Overindulgence

Loving food does not make you fat. To me, this is the biggest misconception in our culture today. American puritan roots seem to cause people to equate pleasure with overindulgence. In my view Hedonism is the antithesis of pleasure.

Those who truly love something also treat it with care and respect, savoring quality over quantity.

I, like everyone, have been guilty of mindless gluttony from time to time, but I find that this inhibits my true hunger and desire and therefore my ultimate satisfaction. It is almost as if my taste buds numb to the flavors I consume, everything becomes interchangeable, meaningless and uninspiring.

There is a tipping point in the bell curve of returns. I think we have a limited capacity for pleasure as humans. Perhaps this is why, as MFK Fisher put it, " a good meal is wasted on those newly in love". One pleasure eclipses all others when it is fresh and potent. Would we want a watered down version of either love or cuisine? Well, those of us who savor certainly would not.

Perhaps the root of Hedonism is an internal emptiness, a deep well that cannot be filled, yet begs to be.

Like the sex addict who "indulges" in one night stands, over and over and over, and yet finds no real satisfaction, the American consumer eats and eats and eats, rarely having a decent meal and losing touch with the primal pleasure that one can bring.

Perhaps the problem is not overindulgence, but underindulgence. Contentment is not happiness, eating is not tasting, and fucking is not erotic. I want to be happy. I want cool, unctuous oysters not Long John Silver's. I want raw passion not a casual quickie. But, I am also a woman who chose New York over all the other more practical cities in the country. I am a woman whose sustenance is the primal soul-nourishing flesh of desire and the exotic seasoning of fearless experience. I am a woman who savors.

Tastes

Sipping my second cup of coffee this morning, relishing the good, bitter flavor and comparing it to the creamy sweet cup of coffee I had enjoyed earlier, I began thinking about the subject of taste.

I am of the opinion that if you don't like something, you just haven't given it enough chances. That's not to say there aren't bad versions of everything, but that is another matter all together. I realized this morning that the root of an initial distaste may stem from our own preconceived notions of what something "should be".

If I expected coffee to be sweet and soft, I would be off put by the reality of the bite as it hit my tongue. Upon second sip, I embraced the strong, dark brew for exactly what it was; relishing the bitterness and coffeeness of it.

I think that we may have the same knee-jerk reactions to people. When we encounter someone different from ourselves, either in values or personality, we sometimes reel back. Children on the playground provide the best example of this behavior, coming together in impenetrable cliques with prejudices against the unfamiliar. Though at one point there may have been a survival value to this, our ancestors avoiding new potentially poisonous foods, at this point in our maturity as adults and modern men, variety is the spice of life.

I developed a palate for people relatively early on, the unique differences enticing me, the complete otherness of people drawing me in. Life would be rather bland if it were filled only with boiled potatoes and people just like me. No, I prefer to explore the exotic flavors of my food and my friends. Whether it be a cultural difference or one of personality, as long as you are secure in your own identity, you can enjoy the bitter, sweet, savory, sour flavor of them all!

Unless an individual or dish is poisonous (which some most certainly are!) I stand by my opinion on taste. Take another bit of kimchi while chatting with an anarchist; you might just like it and it certainly will be an interesting meal.