I eat, therefore I am

Forgive me Mr Descartes. I am a proud epicurean and a fervent believer that good food is one of the best ways to greet, to please the people we love. That this notion is an essential thread of our cultural weave, that hospitality bears religious sanction and appreciation makes me happier. Eating, in my opinion, is more than the daily regimen of three meals to sustain the mundane existence. It is a sensuous experience involving a complex tango of teeth and tongue overseen by an ecstatic brain. A heightened sense of smell, body taut with anticipation, frenetic brain activity triggered by a riot of aromas and colours, the uncontrollable desire to bite and finally the pleasure of giving in to the noblest of human desires. The sane and joyous live to eat and sometimes overeat. The pleasures of eating are lost to those who indiscreetly subject food to cryptic algorithms to unveil the latent nutritional value. The journey of discovery is disturbingly fraught and unpleasantly enlightening. The salvation is, therefore, in engaging food as a lover would his beloved, oblivious of the consequences. That said, protection helps.

The unprotected love affair with food that Pakistanis have, over the last six decades, has had devastating consequences. Dirty kitchens purveying unhygienic food with impunity became the norm and not the exception, with grave ramifications for public health. And then, the Punjab Food Authority (PFA) was born. I need not say more as we have all seen the famous national and international food brands stripped of their veneers, splashed across social media with damning evidence of their culpable negligence. The PFA raids and the indomitable Ayesha Mumtaz have been roaring successes. The authority is now devising a restaurant grading system and the eateries will be required to display the grade certificate prominently. The grade will be an indication of the extent of the outlet’s adherence to hygiene among other things, leaving it to the citizen to make an informed choice.

In addition, SOPs for staff and kitchens are also being drafted to standardise kitchen practices to make citizen expectations and snap audits meaningful and objective. Most importantly, the legal framework has been significantly upgraded to include heavy fines and jail sentences for the offenders. I would be happier if PFA also includes some incentive for the eateries to improve their grades over time. This could be in the form of a certificate, acknowledgement on social media or a tax rebate. We must encourage and reinforce compliance and improvement. The Punjab government is raking in massive public applause and deserves commendation for doing something that has a direct bearing on people’s health. Oscar Wilde once said, “After a good dinner, one can forgive anybody, even one's own relations.”

Coming back to my love of food, I have some reservations for the way God made things and I am sure many would identify with my sentiments with relish. So, God made carrots and meat. Why do we love meat much more than carrots? Why does meat harm more than carrots if enjoyed with abandon? These are questions of metaphysical nature and hint at a God with an understandably out of this world sense of humour. Meat spawns cholesterol and uric acid. Conceded it does, but can anybody with an iota of sanity compare a juicy steak with a bland, nondescript carrot? I lay the blame squarely at the door of divinity. Perhaps, the world is indeed a place of test of wills with no room for hedonists. Imagine, if meat had the benefits of carrots or carrots tasted like meat. Either way, we would have been having a lot of both. But then, it was not meant to be. For eternity, meat was condemned to be the choicest food of sinners, of lovers of the brew. We are all too familiar with the expression ‘sharab aur kebab’.

The throaty, vivid descriptions of food by celebrated British chef Keith Floyd endeared him to millions across the world. He paved the way for the likes of Jamie Olivier, Gordon Ramsay, Rick Stein and the voluptuous Nigella Lawson, who took food innuendoes to a graphic new level. I recently had the pleasure of watching Rick Stein’s “Seafood Lover’s Guide”. Trout, salmon, cod, herring, scallops, cockles, halibut, oysters, crab, prawns and the remote, pristine, rustic English fishing towns. Smoked, poached, baked, fried... smothered with butter and lemon juice... filleted or whole... on a bed of mushy peas or sea weed. BBC has a flair for making food programmes as the camera passionately flirts with the ingredients — zooming in on their contours, capturing the sounds of dicing, frying and whisking with insane alacrity, creating an experience that is addictively immersive. Pakistani food programmes, by comparison, are dull and drab. First, they fail to capture the food in its intimate detail. Second, the viewers are relentlessly subjected to live calls from drooling fans which are utterly distracting and aesthetically disturbing. Dinner time. I beg leave. “One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well,” Virginia Woolf so famously quipped. Can’t agree more.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 19^th, 2015.

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