Postface

Didn't mean to sound preachy with any of this, but I don't want others to slip into my bad habits, or squander beautiful food.  I tried to keep everything brief as I know the attention span of readers leaves around 1000 words--1500 if pictures are involved.  At this point, the biggest remaining question should be, 'What can I do about it?'

One of the two things is to cook more at home.  In business, it's important to never hire someone to do something without attempting the task first.  This allows for personal growth, formation of performance expectations, and empathy.  I promise that a restaurant souffle tastes a lot better after a few collapses at home.

The other solution is to eat with people.  Food should be a shared experience.  I created this site to compensate for living alone, and often eating alone.  Remember Bourdain's words:

Meals make the society, hold the fabric together in lots of ways that were charming and interesting and intoxicating to me. The perfect meal, or the best meals, occur in a context that frequently has very little to do with the food itself.

A few weeks ago, I personified the quote when exposed to Tulumu, a rich Turkish sheep's milk cheese while dining out with my beautiful girlfriend.  It is the absolute most memorable, pungent, terrifying cheese I've ever consumed.  The seemingly harmless, white ball of the apocalypse tasted like horse crap.  The thick air of walking through a stable; the aroma of dung mixed with hay filled our mouths and nostrils.  I'm surprised there weren't flies circling it.  Perplexed, we actually continued to eat the cheese to decipher it further.  This didn't make it any better.  

The Tulumu was foul, traumatizing, and palate-destroying--but it was also great food that I appreciate.  Any couple could have left the cheese for the shit that it was, but we were able turn it into a life enriching manure.  And we're better for having that shared experience.  In good company, the amount of food, or even the [objective] quality of food, can be overlooked.  The meal is still a celebration.

On Gluttony

I've never been to church for more than various holiday services, but I hear that gluttony is a bad thing.  Obviously, I don't know God's scope for the sin, but I think it's only bad when it becomes chronic behavior.  If all it took was a single meal to condemn us--or snack in Adam's case--life would really suck.  Indulgences make life worth living.  And I get that everything should be taken in moderation, but I believe moderation itself is included in that blanket statement.

Gluttony is not a conscious decision.  I often carefully construct weekend night plans around grandiose meals, but that isn't gluttonous.  At one of those meals, around course 13, the diner to my left said, 'Now this is just gluttonous.'  It wasn't.  The reason is because we had clear intent and careful preparation.

We made the dinner plan with the intent of it being in excess, but also knowing that it was going to be our single big meal for the week (or longer).  Hours of rigorous physical activity took place before and after the meal.  There is nothing wrong with occasional indulgences.

Gluttony is an unconscious decision because it happens when we become addicted to eating and/or lose our appreciation, which happens without our knowing over time.  Gluttons don't enjoy their food.  I enjoyed every bite of that countless course meal, and am eternally grateful to the chef who prepared it.  Even though the amount seemed gluttonous, it was not condemning.

At another meal, I realized that I was leaning to the dark side after quickly devouring a plate of kobe beef and truffles and immediately thinking--what's next?  I squandered the best off-menu gift that a chef can give.  Most people go their entire lives without having either extraordinary ingredient, and I, a person who not that long ago was taken by putting butter on bread, was not in proper awe.

The dish was tasty, but I had no appreciation for it.  I had no appreciation for the luxury of the ingredients, nor for the thought and effort the chef put into it.  Without this appreciation, I could not properly enjoy the meal.  Like an addict, I needed a new, better drug.  The problem is, there isn't one!

The other problem with compulsive eating, is that our palettes dim over the course of a meal, as a signal to stop eating.  At my favorite steakhouse, I don't always decide what to eat--the chef does or maybe my dining companions get a peep in.  The last time I went, restraint was on the menu.  Half as many pre-steak courses came out as usual.  For a hungry patron, this was a great concern.  The happy ending is that I had the best steak there out of all my visits.  My palate was still whet, and I tasted the best steak in Chicago for the first time, as intended by the chef.

On Appreciation

Appreciation is the single most important, yet sometimes sadly underrated and forgotten, part of the meal.  Every meal is a celebration, and is the result of hard work.  Even if it's a frozen dinner, some farmer worked his ass off to grow its bill of materials, and a team of chefs spent countless hours of R&D finishing it.  While it's normal to appreciate the household matriarch for slaving over Thanksgiving dinner more than the frozen box guys, as there are different levels of appreciation, it's still important to always have some.

The greatest level of appreciation for food, which is one most of us will truly never empathize, is at the survival level.  A few weeks ago at the dentist, I spoke with my Iranian doctor on the subject.  Growing up, he would wait hours in line for the week's ration of milk--a quart for a family of four.  American homeless people with cardboard signs on the road do better than that.  As a result of his impoverished upbringing, my dentist has, and will always have, a great appreciation for food.  He wastes nothing, always packs up everything he doesn't finish at a restaurant, and knows that every meal is a celebration.

