Taste: Food Anxiety

Giving and receiving hospitality can feel complicated, risky, or downright scary because people don't enjoy the same things.  Have you ever offered bacon to a new friend you didn't know was Jewish? Cooked a beautiful dinner party spread and your pal's new girlfriend turns out to be vegan?  Maybe you've told your family for years you're allergic to wheat and they keep sending you fruitcake every Christmas.  We have all been on one or both sides of these moments of social disconnect, when the response to hospitality is No Thanks.

Often the result of these encounters is "food anxiety."  As a chef, I encounter this emotion all the time, and from both sides of the plate.

Let's suppose you the Diner have specific ideas or limits about what you put in your body, and what lines you won't cross.  You probably have to psyche yourself up to go out to a restaurant, because you'll have to explain it all to a waiter who may or may not understand and a cook that may or may not get it right.  If you are the Cook, and a well-organized highly-allergic customer presents you with a list of the 40 things that they can't eat, (maybe "onions" is on there, holy buckets!) you may find yourself struggling to make a dish of the quality they deserve, from scratch, in the heat of the moment, wishing they had called ahead to give you time to prepare.  Major anxiety.

Food is critical to people.  At the core, hunger is the motivator.  Survival is at stake.  Whether or not "Lychee Gelee with Ham Foam" is actually nourishing to one's body, we respond to even "entertainment food" in a primal and pre-cognitive way.  So when I look down a menu and cross off all the items that contain wheat (to which I'm sensitive) I feel a sense of lack, as if the pantry were going bare one item at a time and there might be nothing left to address my hunger.  Wait, there's a dish with Rice Noodles!  Comfort returns to my gut, and I begin to look forward to the meal.

If we notice the physio-emotional shifts we experience when cooking, dining, shopping, we learn a lot about our Biological Program regarding food.  And maybe, when someone offers us a dish that inspires dread or revulsion ("Ambrosia" at a family reunion) we can see those feelings more clearly as urges from the primal self, which may not be relevant in the current context.  So what if I "can't eat that?"  Maybe missing a meal from time to time is a peaceful and bearable response.  Or maybe my standards can relax in this one case to show some gratitude to Aunt Gertrude for going to the trouble with those mini-marshmallows.

Don't Panic.  It's just dinner.