Monday, April 27, 2020

Look at how to add a positive flavour and deeper meaning to mealtimes

Hi I’m Sandy J and today’s BLOG is Food for Thought – Thought for Food



 
What does your dinner time look like in your home? Do you live alone or are you like me, living with others? Do you eat alone, or do you share mealtimes together with others, be it family or housemates? Do you want to come together with your loved ones at mealtimes and feel more connected by sharing this time together in a meaningful way?

Call me old fashioned, in my home, my family come together every day for dinner time. I was brought up in a family which upheld the same tradition. Before each meal, my brother and I helped to set the table and then when we had finished the meal, we would help clear the table and then we would help with washing the dishes and putting them away. We did this not just because this was expected of us by our parents, but because we were grateful to our Mother for the meals she made for the family.

Understandably with juggling work and children's extra-curricular activities many families have done away with family dinner time, in which everyone comes together at the same time to share a meal. Most days it would be much easier for me to leave everyone literally to their own devices and get them to help themselves to the food which I have prepared in their own time and take it to their own space to eat. Things would be much more peaceful if this were to be the norm.

But I don't, as much as I would love to give up, and give in to convenience, I persist, sometimes with great cost to my own peace of mind. I do this because I have this gnawing feeling deep down in the pit of my stomach that this is one of those battles, worth fighting. My children are growing up fast and before I know it, they will leave the nest and this opportunity for us to share this time together will be gone. I want us to feel connected. There is something sacred about this time. I know that this is an opportunity for us to share food and conversation with each other. It is a time for us to reconnect and a chance for us to exchange thoughts, feelings, and ideas.

What a family dinner time should resemble and what the usual family dinner looks like in my family, are often worlds apart. Dinner time meltdowns in the melting pot of a blended family which consists of a tween and two teens, a biological parent and a step parent, culminating in a total table of five strongminded individuals, makes many of our mealtimes the complete opposite of being an edifying experience.



One of the bi-products of going through lockdown because of Covid-19 for our family has been that we have nowhere to escape to. Before the lockdown we would have a multitude of diversions to help us justify putting any issues to one side. If there was a flare up, we would try and address it there and then. If there was no clear resolution, we usually let these issues either dissipate on their own or leave them until the next flare up to potentially try and address them. Much of the time these ongoing issues that did not have any clear resolution in sight would be put aside with the hope that "this too shall pass".

This unappetising, distasteful issue of regular meltdowns during mealtime and less than spectacular table manners is one that we have been dealing with for a very long time. We have tried many things to try and change the tone of our mealtimes and asked for better table manners, to make this time less volatile and more enjoyable for everyone.

Don't get me wrong, I am all for robust conversations full of flavour. I just don't want things getting so heated that the meal is spoiled and becomes indigestible.

Last night was one of those nights where profanities and argumentativeness seemed to be the main seasoning added to the meal which I had lovingly prepared for my family. I looked down at my plate which was a healthy colourful mix of rice with with hemp seeds, linseeds and chilli salt, with Mexican beans slow cooked with onion and diced tomatoes, nachos and a mixed green garden salad with fresh avocado, sour cream, grated tasty cheese, fresh lime, sriracha, and salsa on the side. It was a family favourite, with the children adapting their meal to their liking, forgoing the rice and substituting wraps to make their own burritos. I watched on in dismay as their wraps were literally thrown together and virtually inhaled, with big mouthfuls of food hardly chewed, before they were wolfed down, all the while talking with mouths full of food, without any real thought to what they were eating, or how they should be eating it. The children all having an attitude, I think it is fair to say, of getting the meal out of the way as quickly as possible so that they could leave the table and return to their devices. Even though there is an expectation for everyone to help clear the table after a meal and for one of the children to help with the cleaning up, with a rotating roster of whose turn it is to clean up, this is invariably done by all with an attitude of some injustice being asked of them. 

