Manger bien et juste

What in the world does my title mean? If you are French, you certainly know the profound truth of that statement.

For us who don't speak the language of romance, it means: "Eat well and eat right."

Why is this important? Well, to be quite frank, I am a food snob.

There, I said it.

You can likely see this by the "sites I thoroughly enjoy" column on this blog. Or, if you just know me and know how I cook/eat, you might realize this. But you may not truly know the extent to which I seek the pleasure and sustenance of food. And not in an unhealthy way, of course, but in a "food should be enjoyed at it's simplest, purest, loveliest form" mindset. Food is not only what sustains us (a mere fact that should motivate us to "eat well and eat right" but also for pleasure. If anyone has read anything about the early Romans, Greeks, French, or even further back, the Chinese--food is not just for fuel, it's for pleasure, health, and happiness.

I am 100%, most definitely, a nose-turning, high-end, organic/fresh food gastronome. I've been trying to convince myself for a while that I'm not but I've to come to terms with the fact that I simply am. Though I'm an American through and through, my foodie inhibitions come from somewhere far beyond this country's borders.

They come from France, Italy, China, and some fragments hail from Greece.

In these locations food is an art, is it to be relished and savored. Not preserved or inhaled. Mealtimes are day-long affairs, not something done on-the-go or while watching television. Plates aren't heaped with massive quantities of trans fat loaded, chemically processed, sodium-infused gloop but rather with the freshest of ingredients, bought at the market that morning, from farmers just beyond the next hill. Not from commercial packing facilities hundreds of miles away.

Yes, I'm a food snob. Or rather, as I like to coin myself, an Alice Waters admirer. Or Julia Child adorer. Or an aspiring Le Cordon Bleu student. Whatever; pick your poison. I am...

Someone who loves the taste of the freshest ingredients.
Someone who uses butter, instead of margarine; fresh herbs/spices instead of salt; protein from the meat counter and not from a box, package, or can (think Jenny-O products, hot dogs, or Spam. These are not real meat, my friends), I seek fresh produce when I am able (again not from the grocery store but from farmer's markets and friends' gardens).
Someone who adores tea leaves, steeped to perfection, rather than tea bags that have been sitting on the shelves for who knows how long.
Someone who finds commercial yogurt scary with its long list of additives and preservatives (I could say this about most things in the supermarket) but prefers Greek yogurt when able to afford it or I enjoy making my own when I have time (it's really quite easy, a skill learned on the mission field and quite tasty when done right).
Someone who cringes at prepackaged goods, or how often people use them in "homemade" cooking(think: jello packets, canned anything, boxed cereals/potatoes/baked goods, etc).
Someone who can't fathom the idea of canned vegetables unless canned fresh from a home-grown garden. Frozen, I can do--canned, I cannot.
Someone who is shocked when people don't drink much water or eat a variety of fruits and veggies. Canned fruits & veggies, corn, and potatoes are not staples in one's diet, nor should they be. They are loaded with sugar and simple carbs; potatoes and corn should be used in conjuction with other, more nutrient-rich foods. There are a great deal more food truths I hold dear but those are a few snippets I find most important.

There is a reason for this blog entry. I recently began reading the book French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure by Mirielle Guiliano. the book is nothing extraordinary. The elements she brings to light are simple facts: we can eat anything we want, not limiting or depriving ourselves of anything, so long as those foods are fresh, local, homemade, and simple--very Alice Waters-esque. If you love pastries, eat them! But don't buy Little Debbie, go to the local pastry shop where they are made fresh every morning. And eat in moderation, not loading your plate with monstrous amounts of food, but tasting and savoring each bite of a variety of foods and dishes. None of this is revolutionary thinking. It's common sense but many of us, especially Americans, do not see food as something to be relished for it's taste and texture, but rather, as something to be eaten quickly, in big quatities. Or we seek the easiest routes (prepackaged, canned, frozen) and don't allow ourselves the pleasure of baking/cooking with fresh ingredients. We eat on the run, while reading (I am SO guilty of this!), at the computer, or while in front of the television. And rarely do we sit down to eat with our families. This is a detrimental transition from days gone by. Guiliano mentions that "French gastronomic culture is for the first time endangered because of globalization. With transnational fast-food outlets appearing [all over the country], it is becoming more difficult to transmit [French] values to children. Sometimes it seems we are headed back to the Renaissance, when we ate with our fingers, helped ourselves unceremoniously from communal heaps of food, even gnawed on a bone before passing it to a neighbor."

It's true. We don't relish food anymore, we devour it.

