Sunday, September 21, 2014

The Enjoyment of living - On Food & Medicines


The tempo of modern city life is such that we are giving less and less time and thought to the matters of cooking and feeding.  A housewife who is at the same time a brilliant journalist can hardly be blamed for serving her husband with canned soup and beans.  It is pretty crazy life when one eats in order to work and does not work in order to eat. We need a certain kindness and generosity to ourselves before we learn kindness and generosity to others.

What is good for the body is medicine and at the same time food.  A good doctor first finds out the cause of the disease and having found out, he tries to cure it first by food.  When food fails, then he prescribes medicine. 

He who would take good care of his health should be sparing in his tastes, banish his worries, tempo his desires, retain his emotions, take good care of his vital force, spare his words, regards lightly success and failure, ignores sorrow and difficulties, drive away foolish emotions and ambitions, avoid extreme like and dislikes, calm his vision and his hearing and be faithful in his internal regimen. 

How can one has illness or sickness if he does not tire his spirits and worry his soul?  Therefore he who would nourish his nature should eat only when he is hungry and not to fill himself with food periodically.  He should drink only when he is thirsty and not fill himself with too much drink.  He should eat little and between long intervals and not too much and too constantly.  He should aim at being a little hungry when well filled and being a little well-filled when hungry.  Being well filled hurts the lungs and being hungry hurts the flow of vital energy.

For me philosophy of food boils down to three things.  Freshness, flavor and texture.  The best cook in the world cannot make a savory dish unless he has fresh things to cook with and any good cook can tell you that half the art of cooking lies in buying.

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