“Food is symbolic of love when words are inadequate.”
-Alan D.Wolfelt.
Have you ever devoured any food such that you felt blissfully content? Just imagine that somebody returns home, starved, right after a long and tiring day. And his beloved one offers him a hot, utterly-buttery delicious meal, maybe one of his favorite entrees, cooked with love and care. He ravages through the meal as if there is no tomorrow. How does that feeling sound? Simply euphoric. To describe that mojo in a single word, people often call it ‘Foodgasm.’ The urban dictionary defines it as experiencing a feeling of sheer orgasmic pleasure after eating a sumptuous meal.
Food can do wonders
Food definitely overwhelms a person with all five senses. Leaving the aspect of taste aside, think about the nice aroma or the sizzling sound coming from a hot sizzler. Or the sensation oozing from a crunchy outside and a juicy inside of some fried goodies.
Food collectively engraves an impression on us. This is often therapeutic. A bad or a gloomy day lightens up just by eating a lavish or wholesome dinner. One doesn’t have to be an epicure to appreciate the food. It is related to the most primal instinct and the most primitive insecurity, which is hunger. So no matter what, food always hits a chord. It creates a memory and always binds us with people with whom we are breaking bread. The experience can be addictive as well as seductive too.
Food — a journey
By food, what I mean is the total experience associated with it. Each meal is a journey. It starts from a venture of collecting the ingredients (‘grocery shopping’ in more run-of-the-mill terminology), goes through the preparatory phase (simply, cooking), and culminates in the mouth. Would it be an exaggeration if I dare to compare it with an erotic journey, the three consecutive phases being the foreplay, coitus, and climax?
So, knowingly or unknowingly, we all have experienced the foodgasm! Exciting, huh!
1. Collecting the ingredients:
In a more rustic way, collecting the ingredients is technically stocking up the pantry. We all go to the supermarkets, a bazaar, or a farmers market to buy fresh produces. A physical market (not online delivery) is the real deal. All the hustles and bustles of a busy marketplace have always intrigued me. I love the vibrations coming from the crowd — all different people united by the spirit of life. So, whenever I travel to a new city, I try to visit the local marketplace. These are actually the places where one can find the true spirit or the signature of that metropolis. The older the city, the more vibrant is the bazaar.
So, marketplaces are something that ignites the foodie-spirit in me. I feel the colorful vegetables by simply touching them. I try to evaluate fresh fish or a piece of meat just by looking at them. As I explore the entire marketplace, I get new food ideas. This is how I begin my journey towards food. To buy some ingredients, sometimes I argue with the seller or chat with a fellow shopper. All of these make me feel so alive. The more I cultivate, the more I feel passionate about food.
2. Cooking:
The next step in this journey is pretty self-explanatory. To me, cooking is not just an ordinary household chore, but a therapy. Using a few humble ingredients, cooking creates magic from nothing. Cooking is that skill, which ignites the creative self and leaves behind the pleasure of empowerment. As a whole, this elevates me to the next hyperplane and makes me feel so liberated. Cooking has always been a real stress-buster. After returning home in the evening, the urge to experiment in the kitchen makes me feel like a real star. Or, more like a queen in my own castle. I feel so independent and empowered.
Dealing with the simple stuff, making them ready for the show — marinating, preparing the spices, playing it off on the fire, I love it all. I love all the kitchen sounds of chopping, grinding, or boiling. It is so soothing to see something getting cooked, with all its bubbling sound and aroma. My senses are filled with sheer pleasure, overflowing everywhere, and spreading happiness.
Cooking as a whole creates a memory. Either experimenting in my own way or adopting and curating an ancestral recipe, working together with somebody has always been fun. That experience of creation is something that strengthens the emotional bond. It helps to feel like a team. I have always adored those couples who cook together. Even if you have a kid at home, it has always been a good idea to get them involved. Ask them to give a simple hand in the family baking time. This will eventually be a nice learning curve for them. They would understand familial and societal values. They will be more compassionate and (realize the importance of being/grow up to be) a team player. In a nutshell, the art of cooking, with its inherent creativity, is so addictive and pleasurable.
3. Dining:
Now, we have reached the final stage of our food journey. The most orgasmic one — when one actually gets the meal for devouring. Sadly, this is the quickest phase. All good things end up real fast! One spends three hours in a kitchen preparing the meal. However, it takes hardly fifteen-twenty minutes to eat. Just like climaxing! All that build-up for a few blissful moments! So unjust!
No matter what you eat, it is the real thing that you are pouring to yourself. As they say, you are what you eat. So it is a real experience that stays with you. Food experience may vary according to our own socioeconomic strata, but it remains the same at its core. It nourishes and satisfies our mind-body and soul. Food echos our life experiences. All we grew up eating some home-cooked food or comfort meals. They may not be a very fancy one but give us a true sense of comfort. We have a lot of satisfying childhood memory built around them. Eating the same food again resonates the chord inside and brings us back those childhood memories of sheer joy. That is why most of us often feel that mothers are the best cooks ever. Again, there are certain fancy meals which we all eat at some points. Those are gorgeous memories, too, with all the abundant flamboyance associated with them.
So, no matter what we eat, the memory stays with us as an experience. It actually dates back to those hunter-gatherer days of our forefathers. When people used to sit together as a community and share meals. Although technically we don’t belong to the hunter-gatherer era, we are still living there in our brains. Evolution is quite a slow process. So, Even though we live in a civilized society, we are still very primitive at our cores. We are constantly battling with the same insecurities and instincts encoded in our DNA left by our ancestors. So, our livings still revolve largely around food.
Even today, whenever we go to a BBQ party or a picnic, the smell of the fire-roasting makes us drool over. It reminds us of our very early primate-selves. Food as a whole is the ultimate thing that binds us with our peers. Somewhere down the line, it gives us a comfortable assurance of communal living. We realize that we are not alone, rather backed by the generations of humanity.
Nevertheless, food is the one major things over which humankind has fought forever. Every single grain is important to us. Since the dawn of humanity, people have fought to ensure their fair share of resources on earth and somewhere to establish their own mortal existence. That is why each grain of food is indeed a holy grain to humanity. So, often in many old civilizations, food has been honored almost as a deity. In Hinduism (majorly practiced in India), we regard the foodgrains as the Goddess Lakshmi, the Hindu deity of luck, wealth, and prosperity. Also, to every possible religion, feeding people have been regarded as the ultimate virtue. That is why inviting somebody for a meal is still being adored and practiced globally. It is that wholesome experience of living that one can offer to fellow human beings.
Love thy Neighbour!
So, no matter what you eat, do it together, and create a life-long happy memory. Value dinner time with your family. Set aside the cellphone, and eat mindfully with the person next to you. This is the key to emotional wellbeing and happy life. Keep eating, and keep feeding others.
