tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81449713461362793482009-04-26T08:30:27.345-07:00The Intellectual Foodie takes you on a fascinating and challenging journey, navigating the topics of society, art, history, literature, culture, religion and civilisation, all through the prism of food....because food is about so much more than just food...it is a storybook of the world....The Intellectual Foodiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03903734034906759392noreply@blogger.comBlogger36125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8144971346136279348.post-15766096536992502412009-04-26T08:23:00.003-07:002009-04-26T08:30:27.354-07:00

Meals are a child’s security and when they are not provided, or when there is doubt as to whether they will be provided from day to day, a child’s sense of safety and of being cared for, are badly shaken. It must be an in-built evolutionary trait that we are so in need of being fed regularly by our parents. I knew, at a very early age, how important regular home-cooked meals were, because I

The Intellectual Foodiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03903734034906759392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8144971346136279348.post-853220965954424032009-04-04T09:16:00.002-07:002009-04-04T09:21:11.110-07:00

Across the Western world, in the post-Reagan/Thatcher era, public infrastructure has been deliberately run down, as neo-liberal economics insinuated itself into governance. Health services, schools, water supplies, roads have all deteriorated, failed, cracked or collapsed as a result. From the dead victims of Hurricane Katrina, to the dead victims of a scandalous Irish health service, populations

The Intellectual Foodiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03903734034906759392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8144971346136279348.post-34866885121491244302009-03-14T13:32:00.002-07:002009-03-14T13:38:42.688-07:00

Once, hungry children suffered the poverty of there not being enough money for food---the poverty of (literal) poverty. Now, they suffer the poverty of affluence, that new 21st century disease which Oliver James pithily termed 'Affluenza'. The affluence of this century seems to be a more toxic evolution of the last century's affluence, castigated by economist John Kenneth Galbraith as 'private

The Intellectual Foodiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03903734034906759392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8144971346136279348.post-22515983519619953362009-02-28T10:46:00.005-08:002009-02-28T10:50:42.837-08:00

In the World Health Organisation study referred to in my last post, 'food poverty' was defined as existing where children ‘sometimes, always, or often’ went to bed, or to school, hungry because there was not enough food at home. Either there was no food in the house, or it wasn’t edible because nobody in the house had used it to cook a meal. Parents were letting their children go hungry because

The Intellectual Foodiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03903734034906759392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8144971346136279348.post-58587944815306994602009-02-10T04:47:00.003-08:002009-02-10T05:05:27.469-08:00

I recently came across a shocking study that should give us pause for thought on our attitudes to food. The reputable and comprehensive study was carried out by the World Health Organisation Collaborative Research program and published in 2007. It took place in 35 countries across Europe, the USA and Canada. It is sadly ironic, that in this area of the globe which we call the ‘first world’, the

The Intellectual Foodiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03903734034906759392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8144971346136279348.post-27721641607855073162008-12-22T06:41:00.008-08:002009-01-04T07:54:20.484-08:00

Photo: Courtesy Office Public Works Ireland.At this time of year, like many people, perhaps because of some evolutionary memory that we all have, I love to spend time cooking and baking and doing all the special things that people of all religions and none still partake in, at the darkest time of year---tending to home and hearth and, in the spirit of Hera, keeping the home fires burning.

The Intellectual Foodiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03903734034906759392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8144971346136279348.post-54905483555899092002008-12-07T09:13:00.006-08:002008-12-24T04:16:10.679-08:00

We have seen recently the collapse of the financial world, due to lack of regulation and the unfettered pursuit of profit at all costs by sectional interests. Our food is also suffering under this same ideology. The further the consumer becomes separated from the primary producer (the farmer) the more we need strong state regulation, in the interests of the common good. But in the area of food,

The Intellectual Foodiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03903734034906759392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8144971346136279348.post-6491268930973811612008-11-23T11:13:00.000-08:002008-11-23T11:16:45.391-08:00

Today, in our cash-rich, time-poor society, our lifestyle means that we are not able to feed our children properly. It is now widespread for children, across all social classes, to go to bed hungry. Our children are starving. Yes, starving! Not children in Africa. Not poor children. Not homeless children. Not children from 'dysfunctional families'. But our children. This is the shocking