Let me ask you a question: How often to you taste your food? I mean, really, just let it linger in your mouth and mull it over? How often do you enjoy the texture of a good apple, the crunch of a nice fresh bit of celery, the pop of sweet juiciness in a fresh blueberry? It's amazing how often we chew and don't taste. I do it all the time. You cannot read a book, or watch television and actually taste your food. Let me repeat: you cannot. It doesn't work. Truthfully, you can't taste while talking either (nor should you talk with food in your mouth) but eating and socializing are common in every society and should always be a part of enjoying a good meal. Other cultures seek taste, they forage for it and will stop at nothing to find it. So I ask again: Do you actually taste your food when eating?

Another couple of questions: What size dinner plates do you use at home? Or cereal bowls? Do you use only one plate a meal to save dishwashing time or do you use a few small ones to steer clear of quick consumption and overeating? FOr the French (and many other cultures), "it's strange to have a whole meal on one dish, stranger still to see any plate covered with food...changing plates not only compels you to concentrate on what you are enjoying at the moment, it slows the meal down, improving digestion and promoting contentment." This is a similar notion to the Chinese practice of lazy susan dining. In China, everyone gets a very small, salad-like plate while an array of dishes are placed on a circulating lazy susan in the middle of the table. Eating with chopsticks, you are required to take bits and pieces of what you can eat at the moment while the table revolves. It prevents gorging yourself. You pay attention to what you are chewing and further still, you must focus on trying to get the thing in your mouth using chopsticks. Digestion is slowed, and you feel fuller sooner.

It's a pretty novel idea, if you ask me.

The other crime Americans (and other cultures commit--we aren't the only ones) is alcohol abuse. Since we aren't taught at a young age to appreciate the flavor of a good wine, or drink in moderation, we go crazy at 21 when we are able to finally drink (or sneak behind our parents' backs before then). I'm somewhat exempt from alcohol abuse because my Mother was an alcoholic and therefore I never had any urge to drink, let alone abuse it (contrary to what some statistics might proclaim). I DO however, enjoy a good glass of wine once or twice a week. Especially red wine. Love it. It also has amazing health benefits--but ONLY IN MODERATION. I also enjoy a good margarita or Corona with Mexican food. The flavors work together nicely and complement one another. Plus anything with lime is just YUMMY. There is nothing wrong with this, again, in MODERATION. But once the habit is abused it becomes an issue. ALso another disclaimer: Just because you're a Christian, doesn't mean it's wrong to drink every so often. I know many people who poo-poo other Christians who have a beer or a margarita every so often. This is called "judging" and it's also wrong. Nor is drinking a sin, just drinking in abundance. Just FYI. :)

A few other quotes I enjoyed while reading: "For French women, the realthing remains dark chocolate...although you rarely meet someone who doesn't like chocolate, what the average American consumes, a chocolate connoisseur would never touch: milk chocolate, white chocolate or any of the various packaged forms sold in supermarkets and drugstores. This is, quite simply, junk food, loaded with sugar, very low in cocoa content, and more often than not artificially colored and preserved (real chocolate, like fresh-ground coffee, has a very short life of full flavor)." I love this because I have a fetish for good chocolate. My absolutel favorite is a Lindt 70% Cacao dark chocolate bar with chili pepper powder (included within the bar). It's incredible. The other aspect I love about dark chocolate is that you can have one piece, savor it, and be thoroughly satisfied. It takes just one small piece. If you eat a candy bar, you inevitably want more. Milk chocolate has way too much sugar--and doesn't satisfy. Anyway.

"No yoga exercise, no meditation in a chapel filled with music will rid you of your blues better than the humble task of making your own bread." --MFK Fisher, The Art of Eating. I appreciate and enjoy this quote because while in Africa this past year I had no choice BUT to make my own bread, and grew to love and adore the art of kneading. It's very therapeutic and mind-clearing. Any anxieties, worries, troubles you have are immediately diffused within the intensity of kneading the dough. And it's incredibly rewarding to see the bread rise and smell the amazing aroma of fresh bread. Oh, I may have to make some right now. It's that good.

"Frozen dinners are gastronomic pornography." I just like this quote. It makes me smirk. Ha. Haha.


Anyway--I'll get off my soapbox for now. This book was fun to read. I would recommend it for anyone who has issues with food, exercise, or a healthy lifestyle and needs a good kick in the pants as to HOW to enjoy everything without overdoing it (or depriving yourself).

It's refreshing.

Now I'm going to make some bread, eat a bit of chocolate, and maybe have a glass of red wine.

Au revoir.