THE KITCHEN PHILOSOPHER
When was the last time your stomach properly grumbled? Not just a bit peckish or impatient for the cooking smells wafting into your nose to turn into actual morsels between your teeth, but feeling uncomfortably in need of nourishment? For most of human history, such gnawing has been all too familiar. For many of us today, it is a rarity.
Gardeners are being reminded of this at the moment – the time of year known as the ‘hungry gap’. Just about anything home grown on our tables this month will come out of a jar preserving last season’s bounty or from the freezer, as the last of the winter crops have already been eaten and the first spring harvest is still weeks away.
In many cultures, this seasonal lack of food was turned from a necessity into a virtue. It is no coincidence that the Christian Lent fast, for example, starts in late winter, when there wouldn’t have been much to tuck into even if you wanted to. This seems alien in a world of instant gratification, where most of what we want is readily available. Overall, it has to be a good thing that we’re no longer so vulnerable to food shortages. This privilege, however, has numerous downsides.
First, it encourages us to act on the basis of what seems good to us at any given moment, rather than on what is in our own best interests. As anyone who has struggled with their weight knows, that isn’t exactly good for health.