The Intellectual Foodiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03903734034906759392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8144971346136279348.post-27005577870608512982008-11-09T13:38:00.001-08:002008-11-09T13:40:00.677-08:00

In Mexico, on the Day of the Dead, families honour deceased relatives, by bringing picnics to their graves and eating there ‘with’ them. Sumptuous dishes are prepared for these feasts-- the dead person's favourite meal, with chocolate drinks, skull-shaped sugar candies and a special bread for the occasion, pan de muerto, the ‘bread of the dead’. The festival celebrates the cycle of life and

The Intellectual Foodiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03903734034906759392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8144971346136279348.post-72193750763071230892008-10-27T13:47:00.002-07:002008-10-27T13:52:03.910-07:00

In Ireland, within living memory, it was common for families to leave food out for dead relatives on the ancient, pre-Christian feast of Samhain, or Halloween, probably the oldest surviving festival in the world. Samhain is the last day of the Celtic year and a very special time, when the veil between this world and the ‘other world’ lifts, permitting the dead to return to earth for just one

The Intellectual Foodiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03903734034906759392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8144971346136279348.post-14156942891958088752008-10-19T06:26:00.003-07:002008-10-19T06:31:57.759-07:00

As in Tibet, the practice of feeding the dead existed in ancient Egypt, where food was placed in the pyramids to nourish the spirit of the dead person, in his journey towards the heavens. In our superficial understanding of this custom we tend to laugh and think, ‘how silly’, but in doing so, we miss the real meaning behind it. The Egyptians were not foolish enough to believe the dead person

The Intellectual Foodiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03903734034906759392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8144971346136279348.post-75273347371836477292008-10-11T16:11:00.002-07:002008-10-11T16:13:59.306-07:00

Some cultures consider food to be so important that they continue to feed a person even after death. One of the most poignant pieces in The Tibetan Book of the Dead, is the passage describing how food should be brought to the dead person in the days after death, so they will not feel abandoned by their loved ones, while their souls make the difficult transition through the bardo, the threshold

The Intellectual Foodiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03903734034906759392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8144971346136279348.post-55674393617949973012008-10-06T00:56:00.005-07:002008-10-06T01:03:23.515-07:00

In Catholic ritual, there is the tradition of giving a Communion wafer to a dying person to spiritually nourish them on their journey out of this world and into the next. Fans of the TV series The Sopranos may have recognised intimations of the Viaticum Eucharistae in the heavily symbolic final episode. Seconds before what we presume is Tony’s death, Tony, Carmela and A.J. eat unusually small,

The Intellectual Foodiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03903734034906759392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8144971346136279348.post-76169073007984040672008-09-28T05:20:00.008-07:002008-10-01T06:32:53.144-07:00

I once spoke to a chef whose duty it was to provide The Last Meal for death-row prisoners, when the grim occcasion arose. He regarded it as an important, though small comfort to Souls facing the unthinkable---a physical comfort in the face of metaphysical panic, a crumb in the abyss. With great humility, he regarded his small role in these Souls' last moments of life, as a privileged one, and

The Intellectual Foodiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03903734034906759392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8144971346136279348.post-43433664356173452892008-09-22T14:14:00.009-07:002008-09-28T05:42:31.420-07:00

To eat is a privilege of the living, a temporal and a short one. We find knowledge of this in strange manifestations---none stranger than the ritual of the US death penalty, where, within the cold barbarism of the legal code, there exists the compassionate, even tender custom of The Last Meal offered to death-row prisoners on the day of execution. One might think ‘how could they eat at such a

The Intellectual Foodiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03903734034906759392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8144971346136279348.post-51909400974513713112008-09-14T05:21:00.002-07:002008-09-14T05:24:04.972-07:00

The nourishment of food is what initially grounds us in the physical plane of being. Needing food is what makes us different to spirits, if we believe in spirits. The partaking of food, is the first and most intrinsic consequence of our physical existence in the universe and the non-ability to partake of food is a consequence of being dead. This might seem to state the obvious, but perhaps we

