Oh's and Ah's and Yum

I completely agree that food can be the cause for epiphanies, both small and large ones. While Bozeman restaurants are sadly lacking in epiphanic eating, I experience small food epiphanies on a regular, monthly schedule. (This is in addition to both random and planned epiphanic experiences in my kitchen) Two years ago I co-founded the the Bozeman Area Vegetarian Society and I have arranged monthly food potlucks ever since. There is such a fabulous diversity to the dishes and there exists a level of quality reached only by excited proud chefs. It is IMPOSSIBLE not to have a food based epiphany at one of these potlucks. You need not be vegetarian or vegan to attend. Simply bring a vegan dish so that as many people can enjoy it as possible or bring a drink of some sort. If you're interested, talk to me after class.

I have to dig up a photo from the last potluck. I'll post it sometime this coming week.

I've learned a few things about small food epiphanies in my potluck experiences. The element of surprise makes the food taste better. Food that others have prepared tastes better than if you yourself made the same recipe. A very odd, bonding experience occurs when strangers share food together and I imagine my potlucks are not alone this. I expect shared epiphanic experiences have occurred for thousands of years amongst people who feast together.

As for large scale food epiphanies...
One of my first memories, and previously blogged about in a prior Sexson class, is of watching crabs boiled alive for my lunch at a family gathering. I was a small child at the time and watching this disturbed me so greatly that my mom could not stop my screaming. She took me out of the room to calm me down and then we had a talk which I will always remember. I told her we shouldn't eat crabs and that it was wrong. Her responses was:

“Mick, you like hamburgers don't you?”
“Yes...” I said.
“Where do hamburgers come from?”
(I thought about that for a moment and then..)













Before I could say “well then we shouldn't eat hamburgers” my mom said “we eat cows so we can eat crabs too”. She completely missed the logical application of my child ethics and it took me 10 years before I was independent enough to stop eating hamburgers. After another 10 years, she stopped eating hamburgers too. :-)