How much is too much?

Meredith Ashton

Dining Out Reading Response

10 October 2016

How much is too much?

            How much should we eat? This is a question that, when posed to a passionate French chef, a clean plate club mother, and a stringent doctor, would merit very different responses. It’s a query that comes with enormous privilege, as only those with disposable time and income have the opportunity to determine to what degree of excess they will eat on a daily basis.

            As a child, I was raised to be exactly the kind of customer that has the French chefs and food critics in the Dining Out section of Secret Ingredients shuddering in horror. My household was self-labeled “health-conscious,” and as such I entered restaurants as a salad-loving vegetarian accustomed to the reasonable portions I received at home. I suppose this was the inevitable outcome of having a mother who owns a gym, an aunt who’s a registered dietician, and another aunt who competes in Iron Man competitions. Basically, there was zero chance that my family would be invited to an all-you-can-stuff-in-your-face beefsteak.

            Coming from such a strictly portion controlled background, the idea of eating an enormous amount of food was foreign to me as a reader. In the chapter title All You Can Hold for Five Bucks, Joseph Mitchell presented the beefsteak as a festive atmosphere in which individuals came together over the consumption of huge quantities of meat and beer in a rich, time-honored celebration of social and political success. And honestly, as strange as the initial thought of eating six steaks was, the beefsteak sounded pretty darn entertaining.

            The tradition reminded me of my family’s one instance of eating excess: holidays, of which Easter was the pinnacle. In the Orthodox Christian tradition, we celebrate Pascha, or Easter, at a midnight service that goes into the wee hours of Sunday morning, and then enjoy the Agape (God’s love) Meal directly afterwards. Similar to the beefsteak, the Agape Meal is a celebration of a special event (the birth of Christ), in which the entire parish shares an outlandishly excessive meal with the communal goal of eating as much as humanly possible at two o’clock in the morning. Parishioners bring wicker baskets overflowing with sausage links, ham, red-dyed eggs, rich breads adorned with dough crosses, sculpted butter lambs, large chocolate Easter bunnies for the kids, wheels of cheese, and bottles of wine and ouzo and vodka, depending on one’s ethnic background. Hands pass around goods from personal baskets, so everyone gets a nibble of whatever they wish. It’s a relatively quiet endeavor at first, with all mouths engaged in the all-consuming task of eating. That is, until the deacon starts going around with the shots and a rousing chorus of Russian drinking songs fills the hall with rowdy laughter.

            In the chapter titled Really Big Lunch, Harrison wrote that “life is a near death experience, and our devious minds will do anything to make it interesting.” When I first read this passage and reflected on his 37 course lunch, along with the beefsteak celebration, I found it hard to understand. For most of my childhood, I’d been taught that we eat to live. Now, Harrison was proposing that we live to eat, or at least we zest up our lives by enjoying the occasional six hour lunch. This contrast reminded me of one of my mom’s few sayings that I actually enjoyed: “everything in moderation, even moderation.” Perhaps that is the answer to the age-old question of proper portions. If you’re lucky enough to have the privilege, eat until you’re full. But a beefsteak every once in awhile can help to keep life fresh.