Favorite Articles Issue 3 – Food
October 25, 2024
Food
Food. We need it. We live for it. We love it. Food is an integral part of existence–but it’s not just physical dependence that makes it important; food also plays a significant role in our inner lives, becoming associated with pleasure, pain, joy, and grief. Food fits occasions and colors our moods, and somehow it also identifies us regionally, politically, and economically. The four articles below highlight our strange and complicated relationships with food offering a bit of fun, a touch of heartbreak, and a wallop of intrigue.
Overindulgence
Two essays by B.R. Meyers, his 2011 “The moral crusade against foodies” and 2007’s “Hard to swallow” look at the gluttony driving popular food culture. Although written more than a decade ago, Meyers’ writing is more relevant now than ever, for in the afterglow of the invention of mukbangs, it’s hard to argue that Meyer didn’t hit the nail on the head when he wrote that the new gourmand places “the prioritization of food above all.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/03/the-moral-crusade-against-foodies/308370
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/09/hard-to-swallow/306123
Potatoes
Potatoes. Mmm. What else is there to say?
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-the-potato-changed-the-world-108470605/?all&no-ist
Hunger
Andrew Chapman’s (2024) “Insatiable: a life without eating” is a must read. Chapman’s account of dealing with Crohn’s disease is an awful reminder that some people have been dealt a terrible hand in the game of life. In the article, Chapman’s hunger is palpable, but his condition becomes so much worse with the realization that one loses a bit of their humanity when deprived of the pleasure of eating.