Don't Even Think of Doing That
A few years ago, while immobilized in an endless line of cars on the Dan Ryan Expressway, I noticed one of those temporary signs placed by highway departments to distract drivers from their predicament. A series of tiny lightbulbs warned me not to speed, not to text—and, because it was Chicago, “NO KETCHUP!”
Chicagoans are very particular about the proper way to garnish a hot dog. Lately, I’ve been wondering about food combinations (like ketchup on hot dogs) that violate local rules.
I’m not referring to prohibitions generated by religions—there are far too many of them, and they’re already well-documented. A study of Levitticus, alone, could occupy a thousand pages (its prohibition against “seething a calf in its own milk” comes to mind). Ditto: Islamic pork avoidance. Ditto: Brahmanic beef avoidance. Ditto: Buddhist’s and Jainism’s vegetarianism.
I’m also not interested in personal food dislikes (or the childish aversion to having foods touch each other). Or rather, I am, but only in the sense that my own quirks sometimes provide grist for writing.
I am curious about pairs of otherwise acceptable foods, that—in certain places—are never eaten in combination. For example: Texans love their chili, and gladly consume beans (especially pinto beans), but—unlike almost everywhere else—Texans never put beans in their chili. Likewise, Italians love cheese and seafood—but are loathe to combine them. That seems odd since Sauce Mornay (Béchamel with Gruyère and/or Parmigiano) is often served on fish.
Just not in Italy.
Questions like this occupy entirely too many of my waking hours. And almost waking hours. I realized, during the dozing hours just before rising, that I had started writing a book on a similar subject—a quarter-century ago. It was a little broader in scope (its working title was Grammar of the Meal). I was curious about the culinary rules that we internalize in childhood, and need never think of again.
We just know when we’ve broken them.
I abandoned that project, for several others, after around thirteen thousand words. The passage, below, is its introduction. I might have to re-open it—now that I have additional questions to ask
What Constitutes a Meal?
Hamburger, fries, and a Coke™—or pizza and a beer—or coffee and a roll or pastry. These seem to be minimums for what we would consider to be a meal. How do we know that?
There are two primary components of any meal: food and beverage. Apparently, at least in our culture, the beverage can be sweet or not, but a single food cannot be sweet if it is to be considered a complete meal in itself. A dish of ice cream and a beverage would not merit the status of a meal. Some sweet elements are permitted in slightly more complex meals based on single foods (for instance, sugar on breakfast cereal). We might add other components—however, we are still quite sure that an ice cream sundae, followed by linguini and white clam sauce, with fried rice and mashed potatoes, washed down with a very dry gin martini would not, together, constitute a meal.
We know this as certainly as we know that “Dinner for is time it” does not constitute a coherent sentence.
Missionaries, in tropical islands, often tried to get the local inhabitants to abandon their natural nudity for European dress. There have been countless stories about their shock when an entire congregation showed up for church with pants wrapped around their heads, shoes and alarm clocks worn as pendants, and other amusingly inappropriate ensembles. What made these stories memorable were the humorous violations of a number of assumed, but unstated, rules of behavior.
We may like the individual foods in that proposed meal, but there is something dreadfully wrong about them together. The basic elements seem to be there, but their sequence is not what we would expect. Logically, at least nutritionally, the order in which the items are consumed should not make a difference… after all, as common sense tells us, they will all be mixed together in the stomach.
Still, we are positive that this “meal” is wrong.
What unspoken rules are indicative of something wrong with that hypothetical meal… as wrong as that scrambled sentence or a hat made of brassieres? There is a clash of flavors, certainly. We feel that serving three starches together is wrong. We’re a little suspicious about the ethnic diversity of that starch course, as well. But starting with a gooey dessert seems to be the biggest mistake. Why?
We know this because we have, in our minds, a set of rules that define the correct structure and sequence of elements in a meal, just as we have a set of rules that define the correct structure and sequence of the parts of speech in a sentence. A meal can be viewed as a kind of non-verbal sentence. In both cases, there is an underlying grammar that allows us to understand them. Understanding the sentence might mean recognizing its literal meaning as well as the intent of the speaker. “Understanding” the meal might include being able to taste each course, free of conflicting influences. We think that the dishes must follow each other in a logical progression, but would be hard-pressed to explain what that logic might be.
On another level, a meal can be said to have been “understood” when it provides a feeling of completeness. This completeness is not the same as satiety or fullness. One does not have to feel “stuffed” to be satisfied by a meal. However, if a meal does not provide certain key elements, served in the correct order, we feel that it is not a real meal—and we will probably still feel hungry, regardless of the actual amount eaten.
Americans, like most Europeans, are accustomed to having bread available with every meal. This may explain the curious Western phenomenon of being hungry shortly after consuming a Chinese meal—where rice is the essential staple. Likewise, the Japanese and Malaysians require rice to make a meal.
“The Japanese have only one word, gohan, for ‘cooked rice’ and for ‘a meal.’ As far as they are concerned, a meal does not become a proper meal—no matter how many dishes have already been presented—until the rice is served. All other dishes are okazu, ‘supplementary articles of diet.’” (MacClancy, Jeremy. Consuming Culture. London: Chapmans, 1992, p. 55)
For us, bread is “the staff of life,” that which supports our very existence. Without bread, Western diners have not had a “complete” meal—no matter how large and varied it might have been, and remain unsatisfied—they experience the lack of closure as hunger.
This subject is layered in ways that are difficult to separate. Broadly, grammar is the body of principles that guide and inform our arts and sciences, especially the language arts. Our meals are more than just a collection of nutrients, consumed as needed. We use food as language every day, whether we realize it or not. Of what our meals are, and are not, composed is a message to the eaters from their culture, their society, about what is proper—in effect, what distinguishes them from other cultures and societies. The order in which individual items are consumed is part of that message. The times of day when we allow ourselves to eat, and the foods considered appropriate for those times, are lessons in what is important to us, as citizens of, participants in, a particular social group.
What are these rules of grammar that underlie our understanding of meals as surely as they underlie our understanding of language? What are the forces that create and maintain that grammar? When we examine our eating habits, there seem to be some curious exceptions to the rules—how can we make sense of them?
Explication, the careful unfolding and lifting away of layers of meaning to reveal the truth hidden beneath the ordinary, requires a close examination of everyday life. “Ordinary” can be understood as cognate with “unexamined.” Examining the foodways of other cultures is one method that can help us to better understand our own.
Before beginning, let us limit the field of view: for our purposes, the fine details of haute cuisine—the careful orchestrating of ingredients for maximum aesthetic pleasure—need not be explored. The techniques of artful cookery can be seen as equivalent to rhetoric and poetics. While these artistic guidelines acknowledge and build upon the framework of grammar, they are not the structure itself. We may uncover the truth more quickly if extra layers of artistic finery do not obscure it.
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