IN THE previous entry, Kristor writes:

The Food Channel is not popular because Americans are underfed, but because they are underloved. 

                                       — Comments —

Sara writes: 

Perhaps another way of expressing what Kristor is saying here is this. 

The more people talk about and indulge in greater and greater extremes of sex or greater and greater refinement of food, the less and less they are actually getting out of it (in spiritual terms). The less they actually get out of it the more they seek to compensate with quantity, novelty or extreme behaviour. 

When it comes to sex, the more the sexual act is reduced to a mere mechanical function, paradoxically, the more people seem to long for or believe in it as a means of salvation. This of course is a circle that cannot be squared. When it comes to food, it seems to me that those who cannot do God, reach instead for the smaller goods, like food, or gardening, but then blow up their importance way out of proportion, and will always be disappointed.

Laura writes:

Very well said.

C.S. Lewis wrote about fastidiousness as a form of gluttony. Even people who are trim and fit can be gluttons. The “foodie” scene is gluttonous even when “foodies” sit down to enormous plates with very little food on them. I remember once going to a restaurant and having veal served on a hot stone, a little altar of polished granite. There was hardly any veal at all, barely enough to feed one, but the presentation was gluttonous in its suggestion that these few tiny scraps of sizzling meat were sacred objects. Restaurant worship has become a form of common idolatry. When Kristor says, we are underfed because we are under-loved, he means food is less satisfying because it’s removed from its proper social context; it is no longer part of the hierarchy of transcendent goods and becomes an end in itself.  The elevation of the restaurant to a temple of eating parallels the decline in social order and the loss for many millions of people of meal traditions. The shared meal at home is sacred not just because it feeds. This is not to say that eating in a restaurant is sinful; it’s when restaurants become surrogate homes or churches that they go wrong. I have seen people standing in lines outside trendy restaurants with almost desperate looks on their faces, as if this one restaurant was the only place they could possible obtain the thing to sustain them, as if they were standing at the threshold of a cathedral at a moment of intense spiritual crisis and couldn’t get in.

By the way, I doubt Postmodern Antiquarian’s wife exudes love and good feeling every moment she is in the kitchen. She may even be an irritable cook. But that does not make her work un-loving. Love is not always emotional.

Karen I. writes:

Huge, expensive weddings are another example of modern gluttony. One bride in our area is planning a wedding rumored to cost over $50,000. Her engagement ring cost over $15,000. The bride, like many others, has a website so people can follow along online and watch her plans unfold. Shockingly, she recently expressed disappointment that her site was not getting many hits. Rather than consider that the lack of hits was perhaps due to the fact that people do not want to log on to see her spend money by the fistful, she decided the problem was with the appearance of the website and hired someone to redesign it.

Laura writes:

These weddings fit more comfortably into the categories of greed and pride, rather than gluttony, but they stem from the same inability to, as Sara said, reach “for the smaller goods.” 

Joyce writes:

When most people in our society go out to eat, it is usually with friends or family. As I watch them, they appear to be enjoying each other’s company as well as the food they are served. When my husband and I go out to eat, which is about once or twice a month, we can visit with each other and enjoy each other’s company while someone else prepares our food, waits on us, and cleans up the mess afterwards. This is bad? Of course not. Plus, we are helping to keep others gainfully employed when we go out to eat. 

Most people do not go to the truly high end restaurants either except on rare occasions. Only a small percent of our population can afford such a luxury on a regular basis. So I do not think our society as a whole has reached the gluttonous stage yet when it comes to restaurants….and food. 

As far as the food channel is concerned, one could not ask for a more wholesome form of entertainment. It is definitely G rated. Not only is it suitable for children to watch, they actually enjoy watching the cooking shows. Are they gluttons for enjoying them? Are they not loved enough? 

Beyond nourishing our bodies, food is entertaining. It is a form of art. And why not? God has blessed us abundantly with a cornucopia of beautiful fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, herbs, and other edibles. It would be an insult to God if we did not partake of his blessings with delight. Since we were created in his image, we have the instinct to be creative. And why not be creative in the way we combine these edibles and present them? I see nothing at all wrong with this. It is a tribute to God. It is a way of giving thanks to God for these blessings. 

People can be gluttons about a number of things. Some of us can’t seem to get our fill of the news, politics, sports, books, blogging, and/or finding fault. Everything should be in moderation.

Laura writes:

As I said, going out to eat is not wrong; in fact, it’s highly enjoyable. It’s the cult-like worship of restaurants that is decadent. That is what I was addressing. But it’s not just high-end restaurants that are a sign of gluttony. There’s also fast food. When large numbers of people are eating food that’s killing them, that’s gluttony. Ignorance and cultural influences are certainly mitigating factors.

As for Kristor’s comment about the Food Channel, I believe he was referring to the paradox of people watching the preparation of food at a time when many have lost the simple know-how, the habits, and the time for preparing food. Some watch cooking shows as a subsititute for cooking, in the same way watching sports has displaced playing it.

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