I definitely eat to live. But I’m sure I also live to eat. What I mean is, I love to eat. Ahh, that’s it…
Mireille Guiliano, author of French Women Don’t Get Fat.
My Comments on this Video:
I’m not sure if I agree with her about the water. I see so many Americans carrying water with them all the time. We and our BPA-free water bottles.
Madame Guiliano has an accurate observation of cooking in New York versus Paris. We seem to meet outside the home (or apartment) so much more in New York. (Martha’s Vineyard would be more like Paris in this sense…but lots more potlucks). This NYC desire to go out might have to do with feeling uncomfortable cooking, or not knowing how to make something easy and fast. New Yorkers may cook, but only when they plan to make a three-course meal, handmade pasta and fried pork ears like the ones they tried at that three-starred restaurant last weekend. Or maybe New Yorkers find more comfort in the moment when the check comes–a natural end to the meal–than in lingering guests who don’t know when to leave and how tired their host is. No no, It’s probably got to do with dishes. New Yorkers don’t want to do dishes. (This statement is completely qualified and studied and undeniably true….just kidding, but you knew that right?!)
I have watched Europeans eating fruit with a knife. I usually eat apples with hands and teeth, all the way down to, and including the core! I think slowing down is the motto. Yesterday in the movies, I tried to eat one Rees’s Pieces at a time, and to let each one melt in my mouth without chewing. Does that count?
There is a great scene in in Room With A View when Judi Dench (Eleanor Lavish) and Maggie Smith (Miss Bartlette) are both eating pears, Judy biting into it with appetite, Miss Bartlett pealing it with a knife. It is symbolic of their characters. Judi is the eccentric one and Maggie plays the stalwart rule-follower.
If you eat to live, then eating is just a tool for living. If you live to eat, then life is just what enables us the bodily functions with which to eat. So where does the fruit gobbler fit in? And then what about the fruit cutter? Confusing….
I have not yet read Guiliano’s book. I plan to do so. I think her message is interesting and, in the course of my travels, I have come to observe things in a similar way to her. But it is hard to talk about these observations without making large generalizations. Really hard. Tomorrow I’ll have more on my own experiences learning to eat in different countries.
Until then, have fun eating and living and living and eating!
Quiet Nourishment 