Do you eat to live or live to eat?

That’s the question.

Emma and I try often to assemble a meal plan from week to week. Since we like to save money by eating in, and like to feel more in control of eating food we believe is healthy, a weekly meal aims to satisfy those, among other, goals. However, as the expression goes, your eyes are bigger than your stomach, we often end up planning too many large meals in succession or find other plans (or laziness) make it difficult to cook what we set out to. But to get back to the question at hand: do you eat to live or live to eat? When planning a menu it seems to go both ways. On the one hand, we are planning in order to free up time to do other things and, therefore, place eating more on the side of sustenance for life. Yet, just as easily the menu takes a seat at the top of the hierarchy, demanding us to prepare in advance and structure our time, thought, and energy to the cause of cooking. Why? Well, because the end result can be pure bliss.

To digress briefly: One of my earliest food memories involved a lunchtime hotdog at St. Paul day care. The story is short and to the point. They served up some hotdogs. I was really hungry for hotdogs, and proceeded to inhale mine. They put me in time out because I ate too quickly.

I don’t think I have completely learned the lesson from that day. I still tend to eat fast, as so many people do. But good dinning etiquette tells us that to eat too quickly, and not savor ones food is faux pas. Now I’m certainly not one for conforming to elite social norms but I have grown to realize a few traditions have much to offer. Namely, the senses, of which I’ll touch on more shortly, are what we have to work with, and eating good food in a good environment is not something to take for granted. Indeed, the pleasures and possibilities during a meal demand a slowing, perhaps even a stopping–to think, to talk, to chew, to decipher, and ruminate on everything from the palate, redolence, friends, memories, and dreams.

Now some food, like the hotdog perhaps, scream things like EAT ME NOW!! So, by all means don’t be hard on yourself if you find yourself scratching your head wondering what happened to the rather large plate of garbage that was resting before you no more than a minute earlier. It is not a simple thing to learn about cooking and eating, and at times it may take a bit of effort to slow down when something delectable hits a watering mouth, it certainly has for me, but it’s not hard to recall one of the endless number of clichés that are simmering anxiously to remind us to seize the moment and enjoy it, and that patients is a virtue.

One’s palate does take time to develop (and I say this not to be bourgeois, but from simple, humble experience). Let friends and families show what can emerge from a shared meal. Be bold and trust yourself to get down and dirty, go ahead and use your damned hands if need be.

Remember this about the senses upon sitting down to a good meal. There are five basic tastes: bitterness, saltiness, sourness, sweetness, and umami (the taste of savoriness). Most people can distinguish thousands of different scents. Smell relates directly to taste. Don’t be afraid to waft.