The Lost Art of Eating

In a previous post in this series, I talked about breathing and how this simple practice is necessary in the maintenance of life. Eating (unlike letter-writing) is also a necessity for survival. Although people are capable of enduring conditions of severe scarcity, they need a certain amount of food and to ingest this amount of food with a certain measure of regularity, in order to live. So it can be easily established that food plays an essential role in our lives and that it is a fundamental need, rather than merely a want. What remains to be seen is whether the sphere of food can be elevated into the sphere of art.

Although I used the word “eating” in the title of this piece, I want to include the entire process of preparing and arranging food in my discussion, not just consumption. For it is very clear that food is about far more than nutritional value (or lack thereof), even if we intend to desire it only as such. The basic definition of food might be cut down to its constituent parts, but whenever we encounter food on the practical level of daily living and not in some abstract theoretical realm, it is impossible to separate the food itself from the experience of eating.

What is meant by the experience of eating? There is an enormous wealth of associations that we can forge. Eating does not just appeal to taste; the other senses also participate in the overall experience. We smell the food, touch the food and see the food: the visual display might strike us as appealing or disgusting; whether we perceive it as the former or the latter certainly factors into our experience and prospective enjoyment. What about hearing? The connection here might be less evident: perhaps hearing plays a small part in the incidental sounds of eating (chewing for instance) or in the sounds accompanying food preparation.

Yet if we probe still more deeply into the experience, we find that we must also include other external factors. The experience is affected and even determined not only by our physical relation to the food, but by our mental, emotional and psychological states too. How are we feeling and what are we thinking as we eat? Are we anxious, and if so, does this impact our enjoyment? Are we happy or excited, and if so, does this impact the pace of our eating? Then there are the social and atmospheric considerations, which likewise cannot be ignored. Are we alone or surrounded by people, and if so, how does the presence of these people affect our experience? Our senses and thoughts and emotions are also bound up in our physical environment, in the space in which we are eating and its sights, sounds and smells.

It may seem as though this extensive discussion of the experience of eating is not necessary in order to establish that food can be an art. Everywhere we look, food is prepared and presented to bear an “artistic” image. Nowhere is this clearer than on a site like Instagram, which is replete with colourful pictures of food positioned just so and certainly qualifying as “works of art.” Yet this very fascination with the artistry of food frequently encounters criticism. It is not seen by everyone as a positive, and definitely not as a “lost” art or one that needs to be reclaimed. These critics say that food is for eating, that it shouldn’t be snapped from countless angles and subsequently shared on social media.

I tend to agree with these naysayers. I have been known to capture a particularly beautiful meal on camera, but I think that when the desire for documentation consumes more attention than the primary purpose of the art- in this case, eating- then there is a problem. Yet doesn’t such an opinion denigrate the conception of food as an art? A key distinction must be made here; a line must be drawn between the photograph (a copy of a work of art) and the food itself (also art- the original). The photograph isolates an aspect of the experience of eating- that is, the image or the visual sign of the food. The food itself, on the other hand, consists of more than this one aspect; it includes as well the whole experience of eating, with all the associations and considerations mentioned earlier.

And when I am talking about the art of eating, I am referring to something more than a polished final product or something that can be objectively admired apart from the experience. To me, the experience (not the product or documentation of it) is most vital, and this is the art in need of reclaiming. In so many ways, the experience is subjugated to other concerns. But art and beauty (and really, life) are contained in and flow forth from experience. Art always involves experience at some level, whether it is shared between many or internally felt in a moment of creative inspiration between the artist and the page. Art is a transcendent experience, an experience of joy.

We live in a fast food culture and the experience of eating and preparing food has begun to seem less important than other things. Maybe it has even begun to seem like a necessary claim to our time which we must reluctantly indulge. We want the appearance of good food, the nutritional value of food to control our body, the quantity of food because consuming more seems better, the convenience and speed of food to create minimal interruption to our busy lives. Is it possible that in all of this, the experience slips out? Is it possible that food remains an art but eating is one no longer?

The experience of eating has always gone hand in hand with fellowship, with the breaking of bread and communion. It is not just about the food we eat but how we eat it. If we take the time to appreciate the food we eat and to experience it with the people around or even with only ourselves, the eating is truly transformed into art, and as art, it is also a gift, one of for which we can be thankful and one from which we gain many of the smallest and best and things in life.