finger licking, lip smacking satisfaction

finger licking, lip smacking satisfaction

Are you,like me, put off by the sheer number of implements placed on a dinner table at formal parties or high class restaurants? Do you lose your appetite when you are forbidden to eat with your fingers? Are you from a culture that believes in tasting food and expressing appreciation of it audibly and visibly? Do you crave to lick your fingers after a nice spicy meal?

Then you will love this delicious piece from "The importance of Living by Lin Yutang:

"The Chinese idea of happiness is,as I have noted elsewhere, being "warm, well filled, dark and sweet"- referring to the condition of going to bed after a good supper. It is for this reason that a Chinese poet says, "A well filled stomach is indeed a great thing; all else is luxury." With this philosophy.therefore, the Chinese have no prudery about food, or about eating with gusto. When a chinese drinks a mouthful of good soup, he gives a hearty smack. Of course, that would be bad table manners in the West. on the other hand, I strongly suspect that Western table manners, compelling us to sip our soup noiselessly and eat our food quietly with the least expression of enjoyment, are the true reason for the arrested development of the art of cuisine. Why do the Westerners talk so softly and look so miserable and decent and respectable at their meals? Most Americans haven't got the good sense to take a chicken drumstick in their hand and chew it clean, b ut continue to pretend to play at it with a knife and fork, feeling utterly miserable and afraid to say a thing about it. This is criminal when the chicken is really good. As for the so-called table manners, I feel sure that the child gets his first initiation into the sorrows of this life when his mother forbids him to smack his lips. Such is humn psychology that if we don't express our joy, we soon cease to feel it even, and then follow dyspepsia, melancholia, neurasthenia and all the mental ailments peculiar to the adult life. One ought to imitate the French and sigh an "Ah!" when the waiter brings a good veal cutlet, and makes a sheer animal grunt like "Ummm!" after tasting the first mouthful. What shame is there in enjoying one's food, what shame in having a normal, healthy appetite? No, the chinese are different. They have bad table manners, but great enjoyment of a feast."

The Chinese seem to have their priorities right much like the members of the clan I come from. The enjoyment of the meal begins in our household even before the meal is cooked. The women discuss the menu and the right accompaniments to each dish . (Paruppu usili has to have morkozhambu and not any other sambar) and then the preparation is done with great care. After serving the meal, the person tasting the food is carefully watched for spontaneous reactions and then the women feel elated. They must be High-fiving each other in the kitchen out of excitement. On the contrary, if the food is eaten in total silence that is taken as a failure and the women folk spend the rest of the day depressed. And greater and greater care goes into the cooking until some visible , audible appreciation is elicited and then they feel that their existence is justified! I guess this is a value that one no longer associates with current generations who are more into fast food and spoon and tissue culture. What a colossal loss!