For humans, stating a preference - declaring that one food or music or way of thinking as being better than another - can be perceived by some as being elitist, arrogant, or as they say in Britain, "up one's self"; which perhaps help explain their food.
As I write this, I'm in front of a new audio system. While I consider myself a music fan and want to treat food and music as equals, I tend to listen to music while making food; the auditory being a single stimulus while the sights, smells, and tactical nature of food occupies the other senses. A good soundtrack makes audible what the other senses are celebrating.
Due largely to coincidence, I now have a sound system which is disproportionate to my previous dedication to listening to music. In short, it's expensive. Really expensive. It would be as if I had been fishing a few times, and then decided to buy a river. And yet, I'm discovering things I've never heard before. Recordings I hearing through a tiny record needle, are being played before me anew; like a high school crush frozen in time and is now presented again. And not in black and white, slightly out of focus and faded a bit by time, but enhanced and enchanted. As if you had the perspective of now way back when and truly appreciated what you saw and felt. It's like that, but with sound.
This notion of the "hardware" affecting the "software" does, of course, relate back to food. And of youth.
If food is the "software" of dining, then dishes and flatware, napkins and wine glasses are surely the hardware. While none of these alters the flavor of what we're eating, they can subtly affect our enjoyment of it.
Growing up, my parents had what I would call a "modest" kitchen. Dishes were always unremarkable (and unbreakable) melamine or "Corelware", flatware was modest and no more than about 5 of any one utensil matched. Table knives were dull and/or serrated, prep knives looked as though they'd all served time in a slaughter house cutting on cement slabs. It all matched the skills and level of passion my parents had about food. Neither the food nor utensils felt slighted; they were in perfect harmony.
While cleaning out my mother's house of every single item imaginable, I came across a random but remarkable memory, a single element which may have inadvertently uncovered my early interest in food and how it's consumed - a single fork. I've no idea where it came from, nor why we only had one of them (I suspect a neighbor brought it over and it was orphaned along the way), but it was distinctly different than the rest. It was a bit too ornate for my taste but implied the object had value. Most noticeable of all, it was heavy; especially when compared to the stamped-out-of-sheet-metal flatware it shared a drawer with. It was a bit shinier than the others, but not in a showy way. It felt "right" in my hands and it became my preferred fork whenever it was available in the drawer.
I wonder if anyone else in my small family noticed it. Could they honestly reach into that drawer and grab just any old fork when this one was there? Were they all equal candidates for conveying such important cargo?
Surely this single piece of metal is, in part, responsible for (or indicative of) my tendency toward better utensils now. Dining out for a living for 8 years exposed me to a lot of dishes and glasses and forks and knives, and I found one company and one style that reminded me of that balance I first enjoyed so long ago, an Italian company called "Sambonet". It took me years to get enough light and focus to read the convoluted logo on the "top" side of the forks. Then I noticed the knives stamped clearly with the name. I ordered a set as soon as I could find them online. They certainly weren't cheap, but they'll be with me for a very long time. And so will that first fork.
As I write this, I'm in front of a new audio system. While I consider myself a music fan and want to treat food and music as equals, I tend to listen to music while making food; the auditory being a single stimulus while the sights, smells, and tactical nature of food occupies the other senses. A good soundtrack makes audible what the other senses are celebrating.
Due largely to coincidence, I now have a sound system which is disproportionate to my previous dedication to listening to music. In short, it's expensive. Really expensive. It would be as if I had been fishing a few times, and then decided to buy a river. And yet, I'm discovering things I've never heard before. Recordings I hearing through a tiny record needle, are being played before me anew; like a high school crush frozen in time and is now presented again. And not in black and white, slightly out of focus and faded a bit by time, but enhanced and enchanted. As if you had the perspective of now way back when and truly appreciated what you saw and felt. It's like that, but with sound.
This notion of the "hardware" affecting the "software" does, of course, relate back to food. And of youth.
If food is the "software" of dining, then dishes and flatware, napkins and wine glasses are surely the hardware. While none of these alters the flavor of what we're eating, they can subtly affect our enjoyment of it.
Growing up, my parents had what I would call a "modest" kitchen. Dishes were always unremarkable (and unbreakable) melamine or "Corelware", flatware was modest and no more than about 5 of any one utensil matched. Table knives were dull and/or serrated, prep knives looked as though they'd all served time in a slaughter house cutting on cement slabs. It all matched the skills and level of passion my parents had about food. Neither the food nor utensils felt slighted; they were in perfect harmony.
While cleaning out my mother's house of every single item imaginable, I came across a random but remarkable memory, a single element which may have inadvertently uncovered my early interest in food and how it's consumed - a single fork. I've no idea where it came from, nor why we only had one of them (I suspect a neighbor brought it over and it was orphaned along the way), but it was distinctly different than the rest. It was a bit too ornate for my taste but implied the object had value. Most noticeable of all, it was heavy; especially when compared to the stamped-out-of-sheet-metal flatware it shared a drawer with. It was a bit shinier than the others, but not in a showy way. It felt "right" in my hands and it became my preferred fork whenever it was available in the drawer.
I wonder if anyone else in my small family noticed it. Could they honestly reach into that drawer and grab just any old fork when this one was there? Were they all equal candidates for conveying such important cargo?
Surely this single piece of metal is, in part, responsible for (or indicative of) my tendency toward better utensils now. Dining out for a living for 8 years exposed me to a lot of dishes and glasses and forks and knives, and I found one company and one style that reminded me of that balance I first enjoyed so long ago, an Italian company called "Sambonet". It took me years to get enough light and focus to read the convoluted logo on the "top" side of the forks. Then I noticed the knives stamped clearly with the name. I ordered a set as soon as I could find them online. They certainly weren't cheap, but they'll be with me for a very long time. And so will that first fork.
0 comments:
Post a Comment