Deadening Yourself to Live
Dec 9, 2007 general food
I don’t think we make enough time to eat, and if we haven’t made enough time to eat, then it’s better not to taste what we are eating…it’s easier.
-Michael Paterniti
Every year on This American Life, they do their “annual program about turkeys, chickens, and fowl of all types”–their poultry slam. The quote is from this year’s program, which originally aired 11.27.1998, in which writer Michael Paterniti “set out for France to try” “the last food to cross [the] lips” of Francois Mitterand “a tiny bird that is actually illegal to eat in France.”
You can stream it online at the link above, but here is the entire exchange between Paterniti, and This American Life host, Ira Glass.
IG: He says after focusing so intensely on eating that one meal, where like Mitterand, he tried to taste every flavor, it felt weird to get back to normal eating. It felt a little dirty not to pay attention.
MP: Cause it takes a lot of energy and concentration when you really taste a meal. It takes concentration and silence.
IG: The way you described it, it’s almost as if you’re saying if we were really awake to what the world is giving us in a given meal, it would be hard to eat the meal every single time.
MP: Yeah, I think…I feel like we would age really quickly.
IG: But you’re saying that we have to deaden ourselves in order to live.
MP: I think we do. I don’t think we make enough time to eat, and if we haven’t made enough time to eat, then it’s better not to taste what we are eating…it’s easier.
Tags: Ira-Glass, Michael-Paterniti, Poultry-Slam, This-American-Life
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