Verbal Component Of Eating Behavior: Talking About Food And While Eating

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Continuing the topic of photographing food, I would like to talk about the verbal component of eating behavior, namely, talking about food and while eating.

And, first, a story told to me about our guy from St. Petersburg (in fact, I know him a little, our mutual friend told him), who married a French woman and lives with her there, in France.

At one party, this guy, let's call him Cyril, who had already completely mastered the French language, began to tell those present at the party (and the company was quite young) that he liked everything in France, but some things surprised him. For example, the fact that the French talk a lot about food. And during lunch, they talk exclusively about food. The French laughed, said that this is not entirely true, the older generation - yes, but they can talk about something else while eating. At this moment, a late arriving couple comes in. The husband apologizes that they are so late - they stopped by for lunch at his parents' house. And all those sitting at the table, literally in one voice, ask: "And what was for dinner?"

The story is, of course, funny, but while listening to it, I thought how wonderful it was to talk during meals not about politics, not about rising prices and, moreover, about diseases, but about some interesting and tasty dishes. As during a trip, say, in Nantes, you ate meat stew in wine with rosemary and there was a little bit of capers. And the wine used for stewing was Château such and such, and that is exactly 2009, not 2008. Perhaps my fantasy is now playing out - in reality, I have never sat at the same table with the French company.

In our culture, we often have to deal, especially among women, of course, with the attitude towards food as an enemy. One gets the impression that sometimes people treat food as an inevitable evil - it would be better if there was no food at all, then I wouldn't get fat. It seems to me that some possible switch in the attitude towards food (ha-ha, as if it is so simple) as to something interesting, beautiful, talking about food at the table can change eating behavior. You can enjoy food, not only directly by its taste, but also by the view, by talking about this particular dish, how it was prepared, even by its name (as in my case with blancmange - see. Instead of being tormented by guilt, absorbing something else "unhelpful".

I believe that conversations about food themselves are to some extent satiating (of course, not instead of food, but together with food). Having talked about a dish, having discussed it, you will already eat it, most likely less. It is again about a conscious attitude towards food, about the fact that photographing food, talking about it, setting the table beautifully, treating food as something wonderful (or at least interesting), savoring its taste instead of eating her with a sense of guilt, withdrawing his attention from her and, as it were, repeating "this is not me eating, I am not eating this roll."