the deli counter and the refrigerated self-serve cases. One goes to the deli counter partially out of a desire to socialize and communicate. First there is the waiting in line that necessitates cooperation and a certain ability to follow unspoken social rules and codes. One mustn’t jump the line. One must speak politely to the counter person and others waiting. One must state clearly what they would like and ask for help when they are unsure of this. Then there is the exchange with the counter person. We have the opportunity to ask questions, learn and exchange ideas. In contrast, those who prefer anonymity choose the self-serve case. To me this is an expression of independence and a desire for speed. Who has time anymore to wait to be served? Why would I waste my time talking to other people I don’t know from Adam? Spending a few moments observing the shopping behaviour at the deli case and the counter taught me a great deal about the changing social habits of Italians. Increasing social ineptitude is not unique to North America.

Well, whether waiting in line at a restaurant in New York or a deli counter in Italy, we come in contact with our fellow eaters. A priori we have something in common–our humanness.

Why do restaurant reviews never talk about how food makes you feel after you eat it? This was a question I was left pondering as I stared at the ceiling with my stomach rumbling last night.

The first food writers were extremely preoccupied with digestion and how food altered the humours (bile and mood, equally). In Physiologie du goût (1825), Brillat-Savarin devotes an entire chapter to digestion and realises its central importance in the act of eating. How did we loose touch with our stomachs in the act of eating? Why does taste only refer to our mouths and less frequently our noses?

Isn’t a large part of how food makes us feel about what happens after it enters our bodies? The instance of incorporation (in the true sense of the word) does not really occur in our mouths. Why then does modern food writing lack a language and vocabulary to address how food makes us feel, or at least something beyond romantic and poetic notions of how we feel when we see, taste and smell food. What about the culinary contentment of sated hunger or the lovely feeling of  a full belly? What about the wretched physical feelings after eating a rotten oyster or the regretful pains of over indulging in a second helping? Dare I go so far as to mention the unmentionable? Yes, we all know the primal pleasures of defecation, the ultimate output of all eating experiences.

Strong cultural taboos now keep us from associating eating with pooping. However, this was not always the case. It is interesting to note that North American culture is deeply obsessed with the pleasure and healthfulness of eating but we dare not speak about its physiological functioning. What happens in our bodies has been covered over, sanitized and banished from popular discourse. During the eighteenth century, the term restaurant was used to describe the dishes that were given to the ill and weak–often a rich meat dish to restore health and energy to the convalescent eater. Eventually, venues opened in Paris where pale and weak patrons could come and restore their health. Restaurants were initially all about how food made you feel, in a very physiological sense.

Surely, I have pushed this discussion to an extreme, but I am still left wondering how we ended up so disconnected from the act of eating. Perhaps its time to overcome our prudishness and really talk about how food makes us feel.

Further reading:

Brillat-Savarin, Jean Anthelme. The Physiology of Taste. http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/brillat/savarin/b85p/

Spang, Rebecca. The Invention of the Restaurant. Harvard UP, 2001.