One of the most shameful places in my life is the driver’s-side nook of my car, where I stash the evidence of too many meals eaten alone. There, you might find empty potato-chip bags, Kind bar wrappers, and the waxed paper that once held a McDonalds Egg White Delight McMuffin — okay, okay, and also the sleeve for the hash browns (the best).
We are both beneficiaries and victims of the transformation of how we eat in modern America. Feeding ourselves is cheaper and more convenient than ever. Yet because of our unjust food system, good eating is largely the province of those with plenty of money. Food is commodified and decontextualized. Even the finest meals — even those meals that seek to honor where our food comes from, as with the commercialization and fetishization of the phrase “farm-to-table” — have become performance.
I wonder what might happen if more of us rediscovered food as a means of emotional and spiritual restoration.
All this takes us further than ever from the roots of the original restaurant, the story of which is contained in the word itself. The…
