Honest Eating

Because of not having a kitchen for the last month, I find myself having somewhat less orchestrated and thought through meals.  On top of my lack of burners which causes me to think a little more about "cooking," I am in the throes of packing up an apartment and in the height of grading finals and posting grades.  All of this results in late errand running and strange dinners resulting from going to the grocery store hungry.    

For these reasons, last Friday’s meal consisted of grocery store boneless wings, green pepper slices, pickles, soft cheese, and a glass of bourbon.  

As I enjoyed a meal that would make my mom a little disappointed and watched old Julia Child episodes I got from Netflix, I thought about food, satisfaction, and being a foodie.  Julia spent 12 hours cooking tripe.   I walked through the store and allowed hunger pain to cloud my judgement.  Julia walked me through the art of making my own sausages.  I pealed the foil of my cheese wedges and contemplated the tang of Vlasic pickle brine. 

Although I wish I could solely blame my meal on the lack of a kitchen, the truth is, this was the meal I wanted.  Some days, I want my meal to reflect that joy I took in preparing it.  Others, I want to satisfy a craving. 

In reading other food blogs, I get embarrassed at times at my own claim to foodism and begin to question my hubris.  One blog I follow posts three times a day about the food she eats.  Although she is also a busy person, I am amazed at the thought she has behind each dish.  In looking through photos of many other food blogs, I am always reminded of the beauty of food as proven by the plethora of lush, crisp, tantalizing food pictures.  Then, I think back on my meal with its shades of green and the dried out look of mass made wings.

I regularly post to the food site, Honest Cooking.  The nature of the name implies a truth, sincerity, and lack of charade to cooking and food.   I wonder how we, food blog writers, really fit into our own testament to “honest cooking.”  Can we still be thought "honest" when the pictures are made with sculpted lighting and scaping, the recipes attempted multiple times, and the posts are shaped by what we choose to write about and not write about?  It makes me wonder if the amount of food blogging and food writing is slowly creating a myth surrounding cooking and eating.  Or, to ask more specifically, are we creating a "politically correct" food world in which we are loosing honest eating? 

I don’t know.  What I do know is that I really enjoyed my Friday night meal.  It may not be pretty and it was definitely not haute cuisine, but I enjoyed it anyway.  Honest eating.