Of Boiled Potatoes

Having just undergone a couple of weeks of more or less severe and more or less unappealing stomach flu, I am currently on what is called a Restrictive Diet. This means Boring Food Only.

We have, as a race, an interesting relationship with food. Unless we grow it ourselves, we usually take it on complete trust that someone has grown and made it for us with Good Intentions. We must also take it on complete trust that once we eat it, it is not MEANT to kill us. At least not intentionally. We go to supermarkets and are shown masses of small-print ingredients which very few of us read. We are shown certificates of origin which are subject to almost no control. We are told something is fresh, organic, and healthy whereas we must simply trust that it is what it claims to be.

It is a little like reading a novel or watching a play. It is the willing suspension of disbelief that allows us to buy, cook, and eat what we do. Failing this, we would stop eating altogether. We would question each egg, pat of butter, and each banana. We would ask ourselves profound philosophical questions in the supermarket. Where does this COME from? How will this contribute to my life? Do I need this or I am conditioned so much to want it by marketing that I believe that I need it and that the belief, per se, constitutes its own sui-generis reality.

In the meantime, someone will angrily bump our shopping carts as we have been blocking the aisle in this philosophical trance.

Having established this relationship of unfounded trust, the imagination is allowed to take over. This is the domain of marketing and advertising. The food images we get from advertising all go to satisfaction and comfort. We see images of melting cheese from pizzas. We are shown smiley happy people enjoying themselves at a restaurant not because of the company or conversation, but because of the food they are eating. Food, therefore, equals happiness.

Consider then the unsalted boiled potato.

There it sits on my plate. Inert matter, devoid of taste, designed to settle my stomach and occupy internal space. This is not something to be enjoyed and savored for its own sake. The eating of boring foods is strictly utilitarian. On my highly utilitarian Restrictive Diet, this is what I should eat. But the side effect of boring potatoes, plain rice, clear soup, and their ilk is a rise in Fantasy Eating. I have dreams of pizza, Chinese food, spicy curries, chocolate, and all of the products from the marketing playground which are denied me. Invariably, the images which I have of these foods do not come to me from recalled experience, but rather directly from the television.

We do not want our food to be boring. We need it to entice, to surprise us. We need it to appeal directly to our subconscious. We can even invent monstrosities in our minds of foods which have so much of this appeal that to eat them would necessarily be disappointing - not to mention life-threatening. The seven-layer fudge cake, for example. The Cheeseburger Pizza.

The advertisers are to be congratulated for this complete and utter manipulation of our base needs and instincts. I can say, with certainty, that I have no idea if I WANT to eat the cheeseburger pizza or not.

But it looks a lot tastier than this boring potato.