Why Does Food Matter?

“Food is essential to life, therefore make it good”  S. Truett Cathy

I’m sure if you’ve been to your local Chik-Fil-A lately you’ve seen that quote stenciled on their walls.  It is so true, but why are we so obsessed with food in our society.  Watch twenty minutes of TV and you will no doubt see ads about the latest cereals (to my boys all cereals are cheerios and then they describe the kind of cheerios they want, kind of like in the South you order a coke and then they ask what kind and you say, Dr. Pepper,), some new burger at any of a number of fast food place, even ads for some new limited time …..fest (depending on what they are marketing that day).  We are surrounded by food in this country.

As a young food scientist, I had to travel to New York and Pennsylvania with my boss.  I went before him, so I had to pick him up at the Newark airport.  When he got in the car the first thing he said to me was “We only have one important task on this trip.”  I was stressed about that because we were scheduled to go visit a customer, a vendor and one of our plants all in four days.   He continued “You know those great big New York Pastrami Sandwiches, I’ve never had one, we have to get one.”  I laughed, he didn’t.  That was the legitimate need for that trip.  Side note: we got him his sandwich and it was awesome.

That’s how important food is to us, it trumps work, it trumps play, it even trumps sleep a lot of times.  But why?

My belief is that we value food so much because of the experience it brings for us.  It’s not just about filling our bellies, although good food is amazing.  It’s about what those tastes remind us of.  Think about it.  What triggers a stronger recall than smells and tastes?  If I sat almost any American down to a Turkey dinner, complete with stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy and pumpkin pie they would have flashbacks of Thanksgiving pasts, surrounded by loved ones.  Food triggers our recall more than anything else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuyUKdJccgM

Now that recall also has negative impacts as well.  Think about our food aversions (not allergies those are different) but foods we just don’t like.

Several years ago I did a lot of reading about the psychology of food aversions, and how typically the foods we claim not to like are because of recall.  Perhaps they remind us of a rough time in life, or we maybe got sick around the time we at that food and blame it.  So I had to test it.  If I get in trouble for this story I’ll know my mother-in-law actually reads my blog, which would a be a tiny triumph in and of itself, right.

She, my mother-in-law, hates I mean loathes bread pudding (weird because I love it, I mean who doesn’t love sweet bread).  I asked her why after talking to her about food aversions being a mental and not a physical thing.  She said it wasn’t mental it was just that she had to eat it so much when her dad got really sick when they were young, apparently he couldn’t chew normal food.   I’ll give you a minute to get your giggles out, I know I had to and still do when I think about it.

Then it got worse…  I decided to play a trick on her.  So, I made homemade chocolate chip pumpkin bread, then made that into bread pudding (I promise to post the recipe really soon so you can have it this fall) I topped that with a butter rum caramel sauce.  It was divine.  I took my creation to her and told her I had invented a new dessert and would she tried it.  She ate half the bowl ravenously and raved over how much she liked it.  Finally, I couldn’t take it any longer and I blurted out “Ha, that’s bread pudding.”  Without missing a beat she spits the bite in her mouth out and said: “I don’t like it”.  The recall is that powerful, something she raved about suddenly was repulsive when in her subconscious it brought back memories of her sick dad.

So what’s the point of this post, I haven’t even written in a long time (forgive me I’ve been building a house).  The point is the experiences we create now with our loved ones around food will provide recall points in the future for ourselves, our children and our other loved ones.  I doubt that my boys will ever eat BBQ without thinking of me (at least I hope not).  I know I can’t eat freshly fried fish (say that five times fast) without smiling about the times I spent fishing with my father, or waffles without thinking about playing Scattergories with my mom.

Life changes, time marches on, the world keeps spinning we know that, but food creates powerful memories of experiences.  My goal with this whole blog is to help empower all people to create experiences that endure in the memories of their families forever.

I’ll leave you with this quote.

“Good food is the foundation of genuine happiness.”   Auguste Escoffier