{"id":1399,"date":"2015-03-15T09:00:06","date_gmt":"2015-03-15T13:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/safaraf.com\/?p=1399"},"modified":"2015-03-15T18:57:25","modified_gmt":"2015-03-15T22:57:25","slug":"connecting-to-food-a-meals-inspiration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/safaraf.com\/?p=1399","title":{"rendered":"Connecting to Food: A Meal’s Inspiration"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A recent conversation with a food blogger here in West Stockbridge led me to this blog today.\u00a0 We were discussing his latest book set to be\u00a0published “The Little Cookbook of Philosophy.” The book by Keith Emerling is a compilation of his various\u00a0relationships to\u00a0food.\u00a0 Using various artistic genres\u00a0he illustrate his passion and connection to food and its production.<\/p>\n

Woven together through poems, short\u00a0essays and\u00a0a number of recipes accompanied by colorful pictures he gives readers a taste for food and a philosophy about the food industry.\u00a0 You can see some photos and learn more about this artist\u00a0here<\/a>. Many of his commentaries speak to the nature by which the industry has grown\u00a0into a\u00a0mass production system in need of more regulation and the acts by which we can take\u00a0as consumer\u00a0to become advocates for change.<\/p>\n

What we chose to discuss in more detail\u00a0was the concept of the connection between food and culture.\u00a0\u00a0 In one regard we spoke of the elitism\u00a0and\u00a0foods that have been deemed healthy that often include\u00a0and exclude certain cultures (a future blog entre).<\/p>\n

The other aspect of culture we spoke of\u00a0\u00a0was the importance of how cultural traditions influence our\u00a0food choices and meals.\u00a0\u00a0 The culture from which we come from, arrive at through our palates shapes how we eat.\u00a0 Many of our first connections to our culture are made by way of the kitchen.\u00a0 We are fed from the time we are infants via our parents who typically give us what they were given as children themselves in combination about what they have been\u00a0educated about along the way to becoming adults.<\/p>\n

Through this we develop our first tastes, likes and dislikes for foods that become familiar to us.\u00a0 We begin to create a dialogue with ourselves about food and this becomes a pathway to several other culinary experiences.\u00a0 These pathways are maintained throughout our lifetime as we add to them with our own culinary adventures.<\/p>\n

What this led me to reflect on is my own experience when I found myself disconnected to this pathway.\u00a0 At one point in my healing journey my relationship with eating became extremely strained.\u00a0 Eating challenged me\u00a0as my\u00a0body feeling this strain rejected\u00a0foods.\u00a0 Consuming foods pureed and blended was working but\u00a0the foods themselves were\u00a0unpalatable.<\/p>\n

This\u00a0shifted how I thought about food and the act of eating.\u00a0 I asked myself, “What do I enjoy about food?”\u00a0 “What makes me want to eat?”\u00a0 …and then there\u00a0it was, the answer was simple-IT’S THE TASTE!\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I remember the day I\u00a0went to\u00a0the garden, picked some oregano and gave it to\u00a0the chef at a health center I was attending and asked for my next meal to be cooked with this.\u00a0 And\u00a0 you know what I ATE…AND ATE AND ATE AND IT ALL STAYED IN.\u00a0 I\u00a0cried I was so overjoyed.<\/p>\n

Eating is not just a mechanical process by which we keep our body and spirit in motion but an act of deliberate commune with\u00a0our bodies.\u00a0 This\u00a0dialogue is supported when we encourage ourselves to take the approach to\u00a0choosing what\u00a0 and how we eat with an understanding for\u00a0who we are and this includes our cultural backgrounds.<\/p>\n

We need to be aware as much about what is good for our bodies, healthy and appropriate for us as we are about what gives us pleasure and a sense of satisfaction.\u00a0 This pleasure and satisfaction is often defined by what we have enjoyed in the commune nature of eating with those we love.<\/p>\n

So, when you take it upon yourself to come up with a meal tonight for one or a family gatherings of friends and relatives consider what elements go into your food to make it yours.\u00a0\u00a0Take in the\u00a0flavors, fragrances particular sensations\u00a0or any other elements of your cooking that speak to your culture.<\/p>\n

Perhaps a dab of this or dash of that is all you need to make the meal you serve not just food on a plate but a communication of your spirit.<\/p>\n

Let your culture inspire your creations and have fun.<\/p>\n

In health,<\/p>\n

Safara<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A recent conversation with a food blogger here in West Stockbridge led me to this blog today.\u00a0 We were discussing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/safaraf.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/safaraf.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/safaraf.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/safaraf.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/safaraf.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1399"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/safaraf.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1411,"href":"https:\/\/safaraf.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399\/revisions\/1411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/safaraf.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/safaraf.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/safaraf.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}