As You Like It: The Art of Eating

We were enjoying our staff holiday lunch at a South End restaurant when we realized that it was the first time since we’ve known each other that we shared a meal. We’ve never had the time or the opportunity. I usually gulp my sandwich while prepping class, Constance runs from our school to another in Cambridge, Annie teaches an additional, late class, and Lalitta is always finishing some task or other.

The idea of a holiday lunch came to me in a blinding blaze of light when I was about to keel over in yet another store while trying to find a gift for everyone. I knew that soon I would begin screaming and not be able to stop. I also knew that my teachers needed yet another tchachkeh like a hole in the head. I decided to treat us all to a leisurely lunch instead.

And so that’s what brought us to this lovely white tablecloth-covered table pretending to be in a Paris Bistro. We’re a congenial group. We like and respect each other and work like crazy for our students. But that afternoon we became something slightly different — we became comrades. That’s what sharing a meal does to people — it brings them together, creates an intimacy that might never have occurred if not for the bread that was broken between them. If you eat with someone you trust them. You let down your guard and let them see you in a different light.

We enjoyed the fact that for one day we could pretend to be in Europe and eat our main meal in the afternoon and not cook that night.

But Constance, who for years had lived in France, told us that even Europe was changing. People are becoming Americanized. They are having a rushed sandwich at work and eating their main meal at home at night.

Our lazy conversation started drifting onto our students, but I insisted that we concentrate on ourselves for one afternoon. That’s when I found out that Annie was born in San Francisco but grew up in New Orleans. That Constance actually had yet another part-time job as an editor and loved crème brulee. But it was from Lalitta, who I thought I knew best, that the funniest bit of personal information surfaced — she’s been a middle-of-the-night snacker all her life.

She couldn’t finish her hamburger so she was taking it home. We told her that she wouldn’t have to cook that night since there was plenty left for dinner but she said, no she would probably have the burger as an afternoon snack and then prepare a meal to leave by her bedside to eat at about 3:00 in the morning. We all stared at her.

“Say that again?!” I demanded, amazed.

“Are you sleep-eating, or do you know what you’re doing?” Constance asked.

It turns out that she’s always awake and knows exactly what she’s eating. She’s been doing this since she was a little girl. She eats constantly throughout the day and night because she never feels like she’s eaten enough. (How she keeps her gorgeous figure is beyond me!)

Both Constance and I immediately remembered the years when we nursed our daughters. Constance’s daughter had problems breastfeeding and so Constance believes to this day that her 27-year-old daughter eats continuously because she feels like she’s always hungry.

For over a year I couldn’t figure out why Lisa was getting up at 3:00 in the morning to nurse. How could she be hungry when she was eating all day long? When I complained to my doctor she told me to try an experiment.

“Set your alarm clock for 2:00 in the morning, get up and have a snack. Do that for a week. After a few days you won’t need the alarm, your body will automatically get you up, hungry for that snack. You’ve gotten your daughter used to eating day and night.”

Twenty-seven years later Lisa is still snacking all day long; in fact, it’s a family joke. We’ll all be sitting at the dinner table, stuffed. Lisa will tell us that she is so full she won’t eat another bite for the rest of the day. We all laugh hysterically and begin to bet exactly how long it will be before she snacks. Sure enough, on cue, 15 minutes later Lisa will be opening the refrigerator door.

I think about Lalitta’s midnight snacking and I know that if I did that my body would rebel. Steve and I both now have geezer eating habits.

Any day now I expect us to be eating at 4:00 in the afternoon. If we go out with friends and eat at the fashionable hour of 8:00 p.m., we come home afterwards and lie on the bed like two beached whales. “Never again,” we both moan knowing full well we’ll repeat the same process next week.

Because nauseous as we are, beached whales that we have become, we wouldn’t give up dinners with our friends for anything. Movies, bowling, dancing are all fun, but it’s the eating together, sharing drinks, good food, and laughs about our week and our lives that binds us. Eating is never merely eating — but loving and caring and shared lives. A loaf of bread, a jug of wine and good friends — it’s all you really need.

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Posted by Joan Florek Schottenfeld on Dec 30 2010. Filed under As You Like It, Opinion. Both comments and pings are currently closed.