Friday 2 June 2017

Live to Eat or Eat to Live




It's food we all need to get the essential nutrients to keep our body functioning. It's the basic necessity that made all creatures different causing a perfect balance in nature. Earning and fighting for food has been a part of every creature's life. But is that all about it? Given how developed we humans are in the hierarchy of living organisms, food is definitely something that controls our lives. 

Our emotions change with the state of our hunger and taste of food, not to forget the newly named emotions hangry and foodgasm. We give up on things when we are too hungry to fight for, we get all happy and go blessing around when we have the most prosperous meal with the taste, timing, and craving well-coordinated, thanks to the release of our happy hormones seretonin, dopamine, endorphin etc at the sense of food and the memory of a good-food experience.

A mere thought of lemon pickle gets us drooling in no time. The smell of freshly baked cakes in birthdays and weddings makes the moment memorable. The smell of food we grew up eating makes us feel nostalgic of our childhood and mom's and grand mom's exceptional cooking. The memory of hot and fried bhajji we ate while walking on a rainy evening, the ice cream we gulped watching rain drops roll over the glass while sitting in an ice cream parlor, the food our family members cooked together at the backyard during family gatherings talking endlessly are etched in our minds for a lifetime. 

Our day is sorted if what we eat for the day is sorted. A bad day just gets better with good food. It gets even better if we happen to go to a nice place to eat impromptu. Food also breaks the awkward silence as a sweet and sour conversation starter. It makes every place special making us want to go back to that place just to relish the good times we would have spent there. 

Only true food lovers can understand the importance of a perfect place to have every dish. It could be sea food by the beach, pop corns in the movies, beer in a brewery, fresh fruits just picked and had in the farm, bamboo-smoked food in the ghats, steaming hot Idli just out of the cooker by the highway, on a drive. All-in-all, as a food lover, I can say it's food-life integration😋.