Treat Food with Love and Respect

Farzana Contractor believes in living life true to her nature. To uphold her missive – live life simply, honestly – she urges us to regain the old style of stress-free living like our forefathers did. When they knew just how much was enough to be content, happy and healthy.

There is one need which runs common to every human being, for that matter every living being, and that is food. Actually it’s beyond need, it’s a necessity. If you have to survive, you have to eat, as simple as that. But do we keep it simple?

Oh no, we don’t. Food in a certain strata is the centre point. It’s the factor around which life revolves. Whether it is meals at home, dinner parties, kitty parties, going out to restaurants, socialising, even entertaining via food whether personal or for business reasons. A lot of emphasis is on ‘living the good life’.

In all of this, the main purpose of food, which is to nourish the body, seems to be forgotten. These days particularly, letting people know what you are eating, with whom and where, seems to be all important. So as soon as the food is set on the table, you go, “Awwww, awesome!” You whip out your cell phone, shoot it from all angles, even standing up to take a top shot, you make some more orgasmic sounds, instantly Instagram it and only then do you proceed to ‘taste’ it. And then waste it. For frankly I don’t think most people who can afford to eat the food they do go out to eat, care a damn about food. It’s all shor-sharaba, show-bazi, that goes on. And that is a crime, a sacrilege. You just can’t waste food.

It’s time to show respect to food.

Food, which more than half the world does not get to eat. Food, which is scarce.Food, which is deprived to millions of people in the world, a huge percentage of which goes to sleep hungry. You have heard of death by starvation… Yes, even children… many, many children the world over starve to death.

Think about it, all of us, reading this column, eat much too much. If we put curbs on ourselves it is only so that we don’t tip the balance, because we are afraid the needle on the weighing scale is zooming far too much to the right. Apart from that, our concerns may just be due to medical reasons. Cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes. Or asthetics; “Oh my God!! I am looking so fat!”

Eating right is actually eating simple. There are many, and I lead the gang who say their most favourite food, something they could eat every day, is dal-chawal. With some garlic tempering in asli ghee, even mango pickle can be dispensed with. Though having assorted bottles of this great Indian product helps very much on a rainy day. Point is, for food to be good, it does not have to be exotic or expensive.

Is there a co-relation between wabi-sabi and food. I would think so.

Wabi-sabi principles suggest our food should be natural, simple, and prepared from intuition, preferably with love. Which really means carefully, with attention. Making a meal should be a creative, joyful act. So if you do cook for yourself, it would mean you do not get upset if you find there isn’t any fresh coriander to throw into the poha you have prepared for breakfast, just be glad you have the lime! Or if your cook has made you eggs and it’s not the perfect sunny side up, you don’t throw a fit, just tell him to improve on it next time. And appreciate the fact that there is someone actually around to cook for you!

Revelling in the textures of an ordinary homemade dish which may not be able to compete with a professionally-plated version in a magazine, will actually prove to be more beneficial to your body. Salivate, it helps. Savour your food, it works. And quietly thank God in your heart. Have an attitude of gratitude. And the right juices will flow in the right direction.

Ever tried growing something? If you are fortunate, in your own garden or if you are gung-ho, in your own verandah or on the building terrace. Fruits and vegetables from your own garden are an elemental expression of wabi-sabi. Nothing makes you feel more happy than picking out something you have grown. An imperfect looking, but juicy, ripe heirloom tomato is more compelling to look at and to eat than a perfectly formed hothouse version imported from somewhere overseas that you will have bought from a fancy gourmet shop.

Though, let me hasten to add, I have nothing against fancy gourmet shops. I love Foodhall for example. And I will go and buy my truffle oil from there. Because nothing gives me more pleasure that to drizzle some of it on my French fries or whip it over a creamy avocado or mother of all luxuries, break an egg into it on a Sunday morning. I am not saying you have to eat cheap to be wabi-sabi. It is perfectly alright to eat rich! But do it for the right reasons. Not because it is a fad, or an ‘in’ thing to do. I am saying appreciate, enjoy, eat because you like it and not because your neighbour eats it!

So why this piece on food? Because it is Ramzan right now and like every year I am fasting. And feeling so good. So energetic, so light. I eat very little, mainly fruits and the deepest of fried lentil bhajiyas at iftar and just tea with naan at sehri. Yet I am good to go, missing not even water throughout the day. This holy month for Muslims is as much to do with body, as mind and soul. Detoxify, nourish all your senses. Make your divine connection. The purity of feeling for all of mankind is so pronounced, it is unbelieveable. It’s a time when feelings of selflessness just seems to overtake you. Good thoughts, good words, good deeds. You appreciate even the blade of grass on your lawn.

Since the past three years I have been escaping city life and retreating to my home in Panchgani during Ramzan. And I feel the change that it is bringing about in me. It’s not about unwinding, slowing down. It’s about heightened awareness, higher consciousness, of getting in touch with yourself, of understanding your own, very personal needs. Of looking at changes that have happened in your life, of acceptance of what is and of thanking the Almighty.

Ramzan is certainly wabi-sabi.