By Victoire Heyworth, Year 12
Experiencing food, though seemingly mundane, is one of the great delights for humans. Mix in some pasta, add fries, and finally add in some chocolate, you have a simple recipe for happiness!
Continuing the series about life on a desert island – if you could just take one single meal with you what would be the best to take with you on a desert island?
This meal would not only represent your appetite for eternity, but also be part of your mood forever. We can all agree that food plays an enormous role in how we feel every day. Personally, when the access to food is restricted for an extended period of time, everything becomes unbearable; friends, small noises etc The process of elimination for the choice if an eternal meal would be; to restrict foods that are overly fattening, foods which don’t contain protein, stale meals, meals that are difficult to digest and of course the likeability of such nutriments.
But what is it that makes a meal memorable and marvellous? What makes you enjoy a meal? Is it the correlation between meals and memories, or perhaps places?
Associating a bad meal to a wonderful restaurant doesn’t seem as awful as linking a wonderful meal to a grotty restaurant. Our memories of meals are inextricably linked to the context – where was I? What were the smells and sights? Who was with you? Is it a childhood memory of food your grandmother cooked? Or a special birthday or other occasion? Perhaps the illusion of preference is merely an excuse to remind your desert island self of simpler times. Correlating a specific meal which you always eat in good company, or at a particular place might draw your attention away from the actual taste of that meal. We all know that food plays a big role in culture, ranging from the Asian, to Moroccan, to Western styles of food and nutrition. The way it makes us feel and brings us back to our roots could be an important aspect to think about on the choice of your eternal meal. Getting a taste of home might be reassuring as well as a sense of comfort.
The choice is something very personal – what one person loves is another person’s pet hate. My personal choice would be to make sure that the meal is composed of many flavours: aiming to get the absolute most out of one single meal. On one side of the plate, fresh broccoli, then some roasted potatoes that are almost burnt and a rare beef steak.
But then we need to remember the realities of a desert island – you’d be all alone, so no-one to talk and joke with. No-one to do the washing-up either! So perhaps it would be better to keep things simple – find a coconut tree, shake down a coconut, drink the delicious milk…delicious! In the last issue, I chose Ratatouille as my desert island ideal film. So perhaps the perfect dish to accompany it would be a real ratatouille. Just imagine the taste and smell of tomatoes, courgettes, aubergines, as if you were taking Provence along with you, as well as the astonishing visuals of the film. It seems like a win-win.
