Food Tastes Good

I recently had the opportunity to enjoy at meal at one of the finest restaurants in the world. I was given the following menu:

Pure

Salt

Artisan

South

Texture

Unique

Memory

Terroir

Each menu item included a brief comment on the chef’s philosophy going into the dish. When the dishes came out, our waiter told us what the actual food was. Pure, for example, was scallop and cauliflower. The restaurant looked at food in an entirely different light, different from even foodies. But yet, it really didn’t, it had just been couched in more… intellectual? academic? philosophical? terms. The chef devoted significantly more time to the language of food than most people do (a man after my own heart).

So food… We need it the same way a car needs fuel. You’ve undoubtedly heard the saying that the world is 24 hours and a food shortage from anarchy. The counter to that is humanity’s first step towards towards civilization was the cultivation of food. We moved from being hunter-gatherers, wild, to being agrarian, civilized.

The food industry is one of the largest in the world. Annually it accounts for roughly 3.2 trillion dollars in revenue. The United States consumes roughly 1 trillion or 1/3 of the total food sold, nearly 10% of GDP. That’s a lot of money to be spent on something so seemingly simple.

And it makes sense, aside from water, what could be more important than food? In Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, food comes in at the most basic level. Water, air, sleep, and, interestingly enough, sex also fill that level (at least according to Wikipedia). Air is, well, air – you can’t really do much to improve it, though it can be contaminated. As for water, last I checked, you can spend a few hundred dollars on a bottle of champagne, essentially fizzy water. And sex… just read my last post.

As our culture has continually developed, becoming more intricate and varied, food has naturally grown up along with it. As humanity gradually produced more and more excess, we’ve devoted more and more time, more and more energy, more and more thought, to food!

Today in cultures of excess (read: developed or semi-developed world) you can spend an easy three or four hundred dollars on a meal, including alcohol, if you want. I can assure you, it will be delicious. I ask, however, if it is the best meal you’ve ever had? In fact, what was the best meal you ever had?

Taking a note from of “Ratatouille,” (if you haven’t seen it, go watch it, NOW) I suspect that it may be something of little note. My most satisfying meal, one that I haven’t had in ages, is probably caesar salad with roast chicken. It all goes back to my childhood and the memories I associate with it. It’s not the best meal I’ve had; I do distinguish, but the most satisfying. And I could eat it right now, though I’m full, and still be quite pleased with it.

Food comes with significant emotional impact. Your company can ruin the best meal in the world; they can heighten the worst to glory. And then on the other hand, we often use food to cheer our own gloomy mood. It’s a strange relationship. I do wonder just how much time and energy the world truly devotes to food; I can assure you it’s far more than the 3.2 trillion I quoted earlier.

Speaking as someone hopelessly obsessed and devoted to food, I know that a significant amount, if not majority, of my time is spent on food. It may be your greatest time consumer as well.