I was reading an article on the importance of family meals, and one section in particular stuck out to me:
“But something precious was lost, anthropologist Fox argues, when cooking came to be cast as drudgery and meals as discretionary. "Making food is a sacred event," he says. "It's so absolutely central--far more central than sex. You can keep a population going by having sex once a year, but you have to eat three times a day." Food comes so easily to us now, he says, that we have lost a sense of its significance. When we had to grow the corn and fight off predators, meals included a serving of gratitude. "It's like the American Indians. When they killed a deer, they said a prayer over it," says Fox. "That is civilization. It is an act of politeness over food. Fast food has killed this. We have reduced eating to sitting alone and shoveling it in. There is no ceremony in it."
First of all, this is funny. But second of all, it’s so true. Food has gotten too easy. You don’t value what is easily available. Why do you think girls (and guys!) play hard to get all the time? Haha.
But seriously. Think about it. The food you cook at home is probably less tasty than what you could get from a restaurant, unless you are Jamie Oliver. But the pride you feel after cooking a meal makes it taste a lot better than it probably should. Why is that? It’s because you worked hard, dammit, and you’re going to be excited and eat every last piece of rubbery, undercooked chicken that you made (and so will everyone else) because you made it. All by yourself. It’s like when a child makes a macaroni painting of questionable aesthetic appeal and the child’s parents can’t stop talking about how beautiful it is. You almost feel like you're looking at a Picasso masterpiece, though your eyes are clearly telling you otherwise.
I think one of the biggest reasons I was drawn to the idea of a CSA was because it brings back some of the significance to food that I feel like I’ve lost. When I eat literally every weekday meal at my desk at work, it becomes unimportant. Unshared. I’m not about to get all depressed over this, but I definitely miss sharing those moments at the cafeteria, dining hall, or family dinner table.
Even in college, when I was fairly busy and ended up eating on the run half the time, most of my social activities revolved around meeting up with people to eat. Even on nights out, my friends and I always end up bonding over late night munchies. Now that I've graduated, this continues to be true, but with one major difference. In college, we ate out a lot, but we would also get together and make dinner, experiment with new recipes, or bake random goodies to get us through another rough midterm-laden week on a fairly regular basis.
Now?
I can't remember the last time I cooked with anyone. I still try to cook occasionally, but I haven't met up with a group of friends to cook in a long, long time. I miss that.
One big side benefit of joining a CSA could be that it will force me to cook more often. And if I'm cooking more often, I will probably bring some friends over to cook dinner or brunch with me at some point. And that would be really nice.
Goal for the summer:
Haha just kidding, I only wish my apartment looked like that :D
But the sangria is not just kidding. That's definitely happening.
