Food Sense

There is one thing upon which the Free Man' table depends above all other considerations. Without it little of what I have to say from this point on will make much sense. You must develop a 'Food Sense'. Well, I don't really mean develop it. You already have it. You were born with it. A million generations of your ancestors would not have survived without it.

We were born with an inate ability to analyze and handle food. Our savanah dwelling forebearers found, chose, analyzed, and made a decision about food on the go. An error could easily be a fatal one. The ability is still there, only it's been jaded and suppressed by modern living and preprocessed, refined foods.

A sense about food is not the same thing as knowledge about food, although knowledge helps considerably. It is the ability to examine food and know if it is good, know which from a stack of things is the best one, know what ought to be done with it, know what ought to go with it, know how to store it, and know when it's beyond use. His 'knowing' isn't conscious. It's much like playing a musical instrument. You get to a point that you don't think about it. In fact, if you focus your conscious attention to it, you will mess up. You feel the tune in your head and the fingers do the rest of their own volition. You yourself are as much the audience as anyone else. LIke that, using the food sense (Luke) you can pick up an apple and by the heft of it, the appearance of it, the odor of it, the ...... vibes of it, you know it's good, it's the apple for you.

Sorry to wax mystical, it's not the sort of thing one person can teach another. Only the food can teach it to you. Listen to what the food has to say.

Here at the Free Man's table, I'm afraid there will be no recipes. We don't use them. Nor are our jars and bottles labeled. That would only interfer with the process. When it's time to add, say, some herbs ... feel them, smell them, imagine them and you will know which one is called for. This one is green, sharp, bitter, and aromatic. It will go well with these tomatoes. OK, I know consciously that it is oregano, but of what benefit is that label?

Awakening your food sense is a reliable guide to growing, buying, storing, cooking, planning, and eating food. Just as it is with musicians, until your performance subliminates and comes from somewhere besides your conscious mind, you cannot excel.

The ongoing exploration of food sense incorporates knowledge, experience, and intuition. Let's suppose that you are buying bananas. Knowlege tells you that the bananas will continue to ripen after you buy them. Experience says that the ones with the green tips in this type of weather will be at their peak of ripeness in about twelve hours. You feel the heft of the bananas, their temperature, the waxiness of their peels, you smell them, and your intuition tells you that they are in tune with what you need to be eating.

This doesn't work with overprocessed or refined foods. Your food sense doesn't need to examine them, you already know they are bad for you.

How do you judge healthful meat? You may lack a reference point. Do you know what a freshly killed and dressed chicken looks like, smells like, feels like? If you've never made it from soybeans, do you know what really fresh and properly made tofu looks like, smells like, feels like when it's cut so you can judge the stuff you buy in the store? Have you had sweetcorn that was picked AFTER you put the pot on to boil it? If not, how can you be sure how old those ears are in the produce stand? If you find yourself coming up against these limitations, expand your horizons.

In the coming posts I am going to discuss the selection and storage of a variety of things. That's the knowledge part if you aren't already familiar with what I am going to say. But you must add to that the awakening of your food sense for it to be of much benefit.