Gastronomic Meditations: Dating and Dining

Those who have perused my recent articles will know that I recently married a man who is as much a sensualist about food as I am. Those close to me are also aware that I discarded a potent and deeply considered anti-marriage stance in order to do so, and that the catalyst for my philosophical shift was an insistent desire to share food with this man for the rest of my life (coupled with a realization that weddings are not a necessary part of marriages).

However, the path to connubial cuisine was paved with a few significant others—and a slew of insignificant others — whose tastes differed from mine as much as the taste of ketchup differs from that of ripe tomato. In retrospect, although I might not have recognized it at the time, I have been able to discover something about why the relationships inevitably failed by looking at the differences between the way that I thought about food and the way that each of them did.

Seth was my high school sweetheart, and for the two years we were together I spent as much time as possible at his house, which was partially a tortured attempt to avoid my own. His parents were true American cooks, and we gorged ourselves on spaghetti and meatballs with sauce that had simmered all day, Dad’s shepherd’s pie, and gingerbread (the cake, not the cookie) with whipped cream. The food was more psychologically nourishing than it was healthy, but at that time, the love that went into making the food was what fed me. (read more)