Worth the Read

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24labor-t.html

This article, called "The Case for Working With Your Hands," that ran in the NYT mag over the weekend is well worth the read despite the daunting length. I implore you to read the article for the full idea, but for those who want the Cliffs Notes: in a nutshell he writes about the joys of useful, hands on work versus the abstract, often willfully counterintuitive jobs most Americans do.

What, you ask, does this have to do with food-the supposed subject of this blog? For me, plenty. I think in a roundabout way the author gets at what I find so therapeutic about cooking and food. It's a tangible experience. It requires thought and concentration, and an unavoidable amount of physicality. There is a visceral quality to food that even the sterilization and fluorescence of the supermarket haven't been able to scour out of the experience of preparing and eating food.

At the most basic level eating is a biologically mandated process, what we as humans have chosen to do to adapt that process crosses a spectrum from debasement to high art depending on the practitioner. But regardless of what we do, there is an unavoidable basic, natural component to food. And subsequently to cooking.

You could argue, and many have, that the average American is pretty far removed from the realities of growing or cultivating their food (although I do think that is changing). But even many of those people who believe that chicken is born into plastic wrapped styrofoam containers and fruit should be available regardless of season in waxed, perfectly uniform pieces may eventually have to cook those items. It's still the moment where we get to do something with our hands.

Cooking is the only "dirty" job many of us do anymore. Food for thought.