On food and eating
Patience is the ultimate competitive advantage
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On being slow and consistent
The sandwich was not invented by an average eater. The Earl of Sandwich was an obsessive gambler, and demanded food in a form that would not require him to leave the card table while he ate.
Origins of sandwich
Common opinion has it that hunger is the physiological need to eat, whereas appetite is framed as just a desire to eat, driven by emotional or sensory pleasure rather than bodily need. We see this in the division between nutrition and gastronomy, or between food as fuel and food as pleasure.
Ruby Tandoh • Eat Up: Food, Appetite and Eating What You Want
But what’s really magical about chicken soup isn’t the nutrient quota or the fact it shifts your snot along: it’s that it is a delicious, precious metaphor for caring, and for nourishing. What feels really good about feeding yourself chicken soup – whether it’s a bone broth simmered for 12 hours or a microwaved bowl of Campbell’s Cream of Chicken –
... See moreRuby Tandoh • Eat Up: Food, Appetite and Eating What You Want
Soup as a metaphor of self care
The whole point of it is that nothing hinges on your baking success or failure. You won’t go hungry if it all goes wrong, because cake was never going to form the backbone of your diet in the first place. And whatever happens, you’ll still get to lick the bowl.
Ruby Tandoh • Eat Up: Food, Appetite and Eating What You Want
Bake anyways. Even if you suck at it.
Food has the power to patch up the ragged edges of our souls – the frayed tempers and unravelled dreams – and make the world seem OK again, if only for a few moments.
Ruby Tandoh • Eat Up: Food, Appetite and Eating What You Want
The power of food or a cooking habit
But the food narratives we create when we shop, cook and eat don’t need to be exotic, expensive or rarefied. They shouldn’t be estranged from the humdrum, ugly, familiar mess of everyday life. They don’t even have to taste good. The important thing is giving yourself time to imagine your food, to touch, taste and smell the ingredients, and to reall
... See moreRuby Tandoh • Eat Up: Food, Appetite and Eating What You Want
The internet certainly played its part. As we spend increasing hours buried in our computers the very fact that food can't be consumed virtually gives it a special resonance. You can, of course, post pictures of what you’re eating - people do that by the millions - but that’s no substitute for the scent of onions caramelizing in butter, the sound o... See more
Food Writing Grows Up
I have come to believe that food is history of the deepest kind. Everything we eat tells a tale of ingenuity and creation, domination and injustice—and does so more vividly than any other artifact, any other medium.