I had a wonderful food experience with friends yesterday eating grilled garlic artichoke paste, home made cumin crackers and tender pork cheeks. We enjoyed a wide range of cheeses, champagne, great wine, rum and blueberry chocolate pie for nine hours. It is fantastic what great food and company can do to your spirit and Marlene (the cook!)really made an effort. Do you know how difficult it is to get a pork head nowadays? You have to find a butcher who is willing to sell you one (or in our case nine!) and then you have to take the time to get the meat out of the cheeks, marinate, cook and serve. You need time and a will.
In the old days farmers used everything on a pig and nothing was put to waste. I guess the effort of taking out the meat you find in pork cheeks is not worth the time it actually takes to handle it and so it is put to waste or sold off as animal food. In the current debate around food consumption, transportation of food, the well being of animals and the discussion of good or natural food I see an increasing relationship between food and culture or how we let the enjoyment of food effect our cultural behaviour.
I come from a family with a strong cooking and dinner tradition. As both my parents and my sister always enjoyed spending time in the kitchen and making great food I became good at enjoying it. With 3 people cooking I did not really start cooking myself until I left home. I remember being called a catastrophe in the kitchen by my father once at the age of 16 or 17 (which probably was a true statement at the time). When I finished high school I got a book on healthy eating as an award for best female sport student. The reason for the book choice was the fact that I gained 10 kilos during my year as an exchange student in Canada and the gym teacher made it her mission to get me back in shape. I have always enjoyed good food!
Dinners at my parent’s house were not only about eating nice food but about sharing something enjoyable in the company of others. Eating in front of the TV was never allowed and that rule applies here as well. Food is about so much more than staying alive. I bet a lot of people have associations to a place or a special moment when they eat certain things. Each culture has its own typical food and as we try it and explore new food we take in a small piece of that culture. When someone makes the effort to make a nice dinner or even when enjoying a small snack among friends it’s a way of communicating with each other. You talk, you experience something together and you enjoy!
In many cultures food has a dominant position but in Sweden we never used to brag about our culinary traditions. I think this might be changing. There are many nice dishes in the Swedish and Scandinavian kitchen and as more and more international influences reaches us more people take the time to make really special dinners and to reinvent old recipes. We might not be a the level of France or Italy jet but we are moving towards slow food and away from fast food (or maybe I just like to believe that we are?)
Yesterday’s dinner included a blend of excellent cooking with tastes from Scandinavia, Italy, Portugal, Britain, France and maybe some more countries. How often do you sit down for nine hours in full enjoyment! Marlene, you should be a chef at a fancy restaurant with all your talents and hospitality.
If culture is defined by its people, how important is food to the development of a culture?
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