I don’t watch a lot of television; just sporting events, Jon Stewart on the Daily Show when I can catch him, and Food T.V. I’ve given up on real journalism. It’s all entertainment sound-bites now; and don’t even get me started on the so-called reality shows. But lately I’ve been watching a show on the Travel Channel called No Reservations featuring Anthony Bordain, a chain smoking, irreverent gourmand who travels the world exploring food and culture. Last night featured Vietnam…thin crepes, the process learned about during the French occupation, but adapted to the fresh ingredients that are the hallmark of Vietnamese cuisine…crepes stuffed with alfalfa sprouts, leeks, hot peppers, fish sauce, lemon grass and shrimp….simple and profound.
Bordain’s premise, not just on this particular segment, but in most of these broadcasts, is that to know the true beauty of the cuisine of a culture, one must taste the food of the poor…the cuisine of the common people…tried and true cooking that sustains a way of life…the tried and true cooking that informs and underpins the haute cuisine of every culture…The last segment of this show was set in a farm house outside of Saigon…the entire extended family, three generations were there at table…all of the meal served was produced on the farm, cooked over a wood fire in a wok that had served the family for several hundred years…peas stir fried with red peppers and garlic…roasted corn with lemon….a pork braise in a rich vegetable stock, pineapple to sweeten…simple and profound…and the meal graciously shared….a holy moment…as in every shared meal…mundane, meagre ingredients marvelously transformed into food for life, nurture for the way ahead. A profound moment of renewal born of the most common things of earth….a reality, an innate gnosis, knowledge that has been carried down throughout the evolution of the created order. It is no accident that the principal Rite of the church is a meal….forever a principal act of worship long before Christianity.
The metaphor for me here is that salvation begins on the common and mundane margins of our world…at the core of our common life…a world wherein despite meagre means, hospitality is the rule of living…that God’s gracious abundance is quite paradoxically found where there seemingly is none. In the economy of God it is sacrifice that multiplies the loaves. In every act of sacrifice God’s love and nurture are set loose exponentially. A rudimentary meal transformed into the food of the gods bearing quite literally new life….We would learn well to simplify….to value our meals as sacred….to graciously share…to invite the guest….these are rudiments of the kingdom…come close…and simple as a plot of vegetables…at the next shared taste….something to marvel….something to praise.
