An Ode to Food

copyright 2012 Art of Living, PrimaMedia,Inc

Guest Editor: Chris Manganaro

Ode to Food

Some people take food for granted. Often times people will even complain about being bored with food or upset that they always have to come up with something to make for dinner. Whether or not we have issues with what we eat should not matter. What should matter is that we are lucky enough to be able to eat at all. Food is an important part of life that we should appreciate with every bite.

John Thorne and his wife Matt Lewis Thorne live their lives with food surrounding them every day; except they always take time to appreciate its importance. In their book Pot on the Fire: Further Exploits of a Renegade Cook, they express so many different meanings and get at the heart of many different kinds of food. What really makes the book special, though, is the fact that there is no specific emphasis on the type of food. Thorne is able to enjoy even the most basic and simple of foods, just as we all should.

Food writers can sometimes miss the point when it comes to certain foods because they are looking for the best there is or because something is not made by a professional or expert. Thorne is able to find deliciousness even in the cooler of an Asian supermarket. He does not necessarily go to high class places. He even focuses a chapter on what makes a restaurant what it is. His taste does range, of course, as one chapter is about toast and another focuses on something a tad more complex like risotto. Even when looking for something new for breakfast, he takes normal, straightforward foods and gives his breakfast a twist. It is the way in which he seems to appreciate even the simple foods that really hits the reader. As a connoisseur of food, his words are as refreshing as an iced cold drink on a steamy hot day.

Even while looking at multiple ways to cook something, he respects the food and those chefs who came before when making a recipe his own. This respect is something that many people often lack, along with appreciation of what we eat. Just go to the supermarket and you will experience far more waste and horrible human action and interaction than you can take. It really demonstrates the disrespect and lack of appreciation some people have for food.

Simply put, the amount of gusto which is exuded from Thorne about even the most easily made foods is infectious. The fact that the essays in this book come from his food letter called Simple Cooking makes all the more sense after one finishes reading. We should appreciate food at least as much as Thorne does.