Food and Fellowship

There is one Chesterton line that almost always makes people laugh even if they’re not sure why it’s funny. It is this: “Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.” Though every analysis of a joke is a vivisection sure to kill the humor in it, it is reasonable to suggest that we do not associate cheese with lyrical romance, cathartic tragedy, turbulent passion or soaring beauty. And yet, who doesn’t absolutely love a really good piece of cheese? Especially paired with the right wine? (or for others, the right beer.) Indeed, where are the poets?Chesterton often uses cheese in his writing. He once refers to it as an example of the transition from the inorganic to the organic. When he visited the town of Stilton, he was hugely distressed to discover that they no longer made the famously named cheese (that conveniently rhymes with Milton.) He points out that every valley throughout Europe once had its own distinct wine as well as its own distinct cheese. This is an example of how something that is universal varies in each locality, whereas something that is merely uniform is the same everywhere, whether it is imposed by the State or by a chain store. Cheese suddenly becomes a metaphor for civilization. Good civilization is universal and naturally so and varies from place to place. Bad civilization is uniform and artificial and devoid of character. One is a living thing, the other is full of preservatives.Though there is no disputing about taste, food is an excellent accompaniment to a disputation.Food is a necessity as well as a pleasure. Because it is so basic, it finds itself at the center of economic policies, but also philosophical ideas and even religious practices. Economics is not about money but rather about the struggle for daily bread. But the swallowing of food transcends the crunching of numbers. Eating becomes a moral act when we make choices about how we produce, sell, and buy our food, taking into account how others are affected by our decisions. It becomes a moral act when certain foods are forbidden not for medical but for philosophical reasons. It becomes a religious act for even deeper reasons. Fasting and feasting mark the liturgical calendar. We have the opportunity to demonstrate that we are more than our animal appetites but also that we should enjoy God’s gifts and “taste and see that the Lord is good.” And for Catholics, the principal sacramental act is celebrated in the Eucharist, where God Himself is eaten.But the necessity that is also a pleasure can, like any other pleasure, be abused. As in everything that is good and beautiful, it is a matter of keeping balance and proper proportion. We must not  fast to the point of starvation nor gluttonously stuff ourselves into obesity. Both extremes are grotesque. In our country today, food has come to represent the health or rather the unhealthiness of our society. It is certainly a sign of an unhealthy society when eating disorders can be a widespread problem. But just fleeing from normal health is a loss perspective, so also the mere pursuit of health, as Chesterton says, is unhealthy. In either case, it is rank materialism, whether we are worshipping the flesh or loathing it. St. Paul the Apostle chastises equally those who purposely defile the body, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit and those “whose God is their stomach.”Perhaps the strangest thing that has happened to food in our society is that it has become a form of passive entertainment. People will watch food on television, which seems about the strangest possible way to enjoy it. It certainly fulfills Chesterton’s definition of a decadent society, where we can no longer do anything for ourselves. We pay others to dance for us, to fight for us, and to rule us. But it is almost unimaginable when we pay others to eat for us.Eating is a normal act. But eating is a moral act. And eating is a spiritual act. It is not merely a material act. Yet it is a material act. And while it is a daily act, it is one of the most important acts of the day. As Chesterton says, every meal could be called breakfast; it is breaking a fast, and it should also be a feast of thanksgiving, no matter how humble the fare. Ideally it begins in prayer and ends in laughter. Many, maybe most, of our good memories come from times around the table, eating, drinking, talking and laughing with those we love. If the family is the center of a society, the table is the center of the family. It is a demonstrable fact that families who sit down together for at least one meal a day are more tightly knit, supportive, and healthy. It is communion.Perhaps that is why poets have been so mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese. The cheese stands alone.