AND ANOTHER THING
How to eat nobly and still enjoy Christmas lunch
PAUL JOHNSON
Christmas ought to be about God and our salvation. And we have made it about eating. I have been thinking about eating this week. For me, that is a most unusual activity. I was brought up to regard discus- sion of food, especially at table, as vulgar. My childhood was rather like Benjamin Franklin's in that respect. He relates that at meal-times his father always took care `to start some ingenious or useful Topic for Discourse, which might tend to improve the Minds of his Children'. He adds:
By this means, he turn'd our Attention to what was good, just and prudent in the Con- duct of Life; and little or no Notice was ever taken of what related to the Victuals on the Table ... so that I was bro't up in such per- fect Inattention to those matters as to be quite indifferent to what kind of Food was set before me; and so unobservant of it that to this Day, if I am ask'd I can scarce tell, a few Hours after Dinner, what I din'd upon.
I would not go so far as to say that. One should pay some attention to what one con- sumes. I agree with Dr Johnson, who insist- ed: I mind my belly very studiously, and very carefully; for I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly Mind anything else.'
I like that word 'studiously'. Johnson cer- tainly studied his food, as well as eating it: he seems to have given it his entire mind as Well as his stomach:
When at table, he was totally absorbed in the business of the moment; his looks seemed riveted to his plate; nor would he, unless when in very high company, say one word, or even pay the least attention to what was said by others, till he had satisfied his appetite, which was so fierce, and indulged with such Intenseness, that while in the act of eating, the veins of his forehead swelled, and gener- ally a strong perspiration was visible. h It is a great pity that Johnson did not, as e often threatened, write a cookery-book °n philosophical principles'. Today more F,Tople write about eating than ever before. ,111. ey advise us where to go and what to eat Mere and how much it will cost. They tell us ad nauseam how to eat well and remain slim and how to choose our food so as to prolong life. But they do not put forward a philosophy of eating. ,I have, however, been reading a book which does precisely that: The Hungry Soul: Leong and the Perfecting of Our Nature, by ,,; n Kass (The Free Press, New York, '..`4.95). The author is a doctor of medicine, and a student of Aristotle and the great
Emmanuel Kant. He has thought deeply not merely about the physics of eating but about its metaphysics and its ethics. He regards the whole approach to civilised eat- ing as one of the clearest ways in which we distinguish ourselves from brute creation and underline the fact that we are animals who 'walk uprightly'.
Considering how large a part of our life we spend eating, and how vital it is to our existence, we devote surprisingly little attention to thinking seriously and system- atically about it. The Jews, as often, are exceptions. Unlike the Christians, who rather despise eating, go to some lengths to contrast it with spirituality, and whose key sacrament, the Eucharist, makes the point that bread, the archetypal food, has to be transformed by miraculous means to pro- vide lasting sustenance, the Jews have spent 4,000 years elaborating a moral theology of food: what to eat, how to cook it, when and in what manner to consume it. For them, eating and the word of God are closely con- nected. As Pirke Aboth puts it, 'If there is no meal there is no Torah, if there is no Torah there is no meal.' Meal-times are quasi-sacred. Hence the Jews have always, and rightly, condemned the disgusting practice, now commoner than ever, of desultory gobbling in the open. The Tal- mud says, 'Whoever eats in the street or at any public place acts like a dog.'
Kass has a masterly chapter, 'Sanctified Eating', on the spirituality of food and meals, which includes a close and original analysis of the dietary laws of the ancient Hebrews. It is fashionable, I see, to laugh at the Book of Leviticus as absurd, and empty-headed actors have recently taken to tearing it out of hotel Bibles because it con- demns their sexual proclivities. But, like most sections of the Bible, the more it is studied, the more rational it becomes and the more useful knowledge it yields. Kass accepts the principle elaborated by Kant in his illuminating essay, 'The Conjectural Beginnings of Human History', that the object of Hebrew moral teaching was to show men and women how to get as far away as possible from the instinctual and brutish behaviour of the animal kingdom while at the same time preserving and refining the natural appetites which keep us alive and make us creative. This approach applies to eating, to sex and to all other human activities which we perform in a state of nature but which have to be civilised.
Kass makes brilliant use of the concept of 'nobility', the practice, which once acquired becomes a habit, of rising above and transcending our animality. We can and should eat not just well, but nobly: and at Christmas in particular nobility in eating ought to be our aim. A noble meal is an elaboration of the notions of moderation, self-control, decorum and mannerly con- duct. All these were first set down in Aris- totle's Nicomachean Ethics, showing how all our doings, even eating, can promote harmony and grace. To eat reasonably and in accordance with the logos is noble. And as Kass says, nobility, like sanctity, does not require a beholder (except God of course). A lady or a gentleman, Kass insists, 'who is fully self-conscious takes aesthetic pleasure in enacting or appreciating his or her own nobility'. He continues:
even when dining alone, and — let me push the point — even were he or she the last human being on earth eating the last meal, the virtuous human being would cover and set the table, use the implements properly, and would chew noiselessly with mouth closed.
Thus such a person demonstrates that nobility, though it has to be acquired by instruction and training, is nevertheless the natural mode of 'the truly upright animal'. I am taking Kass's admonitions very much to heart and I intend, this Christmas, not merely to eat nobly myself but to ensure that members of my family — including grandchildren — eat nobly too. A Utopian enterprise? We shall see.
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