The Intellectual Foodiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03903734034906759392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8144971346136279348.post-67068453119879761392008-09-05T16:05:00.001-07:002008-09-05T16:10:30.573-07:00

The role of food is even more important in the life of a child than that of an adult. Food is how children first experience the world. When a child is born, the first thing it does, instinctively, is feed from its mother’s breast. Then all is well in its world, this new planet it has come to inhabit. There is order in its universe. For the first months and even years of a child’s life, food is

The Intellectual Foodiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03903734034906759392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8144971346136279348.post-40487178516362658112008-08-30T09:36:00.000-07:002008-08-30T09:40:12.137-07:00

Good food nourishes the body, but also the soul. When we make our children nourishing, wholesome food, it adds to the love we give them. Although they may not be conscious of it, on some deep level it is vitally important. There is a difference, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually, as well as physically, between eating processed, factory-food and natural, home-cooked food. So when we

The Intellectual Foodiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03903734034906759392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8144971346136279348.post-36440099938683125912008-08-24T08:48:00.006-07:002008-12-20T07:53:03.217-08:00

When we prepare a meal, it becomes more than the sum of its parts. The extra ingredient is our love. Food has its own metaphysics-----think of the great Danish film, Babette’s Feast, which illustrated this beautifully, showing the transformative power of food and the sharing ofit, in the ritual of the dinner table. Or think of Ang Lee’s wonderful Chinese film Eat Drink, Man Woman, which placed

The Intellectual Foodiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03903734034906759392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8144971346136279348.post-43138546781953146982008-08-16T16:08:00.002-07:002008-08-16T16:11:33.476-07:00

When we understand that the question of food is about much more than physical components and scientific facts, our mission to nourish our children well becomes a more inspired and enjoyable one. This can spur us into giving this mission the necessary time and effort, despite our difficult lives.Food is love---when we cook for our family, we are giving them our love. Love on a plate. Or love in a

The Intellectual Foodiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03903734034906759392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8144971346136279348.post-90047095735060505522008-08-10T14:44:00.008-07:002009-01-11T12:34:27.750-08:00

Here in the Occident, we have, ingrained in our thought, the firewall duality between the carnal and the spiritual, which religion refuses to bridge. Indeed, Christian religions, some more than others, deny the needs of the body, teach us that the flesh and all that pertains to it, is sinful and are deeply suspicious of its natural appetites.When James Joyce wrote Ulysses, he was ahead of his

The Intellectual Foodiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03903734034906759392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8144971346136279348.post-39030508943912718332008-08-02T07:42:00.007-07:002008-08-11T05:44:44.397-07:00

In Christianity, for example, there is no physical component towards mystical knowledge that parallels yogic teachings, where diet and exercise accompany meditation in the journey towards enlightenment. Some Christians are subliminally taught, even still, that the body is shameful (especially when female), whilst whirling dervish Sufis know the body is another portal to transcendence and dance

The Intellectual Foodiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03903734034906759392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8144971346136279348.post-38350329189556008702008-07-25T10:22:00.004-07:002008-07-28T09:54:05.399-07:00

Perhaps our current one-dimensional understanding of food stems from the Occidental body-soul dichotomy, so inherent in our thinking. In the Western world, born of Christendom, we lack a sense of the spirituality of food that permeates the philosophies of the East. This is despite the fact that Jesus appeared to understand the importance of food and wine and when he provided them, they were

The Intellectual Foodiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03903734034906759392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8144971346136279348.post-71969233817038319462008-07-21T02:40:00.007-07:002008-07-28T03:38:23.457-07:00

It’s all about the love. ---- Troy Maguire Cooking is the ultimate giving. -----Jamie Oliver Cook from your heart so that you may eat the

The Intellectual Foodiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03903734034906759392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8144971346136279348.post-23251401982580704612008-07-04T14:43:00.004-07:002009-01-11T12:46:01.927-08:00

www.your-healthy-eating-helper.com The near-impossibility of buying good quality, nice-tasting bread is one of the most frustrating things about food-shopping today. The white stuff tastes like plastic and if we try to be healthy and opt for wholemeal, we are rewarded with the taste of sawdust! Across the Western world, in the year 2008, in our advanced society, we cannot buy proper bread! In

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