Saúde!

As they say in Brazil: Saúde! To your health! Keeping healthy depends on exercising the mind and body, getting enough rest, and eating well. For the purpose of this blog, let’s look at diet. Growing up, my mom prepared home-cooked meals that she served every day promptly at five o’clock. She cooked a lot of vegetarian meals, and when we did eat meat, it was always served in moderation and confined to poultry or pork. Dinner always included a salad, so we could get our raw vegetables. She also prepared several, at the time, exotic dishes, such as Indian curry and Chinese stir-fry. Eating habits, along with our morals and beliefs, come from our parents. Because of the tradition established by my mom, when I went away to college and lived on my own, I cooked for myself and followed a regular dinner schedule. I cooked many of my mom’s recipes and also invented my own. I always cooked more than I needed, so I would have leftovers. This saved me from having to cook everyday and provided me with surplus time to study and write.

As a kid, I though it was normal that everyone went home to eat dinner with their family at a certain hour. In fact, I took it for granted that there would be dinner waiting on the table for me every day at five. Nor did I realize, though it has left a lasting impression on me, that not only was I getting healthy food in my stomach, but also valuable and consistent contact with my family, the so-called “quality-time” we hear so much about. Well, we called it “dinner,” a time when not only did we eat but also discussed ideas, told stories, and shared the latest news and events of our day. And even if we didn’t always talk deep, we still enjoyed each other’s company. A childhood friend, with whom I still keep in contact, later told me that what he liked about my family was that we always ate together. He said he remembered how, as the clock neared five, I would abruptly excuse myself in the middle of some game or activity we were involved in and make a beat home to dinner. It seemed that what I had taken for granted was not as common as one might have thought. Certainly, there were many families who, because of work and/or lack of tradition, did not eat home-cooked meals together, surviving instead on processed food and eating individually when it suited their personal schedules. In most cases, they could have chosen differently.

Food is to the group as the breath is to the individual. Food brings people together for the most noble of purposes: to give fuel to the body to be transformed into emotions, thoughts, communication, work, and play. When people break bread together they are more likely to listen to one another and cooperate, for eating is the definitive communal activity. By preparing and sharing food with others, you are giving them your love.

Cooking is, furthermore, an art form expressed through the chemistry of food and flavor, the timing and technique of preparation, and the aesthetics of presentation. Though the culinary world is steeped in accepted standards and historical traditions, new recipes are invented daily by creative cooks out of inspiration, necessity, or both. Indeed, this is how cooking has always been: a way to use the raw ingredients at hand to maximum benefit to produce a variety of dishes that are both visually appealing and tasty. In these modern times of refrigeration and supermarkets, it is easy to forget that the traditional human diet was based on local and seasonally available agricultural products. Many traditional recipes were created to prevent excessive crop yields from going to waste, and to make maximum use of livestock. For example: what do you do with an overabundance of ripe tomatoes? You make tomato sauce, the staple of southern Italian cooking. And a plethora of ripe avocados? That’s right: Viva guacamole! How about a bumper catch of cod? Right again: bacalau! Or extra cow’s milk fresh off the udder? Camembert cheese, anyone? How about all those messy intestines: why, stuff them with meat and make sausages! In fact, many of the dishes we love, both traditional and modern, have come about through improvisation. When I am missing a key ingredient to a recipe, I’ll find a substitute, adding a new twist to an old dish. For example, taking a break from writing for lunch, I took a bowl of pinto beans I had used to make nachos and poured them in with my leftover penne al pesto, to make a delicious pasta e fagioli (pasta and beans), to which I added fresh heirloom tomatoes. When I found myself without mango juice for my mahi-mahi marinade, I substituted orange juice, and then apple juice, and was pleased to note that each was tasty in its own unique way.

Some people say they don’t like cooking, or complain that they don’t know how. If the former, they are missing out: if the latter, there are far too many great cookbooks and cooking shows for this to be a hindrance. Then there are those who complain they don’t have the time. While it is true that time is in short supply in the modern world, this is often a result of the choices we make. Given that eating is essential, cooking is always time well spent. Perhaps the biggest secret about cooking is that, in addition to feeding yourself, it’s fun! I find the same zen satisfaction in chopping zucchini or mixing up a good marinade, as I do composing a nice sentence or meditating. While cooking, my worries slip away, and I think only about preparing something tasty and beautiful to put in my mouth. I turn on the music, pour myself a beer, and build my transient work of art.

In addition to being a fun, creative, and potentially healthy activity, cooking at home is both cheaper than eating out, you can hand-pick the best ingredients, and, if you are a skilled cook or follow a good recipe, it will likely taste better, too. Having worked as a waiter, I can pass on the following inside information about restaurants:

1. When a special is on offer, in many cases it is because the main ingredient of the dish, usually the meat, poultry, or fish, is old and they want to sell it before it spoils.
2. Unless a restaurant is high-end and bases its reputation on quality, the ingredients are frequently frozen and not premium: i.e. certified organic, local, sustainable, etc.
3. The quality of the food goes down with the volume of business. In other words, when a restaurant is slammed, there is no love in the food, meaning it wasn’t done with care and consequently won’t taste as good.
4. Many kitchens do not observe proper hygiene. Cooks pick their nose and handle the food, food is dropped on the floor and tossed into the pan, old ingredients are used so they won’t be wasted, and your food may be fouled by resentful cooks and waiters.

Commercial cooking will never be as good as personally-prepared, small-scale meals. Because of my behind-the-scenes restaurant experience, I rarely eat out. Cooking at home is a process that allows me to maintain an intimacy with the food I eat. I can use premium quality, fresh ingredients and save both money and time, because I will cook several portions. I am also likely to have ingredients left over for other meals. If I have guests, this means I can feed at least three people other than myself. If I am alone, I can freeze my leftovers or save them for a tasty hot lunch the following day, and/or another dinner. Now some people, particularly Italians and my brother, would never dream of eating leftovers. Nevertheless, I believe some dishes taste better the next day because the flavors have had more time to blend with one another and are enhanced as a result. For those of you who are averse to leftovers, just consider that most processed food is leftover; the food is processed, i.e. cooked, and then frozen for you to reheat as leftovers without the love. Though it would be nice to have fresh food everyday, home-cooked leftovers are a practical solution to eating well on a busy schedule.

Imagine you had the foresight to prepare a nice meal on Sunday and have saved some leftovers for lunch and/or dinner the following day. This will make it possible for you to cook every other day, or every two days. If you rotate properly and freeze the food in single portions, as a friend of mine does, then you won’t get bored eating the same thing and will always have home-cooked meals on hand just when you need them. The question now is where should you eat your tasty lunch? The lunch break is an important part of the day, not just to feed up, but also to relax and clear you mind from your work and personal obligations. Some people spend their lunch hour running errands and then wolfing down some processed and/or fast food in the car or at their desk. While a busy schedule can’t be helped, it would be better to take a longer lunch if possible and stay a little later at work, or come in earlier. Wolves have a feast and famine diet, whereas you have a stockpile of leftovers and weekly access to the local farmers market and the supermarket. So with leftovers in hand, quickly heated in the office microwave, I suggest you find a place you enjoy, perhaps outside in a nearby park or by the ocean, weather permitting. If this isn’t possible, find a quiet place at work, preferably near a window, and enjoy your lunch along with a good book or some music from your mp3 player. Alternatively, you might want some company while you eat, so why not invite a coworker or a friend to join you? Bon appétit!