Eat Me

The way to a man's heart is through his stomach. We've all heard it. And that works out just fine for me, because I wholeheartedly enjoy making food. Especially baking. Mmmm. It actually may not work out as well for my honey, who is one of those men who likes to work out. Or something to that effect.

In Cooked, Michael Pollan discusses (what else?) the variety of ways in which we process our food before consumption. He sneaks some useful tidbits about relationships in there, too. 

Cooking meat outside over a fire has traditionally been a man's job (going back to the hunter in hunter-gatherer societies), and remains a socially acceptable form of food preparation for men to engage in. The simplest way to get a man into the kitchen is to put him in charge of the meat. (On a side note, my honey has prepared ribs with a dry rub that he'll be cooking for us tonight; I'm pretty excited about it.)

Cooking (and eating cooked food) is, at its core, a social activity. It is a great way to bring people together and reinforce a sense of community at the end of a day. The microwave "meal" is inherently isolating. As is a phenomenon known as "secondary eating" (a fancy term for snacking). Secondary eating is the eating that we do while watching a movie or reading a book or engaged in any other activity as our primary focus. This type of eating greatly increases caloric intake: if we're not paying attention to what we're eating, we eat more.

Since sharing is such an important part of eating, I've been playing with the idea of putting recipe cards in our invitations and compiling a wedding recipe book featuring favorites from our friends and family. I don't know how it would work on a practical level, but I think it would be fun if I can figure it out.

On an unrelated note, there is a new theory emerging about the origins of agriculture. This theory suggests that agriculture did not develop as a way to reliably feed ourselves (the diet of hunter-gatherers could actually have been more nutritious, as it contained a greater variety of foodstuffs), but as a way to reliably intoxicate ourselves. Cheers!