“There’s got to be a catch,” a recent food workshop attendee said. We have come to mistrust goodness and can’t believe that you “can have your cake and eat it too,” meaning if food is delicious there’s got to be a catch.
Coming from a religious perspective the idea may be that “good food” has to be sinful. From a cultural perspective “good food” has been associated with sweet, fatty and “bad,” without qualifier. The underlying conclusion would then be that healthful food must be bland, boring, fatless, virtuous, depriving, and joyless. What misunderstanding!
Of course, the worst food can kill you, just like a gun can be used either to kill a person or simply for target shooting; just like chemical knowledge can be used either for warfare or simply to understand the Maillard reaction when searing a steak. It’s never the food, or the gun, or the chemical knowledge that’s bad. It’s what we do with it that’s essential.
When we use our knowledge in a life enhancing way, food heals, food connects people, food is delicious, food nourishes body and soul, food is an adventure, food is sensuous. That’s the kind of food we want to make and eat. When you learn how to make it both delicious and healthy, it becomes a win-win situation without reservation. Is the Mediterranean Diet not considered one of the healthiest in the world? It’s delicious! Aren’t the Japanese with their sophisticated cuisine one of the longest living people in the world? Their food is an adventure.
Bon appétit!