Food for Thought

On re-reading this year’s blogposts, I was reminded of the saying from the Gospel of John: ‘Let him who is without sin cast the first stone’. Accordingly, I must admit that my new year’s resolutions have been thwarted by the capital sin of gluttony.

When Pope Gregory discussed this vice in the 6^th century, he listed five criteria in which a person can commit the sin. Although we would all agree that exceeding the necessary quantity of food is gluttonous, the Pope also includes: eating before the time of meals (grazing); seeking delicacies and better quality food to gratify the ‘vile sense of taste’; stimulating the palate with overly or elaborately prepared food; and taking food with too much eagerness. Given these stringent criteria I doubt whether many of us are capable of avoiding this sin.

Living in one of the acclaimed foodie cities in the world, we are confronted on a daily basis with a plethora of cuisines, eateries, markets, delis, cookbooks, kitchen appliances, celebrity chefs and cooking programs which vie for our consumption. Lifestyle television shows, print media recipes, food delivery services and influencer reviews constantly encourage gastronomic sampling. Even the coronavirus pandemic has only dented our love of culinary experiences as sourdough and other recipes swarm the internet.

Dante locates the gluttonous in the Third Circle of Hell and I imagine that the TV series ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ (which now has 284 episodes over 19 seasons) is a taste of things to come in the afterlife for Gordon, Nigella, Jamie, Heston, Curtis, Maggie, Stephanie et al. However, if these epicures end up there, dining in hell may not be so bad after all.

But it is not only the interest in new, exotic or creative cuisines that is a problem. There is also a surfeit of eating challenges which applaud making and  ‘taking food with too much eagerness’. MasterChef, My Kitchen Rules, Iron Chef, Cutthroat Kitchen, The Great Bake Offs, Come Dine With Me etc encourage gastronomic innovation and rivalry. MasterChef Junior and Kids Baking Championship ensure that this vice will take hold early in life.

Eating competitions are not new and one of the early ‘celebrities’ was farmer, Nicholas Wood (c. 1585-1630) – known as The Great Eater of Kent. Wood was famed for his feats of gluttony at local fairs which included eating seven dozen rabbits, or 16 one shilling sheep raw, or a meal of sixty eggs, roast lamb and several pies. The latter ‘meal’ brought Wood to the attention of entrepreneur, John Taylor, who planned to exhibit Wood’s ability in London through ‘eating a wheelbarrow of tripe or enough puddings to stretch across the Thames’. Sadly, before the event Wood lost most of his teeth eating the carcass, including bones, of a sheep and was not up to the challenge.

Sarah Murden, in her always fascinating blog ‘All Things Georgian’, describes some eating competitions in the late 18^th /early 19^th centuries. For example, from the Hampshire Chronicle, 7 January 1797: ‘A man of Cuckfield, Lewes, a flax-dresser by profession, has undertaken, for a trifling wager, to eat a square foot of plumb pudding in a fortnight. A foot of plumb pudding contains no less than 1738 cubic inches, and will weigh, if properly baked, forty-two pounds. The man began on Thursday last.’ Fortunately, the 18^th century news cycle was able to update the story on 21 January: ‘The plumb pudding eater at Lewes, has lost his wager. On the eighth day, the gormandizer’s jaws refused to stir any longer in the service, and he consequently declined all further perseverance in the task.’ (see: https://georgianera.wordpress.com/2021/01/13/18th-century-gluttony/)

In recent years, the ‘sport’ of competitive individual eating has gained extraordinary popularity, largely as a result of eating contests in North America. Nathan’s Famous hot dog stand in Coney Island spuriously claimed that in 1916 it challenged four immigrants to eat as many hot dogs as possible on the Fourth of July holiday as a demonstration of patriotism. However, since 1972 it has hosted the event and in 1997, Major League Eating (sanctioned by the International Federation of Competitive Eating or IFOCE) started conducting the event which is televised on ESPN. The current defending men’s champion is Joey Chestnut (75 hot dogs in 10 minutes); while the women’s winner is Miki Sudo who consumed 48.5 in the same time. IFOCE has produced several eating competitions including Tour de Gorge, Eats of Strength and Glutton Bowl!

Unsurprisingly, the focus on consumption has generated multiple industries to address the health concerns of overeating. Weight loss programs abound ranging from long stayers like (recently rebranded as WW) Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig, to ‘Ready-Made Food Diet programs’ (Lite N’ Easy, Youfoodz, Macros), to ‘Meal Planning’ guidelines (CSIRO, Michelle Bridges 12WBT, Noom). And then there are the apps with helpful names like Lose It! or Fooducate or FatSecret.

One early weight loss guru whose ideas have gained current popularity was the London undertaker, William Banting (1796-1878). Banting was the funeral director to the Royal Household and his company was responsible for conducting the funerals of Kings George III and IV, Princes Albert and Leopold, and Dukes Gloucester and Wellington. In 1863, formerly obese Banting wrote a booklet (actually a personal testimonial) called ‘Letter on Corpulence, Addressed to the Public’. In this he described his unsuccessful fasts, spas and exercise regimens and concluded with his successful weight loss diet based on limiting the intake of carbohydrates – especially those of a starchy or sugary nature. His pamphlet was popular for years to come (it was reprinted as recently as 2007)  and is the basis for many modern diets. Banting’s influence was so important that his name became a verb: to bant meant to diet and, in Swedish, ‘banta’ is still the main verb for ‘being on a diet’.

An early proselytiser of ‘mindful eating’ was the San Francisco art dealer, Horace Fletcher (1849-1919). In middle age, Fletcher was concerned about his weight and deteriorating health. After reading an article by the British politician, Herbert Gladstone, which claimed that as humans have 32 teeth, they should chew their food 32 times, Fletcher adopted this suggestion and proceeded to lose 65 pounds. He developed this ‘technique’ into a program – Fletcherism – in 1913 and became known as ‘The Great Masticator’ with adherents including Thomas Edison, Henry James, Mark Twain, Franz Kafka and Theodore Roosevelt. Although considered a ‘crank’ his approach is now being reconsidered as part of mindfulness.

Given the cornucopia of delectable comestibles in our immediate world I really doubt I will conquer the sin of gluttony. However, I will endeavour to eat slower, masticate more, choose food wisely (my calorie calculator app helped me discover that de Heem’s Still life with fruit displays a calorie count of around 1200 calories), remember that ‘all you can eat’ is not a personal challenge, and adopt the mantra: ‘Hunger is my friend’.

In conclusion, Proverbs 23:20-21 offers sage advice: ‘ Do not be among winebibbers, or among riotous eaters of meat; for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty: and drowsiness will clothe them with rags.”

I would like to acknowledge Mikey Robins ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ (2019) Simon and Schuster for inspiration.