Eating Well

I have been reading French Women Don't Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano. Not quite sure what genre this book would fit. Cookbook, chicken soup for something, diet book, memoir or something in between. The blurb describes it as Proustian and that I have to say is a stretch. The blatant francophilia is as excessive as it is cloying but on the plus side no extreme dieting measures are advocated.

At any rate it reads easy, the recipes are for the most part quite undaunting and it has succeeded in putting thoughts of food on my mind. The how-to for éclade de moules in the NYT article reminds me of a Bengali Hilsa recipe that calls for mustard paste, green chilies, turmeric, banana leaves and embers of coal. The result is soft, smoky, spicy and utterly delightful when served with steaming Govinda Bhog rice.

One key message in Guilino's book is about savoring and enjoying every morsel of a meal. To serve food in small portions, artistically arranged - something that comes to my mother naturally and I have learnt from her example - so the mind is satisfied along with the palate. I may never be able to exalt cooking and serving a meal to the religious experience that she makes of it, even my practice of the art by rote leaves much to be desired.

Depending on how rushed I am, I will cut corners for myself and try to do right by J to assuage my guilt. So while she has her meal laid out just like my mother taught me, I may be eating my whole dinner out of a cereal bowl between juggling a few chores. Sometimes J will say "Mommy you did not have dinner tonight. When will you eat ?" When I tell her I already did, she looks genuinely puzzled and says "But I did not see you eating". She is so right, that would not be the kind of eating that Guiliano would endorse and neither would my mother.

The zen of cooking, serving and eating is a lost cause in our over-committed lives surrounded by tempting cut-shorts, half-measures and conveniences. It takes a conscious effort to slow down and do right by oneself - to enjoy every moment from selecting fresh ingredients for a simple yet wholesome recipe, preparing it with love and attention to detail and finally savoring it well to honor the time and effort that went into creating it. Reading this book got me thinking about how much I have neglected myself.