It has been clear for a long time that we do not hold the same values about this part of our daily routine. What I see as being a Sacred time is seen as some sort of inconvenience to the children. The result for the most part is that this point of contention spoils this time and spoils the meals that we are all trying to digest for our sustenance. What should be edifying is anything but. The food is good, packed with great nutritional value, but the atmosphere is often so rancid it spoils the good food.

In my despair, I sat down after dinner and my husband lovingly offered me his favourite book, (The Hare Krishna Book of Vegetarian Cooking, by Adiraja dasa). It was easy to immerse myself in the pages of this beautiful book. I will say that neither my husband nor I are Hare Krishna. We are both Spiritual and Vegetarian, but not followers of the Religion. Like the many walks of faith, there is innate wisdom in many of the teachings of this faith. What captivated me immediately was that this book dedicated itself to the Philosophy behind Vegetarianism, as being a means to a Higher End.



This is what that pang of inner hunger deep down inside of me was longing for; deep down I believed that food was more than just a physical need to sustain us and an integral part of good health. There was a deeper understanding that I wanted my children to recognise and value.

Because food is a form of life and helps to form life, it is truly deserving of our reverence, our gratitude, and our best effort to make times of eating enjoyable for all.

Reading the philosophy of the Hare Krishna's Philosophy on Vegetarianism articulated in words that I had been long trying to convey to my children was like stumbling on a pot of gold. For the first time in a long time I saw hope that things may change for the better for us as a family at mealtimes.

Today I wrote down some of the thoughts expressed in the (Hare Krishna Book of Vegetarian Cooking, by Adiraja dasa) on a Blackboard which sits leaning against a wall at the end of our dining table for the whole family to reflect on (see above picture).

I am not expecting things to change overnight at our dining table because I have made this sign for my family to try and digest. I expect we will all have to stew on it awhile for the deeper meaning to rise to our consciousness. Just like a stew, the longer it simmers, the more the flavours become infused and robust and tasty.

The children did take time to read over the Blackboard and that was the first step, they laughed and joked as they read it out irreverently, which makes it clear that these ideas need more time to seep in. Before we said our usual Blessing or Prayer before starting dinner, I asked everyone to put their cutlery down and take a moment to look at their dinner plate, which was laden with good food and give some thought to where things may have been grown, the work it took to harvest and to transport it and to get it to our home and to get it onto our table. And finally, to give thanks for all of this. To my delight, the children did as I asked and there was a real reverence when we said our simple Prayer of Thanksgiving before we ate our meal. At that moment I felt truly connected to my family.

Tomorrow I plan to invite everyone to dinner and ask them to bring with them conversation that is edifying to everyone at the dinner table. My husband introduced a conversation starter which he called "Fun Facts" quite some time ago and it worked for a good long while, to stimulate some really interesting thoughts and conversations. It also gave me an opportunity to see how smart my children really are. Instead of the on-line, gaming diatribe that is often the main focus of conversation with the children at the dinner table, I am surprised and impressed with the wealth of knowledge they all have. This also reinstates my faith that the internet is an amazing resource for the children to broaden their knowledge base outside of their school curriculum. Not just a gaming and social media vortex.

What makes me really happy is that aligning myself with the Spiritual Wisdom of the importance of a positive tone to be set and upheld at the family dinner table has brought things back into focus for me. Rather than hold onto feelings of resentment towards the ones I love because they have yet to reach this understanding, I feel happy to keep persevering with daily mealtimes together, even if the change is a slow one.

Now, moreso than I have felt in a long while, I am really looking forward to cooking, serving, and eating in joyful reverence. It is all an act of love as well as an act of life.

Lockdown has slowed us down to a point where we can give food for thought and thought for food. As much as we would like to escape and be anywhere else but facing the prospect of another unruly mealtime, having this opportunity to face our issues and try to look for ways to rise above them definitely seems like a blessing in disguise. And I am going to lap up every last opportunity I see to make my family stronger, happier, healthier and more connected.

Maybe you have ideas, thoughts and feelings that you would like to share with me and others about ways in which you have made mealtimes more special too. I welcome your input.

Stay well, stay healthy, stay happy.

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Sending lots of love and light