Next, there is the appreciation level of luxury, which is relative.  A little over a year ago, I was working in Salt Lake City and would visit the same cafe for breakfast with my coworkers regularly.  At this cafe, for the first time in my life, I put butter on my toast.  I will always remember this as the best, most decadent toast of my life.  Most people will find this silly, as butter is an omnipresent staple in the kitchen.  For me, butter was not allowed for most of my life due to lifestyle choices and dietary restrictions.  On a relative scale, butter is an item of luxury, and I appreciate it like all lipids.

Finally, there is the appreciation for the art.  Cooking and crafting food is an art.  The skill to cook should never be taken for granted.  BBQ pit masters dedicate their lives to a single sauce, cooking technique, and often animal.  Pastry chefs master microorganisms, leavening agents, ovens, and flavors all with a great eye for presentation.  Sushi chefs can spend 6 years perfecting their rice, before they're ever allowed to touch a fish.  Charcuterie experts can transform the nastiest bits into the most divine, decadent mouthfuls.  The food industry is full of the most passionate people.  They don't work for much; they provide for us via labor of love.  

Forgetting to appreciate the plate in front of us is how we fall to the realm of gluttony.  Losing appreciation turns our passion to addiction, our senses numb, and we lose one of life's greatest pleasures.  Appreciation is the most important part of the meal.

On Addiction and Passion

My parents can attest that I've always loved food.  No high chair could restrain me from preemptively attacking Peking Ducks as they were carved table-side.  I've always been able to spot a good thing--and I always go for it.  The problem now, is that there are too many good things available.  Growing up, my two choices to eat were take it or leave it--an accepted part of life.  Then as I got older, I had a very strict 8 year long diet for wrestling (imagine going that long without a Thanksgiving dinner).  This was followed by going to college in a town where the Olive Garden 30 miles away was a big, fancy deal.

My habits changed once I moved to Chicago, and was surrounded by Sirens.  All of the earlier constraints on my eating habits were lifted, and in a very dangerous place.  It is a fact that Chicago has the best food in North America.  We have Alinea, the #7 restaurant in the world.  Alinea isn't a fluke, or an oasis in the desert.  It's the product of our [food] culture--a mix of competitive restaurants and Chicagoan's love of quality consumption. 

For me, my passion, arguably my addiction, started after visiting the Publican.  I ate what was by far the best food of my life at the time, and it is still reigns in my top 3 meals.  The next day, I slumped into depression.  Nothing tasted good anymore.  My peanut butter and honey sandwich on frozen, toasted bread was lifeless.  I expected the feeling to pass the next day, but it didn't.  Nothing tasted good for over a week.

I was able to break the funk with Vietnamese food--something totally different than that fateful meal.  Since the two cuisines are impossible to compare, I couldn't retort, "But it's not as good as what I had at the Publican!"  This didn't completely free me from the grasp of great food.  Excited about eating again, I needed a fix.  I told myself, "I owe myself a great meal like that every three weeks."  Three weeks became two, and two became one. 

Other than I was spending more money on food than the sum of rent, utilities, food, and misc of the year prior, there was no significant problem--we all overextend ourselves on what we care about most.  I was passionate, enthusiastic, and learning.  Tasting is the hardest part of cooking.  Knife skills, cooking, presentation--they're easy.  Tasting, and honing the palate is the most difficult part.  And that's what I was doing.  The moment this compulsive behavior loses pleasure, the passion becomes addiction.  Problem is, addicts aren't much different than gluttons.

Preface

Gourmand noun

1. A lover of good food.

2. A gluttonous eater.

I struggle with the title gourmand as I find the definitions to be mutually exclusive.  A glutton is one with a chronic disorder, that compulsively devours without pleasure or appreciation for food.  Gourmets, foodies, and gastromes consciously seek food and culture for pleasure and learning.  This culinary dichotomy causes confusion, as the line between the two definitions is thin.

An outsider looking in to the conflict may not be able to tell the difference, and I don't blame them as I struggle myself.  Over the past year I've straddled the line, being pulled by both sides.  This series of posts, released daily this week, is a collection of anecdotes of my journey through food, and understanding of this conflict.

This is an important topic because the lure of gluttony is great--and my problem with this transition to the 'dark side' is that it numbs the palette, and nearly all of the senses.  We become bored with what was once great.  We ravage hours of hard work in seconds--we forget that every meal is a celebration. 

I'm not boycotting 10+ course foie gras dinners, but I think it shouldn't be much more regular than an annual event.  I can't help the size of my appetite, but I can change the way I satisfy it.