Our Burgers, Ourselves

Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are.
Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, Epicure and candidate for future Yummish Sainthood

Fans of the original Japanese Iron Chef (voted by the Yummish Council to be The Finest Television Show Ever) will, undoubtedly, recognize this quote from the opening sequence. Most of us are familiar with the cliché that “you are what you eat.” You may have even said something similar like “I'm not really a sushi person” or “He's a meat and potatoes kind of guy.” On one level, we seem to accept the truth of it, but if that were really the case, would we really accept foodstuffs like this?

Mechanically Separated Poultry

The act of eating is, at its essence, brutal. One expression of life, animal or vegetable, is sacrificed in order to sustain another expression of that same life-force. According to Yummish teachings, both of those expressions of life are of equal value. It just so happens that one aspect of the total value of one of those lives is its ability to sustain, through its death, the life of another. That life will, in turn, feed another and so on. (If you think that being at the “Top of the Food Chain,” means we only consume and are never the consumed, there are some bacteria in your belly and mites in your lashes right now that might beg to differ.)

The act of eating is also terribly beautiful. That which you eat becomes a part of you. Its flesh becomes your flesh, its blood, your blood – a true communion. (For more on this theme see the Roman Catholic Church and/or True Blood) Broken down into its basic components, this other life becomes the basic building blocks of your life. Your body is continually recreating itself, completely renewing itself every 7 – 10 years. These new cells are built from what you've consumed. Your skin, your hair, your eyes, your heart, your everything is made out of the apples, the steaks, the Twinkies you've eaten throughout your life.

The Twinkies?

Your heart is made out of Twinkies? Your child's heart?

Perhaps it's time to pay more than lip-service to this fundamental truth: You are literally what you eat.

There are plenty of folks much more eloquent and far less lazy than the Yummish Council who can tell you how far off track our food culture has gone. We recommend the writer Michael Pollan, the films Food, Inc. and King Corn, the book Fast Food Nation, and the future Yummish Saint Alice Waters.

Or you can simply start by asking yourself why we're irrigating the California desert in order to grow the majority of our food supply while the nearly perfect farm lands of Indiana and Kansas produce little but corn and strip malls.

Today's exercise: Call or write your state and federal representatives and tell them to create and support farm subsidies that benefit family farms and promote public health over the profits of corporations like Monsanto and Yum Foods, Inc. (see above link), two wholly un-Yummish organizations. Shop at your local farmers markets and farm stands. Grow your own food, even in a small way, like a tomato plant or pot of basil. Learn to shop the “perimeter” of the grocery store and avoid the processed and prepackaged as much as possible. Read labels. Get picky. Get angry. Get healthy.

Next: El Dia de Los Muertos

Uncontroversial Cookie Recipe

Granola Fruit Bars

Traditional Recipe:

Wait for Spring in the Northern Hemisphere.
Locate the rural area of the US or Europe closest to you. (Possibly Canada, too, but not certain. Might be too cold there, eh?) Go there.
Find a large patch of wild blackberry vines. (Note: Due to the copious numbers of large, man-eating thorns, long sleeve shirts are strongly recommended.)
Harvest blackberries until lightheaded from the resultant loss of blood; approximately 2 - 3 pints (of blackberries, not blood. This is (semi)real life, not True Blood, y'all.)
Wash berries in cold water to remove dirt, small leaves and shreds of your own flesh.
Make homemade jam.(Approx. prep time for jam: 28 hours)
Continue with below directions for Simplified Recipe

Simplified Recipe:

Ingredients:
½ cup butter, unsalted
2 Tbs butter, salted (softened)
1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour (can substitute 1/3 cup of white flour for equal amount of whole wheat for extra flavor)
¼ cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract, split
8 oz jam, any flavor (Recommended: Polaner All-Fruit or my Mom's homegrown/homemade Bay Minette blackberry jam.)
2 cups oatmeal (Not instant. Recommended: McCann's Quick Cooking)
Cinnamon, nutmeg & sugar to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Combine unsalted butter, flour and sugar,1 tsp vanilla and nutmeg to taste. Mix thoroughly with a pastry blender or fork.

Use fingers to press evenly into ungreased 8” x 8” baking pan.

Bake for 15 – 20 minutes, until lightly browned

Remove from oven and let cool for 5 – 10 minutes

Meanwhile, mix remaining vanilla into jam. Combine oatmeal, salted butter, and sugar and cinnamon to taste.

Spread jam mixture evenly over crust. Sprinkle top with oatmeal mix.

Return to oven for 15 – 20 minutes, until oatmeal is toasted.

Allow to cool completely before cutting. Yield: 16 bars


Today's exercise: Make cookies! (These or other. The Yummish Council is open to all cookies of all persuasions.) Extra credit for posting the recipe (or link to the recipe) for your favorite cookie in the comments section. Share the Yum!

Next: Why are you wasting time worrying about that when there are cookies that need baking?

The Yum of Sport

It is important to open this topic by reassuring those who don't give a fig about sports that the Yummish Council is in no way suggesting it's necessary for them to do so. (Though you may want to try out my true favorite sport, if you haven't already.) As we know, each Seeker has his or her own unique path to the Ultimate YUM. You might, however, find today's discussion helpful in understanding those who do enjoy participating in and/or observing sporting matches.

It is true that sports can sometimes appear violent, what with tackles and body checks and rope-a-dope, etc. There is, however, another way of looking at it; namely that sports provide a controlled, socially acceptable way of expressing the aggression many of us carry or have carried at various times in our lives. Though sports may involve seemingly hostile acts, the rules both allowing and governing those acts were established and agreed upon beforehand by all involved. Therefore, while the game-play may be aggressive, there are no victims, only participants. Exorcising one's road rage by starting a fist fight in a parking lot is generally not beneficial to society. However, deciding to go a few rounds in the boxing ring at the gym after work provides the opportunity for a less socially destructive expression of that tension.

Watching sports, in person or via the broadcast method of your choice, can also bring a similar release of tension, allowing the viewer to be fully, but temporarily, emotionally engaged in passionate conflict, while avoiding physical risk themselves. (For a really long diatribe on the subject of Single Combat, go bother Tom Wolfe, but don't say we didn't warn you.)

Sports also bring diverse people together, providing a common ground for understanding and engendering positive feelings, a sense of community. Though the person may be a complete stranger to you, when you see them wearing your team's logo or sitting in your team's section, you feel connected to them. You feel positively inclined toward that person. You know you have at least one interest, one Yum, in common with them. Maybe you smile or wave or just exchange a glance. Either way, a small connection was made.

Sports also encourage people who might not otherwise have the opportunity to meet (be they from the other side of the county or the other side of the world) to join together to a common purpose, even if it is “only a game”. Though they may have nothing else in common and even support different teams, the game itself provides a basis for common understanding. Even if they can agree on nothing else, players and fans have elected to agree on the rules and structure of the game.

Ultimately sport allows us to express many of our less attractive human traits – aggression, competitiveness, tribalism – in less harmful ways.

Sports also give us the excuse to drink cold, hop-y adult beverages, eat nitrate-laden pig sandwiches and geek out over attractive hockey players*. Yum!

Today's Exercise: Root, root, root for the home team! (And for the senior member of the Yummish Council, we say “Boomer Sooner.”)

Next: Possibly something controversial about the concept of “free market economy”... or maybe another cookie recipe.

*Straight male and lesbian readers may feel free to replace the last item with an alternate Yum, such as the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, who are all also blindingly attractive.