Why do we eat - no, not the hunger number - the philosophical thing - do we eat to live or live to eat? by Bruce Palling

Is seasonality an issue if tomatoes can be sourced in France or Spain when they unavailable in Britain? (or as Baggini says, “Why is rhubarb picked 200 miles away in Lincolnshire seasonal, while tomatoes picked 200 miles away in France are unseasonal?”)Is it more just to purchase mass-produced vegetables an hours drive away or high quality crops from peasant farmers in Kenya? Because of the carbon using efficiency of large container ships, New Zealand butter is more than twice as carbon-friendly than butter produced in the UK itself.

On such issues, the author is happy to accept conventional thinking that efficient transportation renders such question irrelevant and even endorse the use of pesticides over organic methods if it can be shown scientifically that it makes no difference to health or taste.

Vegetarians too, may be shocked to hear that abbatoirs can be humane and that by drinking milk, they are complicit in a system which inevitably produces calves for slaughter. As for campaigns against certain foods, because of the alleged pain they create for the animal, he is also quite sound. 

“When considering how much importance we should place on pain, we must not forget that a certain amount of it is an inevitable part of any animal’s life. For those wild animals we hunt as game, death at our hands is no worse than most alternatives and often better. Wild animals do not just live joyous lives, then curl up peacefully to die. If they are prey, the chances are they will perish in the jaws of a predator not bound by conscience or welfare legislation to provide for as quick and easy a death as possible…

To insist that any pain caused by farming is intolerable ignores the fact that an animal that has a pleasant life on a good farm almost certainly feels less pain over a life-time than one in the wild, with no vets to cure disease and a low probability of meeting a quick, clean end.”

However, there is more subtlety at work in Mr Baggini than might appear - he believes that campaigns such as the Fairtrade movement are morally justified because it does tangibly improve the lot of underpaid farm workers in the Third World.

And all the time, I thought you were my friend...

Things get a little more confused when he attempts to apply rationality to recipe books, which he considers to be the enemy of creative cooking “since codification is the death of judgement”. No one would believe that slavish attention to detail in a recipe is necessarily the secret of success but like musical scores, they are the easiest way to convey the thinking behind a particular creation.

Apart from trying to establish an enlightened set of values or virtues for eating, the author bravely wades into the world of haute cuisine, which ends in him spending hundreds of pounds to eat at Frantzén, the most acclaimed restaurant in Stockholm. He is more than content with the result and even believes that cooking can be considered as an art form. 

At this point, the metaphors become a little shaky as he concludes that the difference between the aesthetic experience of molecular chef Ferran Adria of el Bulli and the New Nordic René Redzepi of Noma, can’t be compared to the difference between a Rembrandt and a Van Gogh. 

Many qualified critics would have no problem showing the gulf between food shaped in a laboratory and that based on seasonal and foraged ingredients is far greater than that of two great Dutch painters from different centuries.

The book concludes with an attempt to create philosophical values for appreciating food.

“To eat as a hedonist is therefore to seek out the most delicious dishes, always looking for new experiences and to repeat the best of prior ones. To eat mindfully, in contrast, is to make sure that whatever you are eating, you are paying attention to what it is and also to hat it means, being mindful of your good fortune, of what sacrifices needed to be made to bring the food to you and so on.”

I eat (and drink) for pleasure and curiosity, constantly fascinated by the juxtaposition of sensations between a mouthful of food and a serious wine. For me, the pleasure factor and the profundity of the experience is virtually equal between food and wine and one can’t be truly appreciated without the other.

Overall, the book remains true to its purpose and embraces all of the issues, ranging from diets and the myth of authenticity in the kitchen. It will not find favour with ideologues of any persuasion, as it is much a guide to leading a virtuous life as thinking about all aspects of the food chain.

PS: Stephen Poole, who wrote a polemical book (www.gastroenophile.com/2012/10/whats-eating-this-guy-by-bruce-palling.html?q=stephen+poole) on what he terms his “hostility to our society’s decadent and obscene obsession with cooking and eating”, found fault with this volume. (www.theguardian.com/books/2013/dec/31/virtues-table-how-eat-think-julian-baggini-review) I tend to think that car bombing people in markets is obscene – as for consuming superb and rarefied dishes in a restaurant, well as long as it is done indoors by consenting adults, I say let them get on with it without the moral carping of Pooleists. He is also upset at Mr Baggini “stuffing his face” at expensive restaurants and spending too much of “our awfully limited time pondering food”. If you think seeking pleasure in food is wicked and trivial, then Mr Poole is your bloke.

The Virtues of the Table is purchasable on Amazon

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Virtues-Table-How-Eat-Think/dp/1847087140/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1393196823&sr=1-1&keywords=virtues+of+the+table