Non-trite eating

To eat is such a nondescript verb, flatly describing the physical action of putting food in your mouth and swallowing.  The English language with variety of roots and structure has countless more precise ways to describe the context and richness of that necessary act of nourishment.

Some terms add the element of time.  You have breakfast in the morning and brunch between 10-2, often on a weekend day.  You lunch (but not always have lunch) in the afternoon followed by an afternoon snack, at least for growing children.  You have dinner in the evening or a supper later in the evening dependent on whether you eat American or European style.  Of course, you can snack between meals and nosh at any time.  Depending on our activity, you may have a late night snack to hold you until the morning, when it all begins again.

Other terms add quantity. Picking at your food meets you are not very hungry. A light meal is at any time but in moderation.  If you have a bite, you eat enough to meet your energy needs as is grabbing some chow. By contrast, if you scarf your food, you eat fast while pigging out and stuffing your face imply maxing out your calorie content.

The purpose of the occasion can also be expressed in the verb.  To do lunch is meet someone for the lunch, where the main function of the mouth is actually to talk.  If you are going to have a coffee or a tea with someone, you will probably eat something with your hot beverage but the biscuit is not the purpose of sitting down.  If you munch in front of the television or after smoking marijuana, you may not even taste the snacks. By contrast, to dine is to consciously choose to enjoy food.  Even more serious, if you intend to feast, the food is the prime attraction as in a holiday dinner or birthday celebration. 

So, in some ways the word eat is like the word thing: it says so much that it says so little.

A Feast Culture

Feasting or festive eating with friends if you so prefer is a universal human pleasure.  People enjoy communal meals throughout the world, no matter how rich or poor the country, family, or land is. Of course, the food on the menu is clearly localized, generally including native and highly-valued delicacies. A more subtle difference between feasts is their styles.

For example, an American feast, such as Thanksgiving, is primarily judged on the size of the food: the bigger, the better.  People brag about the weight of the Turkey, the number of pans of sweet potatoes, and the diameter of the apple pies.  Of course, the settings, including the plates, knife, fork, spoons, and napkins, should be as festive as possible, ideally with some Thanksgiving motif.  People sit properly in their chairs and stuff their face elegantly so to speak.  (I would add that they watch the Detroit Lions lose a football game, but that is not necessarily true now).

A French feast is a different scene entirely.  Not only are the settings fancy, but the food is measured by its fanciness and creativeness, defined as putting together foods and tastes that I never thought would go together.  What is lacking in quantity is easily made up in esthetics and time.  Enjoying food involves all of the senses, taking one’s time to appreciate each culinary work of art.  Of course, wine provides the transition from hors d’oeuvre to soup to main dish to salad to bread and cheese to desert to coffee.  The ideal meal is signaled by the fact that the diner cannot decide what the piece de resistance of the occasion was.  Also, curiously, although the meal took over two hours and involved a respectable amount of food, the diner is neither hungry nor stuffed, but instead just right. (Somehow, on the way home, the guests discuss at which restaurant they will eat the next day.)

Israeli feasts, being Israeli, reflect the ethnic background of the host.  Yekke (German) and mainland French families will be more formal while Sephardic families tend to be more relaxed.  The key is the variety of foods.  An example of this is the issue of salads.  Israeli weddings and picnics are measured by the number of salads to choose from.  The term “too much” is mentioned but not meant seriously:  there is no such thing as too many salads.  Anything that goes with Pita bread is fine.  Pickled, garlicky, salty, hot and sweet, red, green, white and yellow, variety is the spice of life.  Of course, the salads, a meal in themselves, are followed by barbeque, preferably steak.  It would appear eating chicken is a sign of poverty.  In house parties, the emphasis is on the variety of main dishes: meat, chicken, and fish (for those fish lovers out there).  Cakes of all kinds are the preferred dessert as compared to pies.

So, there are numerous manners of overeating.  Feel free to share any local feast customs.