ONE SIMPLE TRUTH
Email from Bennie, Sunday October 29, 2011
celebrated my b-day with my friends last night and i had an absolute blast. we didn’t really do much of anything but eat greasy Chinese take out and drink lots of cream soda. what i’m discovering more and more is how much i enjoy sitting at a table with friends and eating ( even if i didn’t cook the meal) me and my friends sat there for a good 2 hours talking, laughing and making stupid jokes….it was an absolute blast that i wouldn’t trade for the world. there’s something very connecting for me to eat with people, eating by myself is so depressing and when i sit down and munch away with friends i feel so fucking good!!! we were all eating each others food and sharing egg roles and it was awesome. i plan to stay in touch with these people, they’re my Guilford family and i feel so good with them, they like me for me and that, let me tell ya, is a rare and beautiful thing. i can be 100% bennie around them and not feel stupid for being weird and corky…because they are too!
xoxo’s
#2#1
ps~ i know the storm clouds will clear, i know this, i do, i just wish it would happen faster is all.
#2#1,
Yeah, eating alone sucks sometimes.
I had dinner with friends last night as well. A big topic of discussion was food, sitting at the table with family and the writing that you and I are sharing. We also laughed a lot and finally decided to call it a night so we could rest our stomach muscles.
Having spent my adult life cooking professionally, running a restaurant, I came to realize what is important is not the food or my culinary skill as it was about bringing people together around the table. The common lore is that the “hearth is the center of the home”, this is mostly true. It should be the “Table” is the center of home and community. (One of the reasons why I insisted on a “family meal” at work prior to our evening shift).
A few years back when your sister was just joining Teach For America, I had a young waiter, Justin, planning on a teaching career. He was at UNC-A in his senior year. The topic of discussion at family meal one evening was the importance of teaching and teachers. I know I have told you this story before, as well as similar “table stories“, but it is worth repeating.
Justin recounted what he had just learned in class that day. “At the end of third grade, the state of North Carolina conducts end-of-year testing. The results of that testing are used to plan how many jail cells to build in 12 years, as they are able to predict future outcomes for these children, based on their test results.” This was disturbing news. He continued; “in addition to that, there are two main factors that predict success on the test, first; the socioeconomic status of the child and second; what they eat!” I was floored. It was hard to believe, it still drops my jaw.
I asked Brenna about this and she confirmed this to be a “fact” that TFA bandied about in their message.
Over the next few months, I searched the internet for the exact citation of this finding, even contacting TFA. I have never been able to verify that particular fact.
A few months ago, I was contacted to submit a proposal for a TED talk here in Asheville. Of course I thought about our own experience of “recreating the home cooked meal in the 21st century” – Bennie and Boomer’s story as a topic. The importance of food, what we cook and how we cook it is always present in my thinking. I needed to sharpen this thought and find the essential truth.
So back to my research about the influence of food on children’s lives.
This time, I was far more successful in finding quantitative research that confirmed what I have known intuitively for a long time.
Here’s what I found. There were five major studies published around the end of the 20th century, big stuff: Council of Economic Advisors, Harvard Medical School, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, and Columbia University. From there, I dove into the local reports about food issues in Buncombe County.
None of them said exactly what Justin and Brenna said. They said more, tons more. And they all said the same thing, “More mealtime at home is the single strongest factor in better achievement scores and fewer behavioral problems in children of all ages.”
The findings reported that children who spent five dinners at the table with at least one parent had greater academic success, better psychological adjustment, lower rates of alcoholism, drug use, early sexual behavior and suicidal risk. Levels of obesity were also reduced and a healthier diet was followed. This was the golden nugget of truth. I titled my TED talk “ONE SIMPLE TRUTH”.
A fact of life is that our eating habits reflect the dysfunctional nature of our culture. According to a study published this August, in Western North Carolina 29% of school age children go hungry. Additionally, in Bunbcombe County grades K – 5, 30% are overweight or obese. Looking only at fifth grade that number jumps to 39%! This is bizarre. 60% of school age children suffer from a debilitating diet. Even more bizarre, if we could help parents and children sit down and dine together 30 minutes a day 5 days a week, we would be well on our way to solving so many other problems.
Frank Zappa was right – kill your TV set, or in this case your gameboy, xbox, smartphone and all the other distractions that impose on mealtime. Instead, we have killed the family table, we have destroyed the ritual of the shared meal.
I am convinced that this simple truth has an even broader affect. I believe that sitting down to dine – meaning taking the time to be present at the meal with no distractions, benefits anyone who joins the Table. I have even come to believe that while it is important WHAT we eat, it is even more vital HOW we eat, which is to say, take our time and share.
We have work to do.
I apologize for telling this story again. You email and your messages of sharing food with your friends bring real joy to me. To quote you “there’s something very connecting for me to eat with people.”
I didn’t get selected for TED this year, something about they only had room for a science talk.
-Boomer
Here’s the research:
Changes in American Children’s Time 1981 – 1997, Sandra L. Hofferth & John F. Sandberg, University of Michigan 1999
Teens and Their Parents in the 21st Century: An Examination in Teen Behavior and The Role of Parental Involvement, Council of Economic Advisors, Federal Government 2000
Family Dinner and Diet Among Older Children and Adolescents, Matthew W. Gillman, M.D., et al, Harvard University 2000
The Importance of Family Dinner, Colombia University, The National Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse 203-2011 (on going research)
Correlations Between Family Meals and Psychosocial Well-Being Among Adolescents, Marla E. Eisenberg, ScD, et al, University of Minnesota 2004
And here’s a simple soup.
Take a small (coconut sized) squash, (I used a sunshine squash because I like the sweetness of that variety) and put it on a foil lined baking sheet. Put it in the oven whole at 350° F for about 45 minutes. You have to check it once in awhile. Roast it until it is soft when you squeeze it. It may even crack and begin to weep a little liquid, but no more. Let it cool. Cut it in half and scoop out the seeds, (you can wash the seeds and roast them if you like, sprinkled with a little salt or curry powder or ground ancho chili powder they make tasty snacks – cheap ones) then scoop out the flesh and mash it with a fork or potato masher.
Peel and cut two large potatoes into ½” cubes. Cut two leeks into thin circles, washing out any dirt. In a saucepan, heat some oil or butter, just enough to cover the bottom of the pan. Add the leeks, cook over medium heat until they are soft, add the potatoes and the mashed squash. Cover with chicken stock, vegetable stock or plain water. Add one teaspoon of salt and ½ teaspoon of ground pepper. Bring to a simmer, stir a few times and cook everything until it is quite soft and you can mash it up. Taste it and add more salt and pepper if necessary. Serve it with a salad, piece of good bread. You can add some ½ & ½ to it. Yesterday at lunch, I chopped up some of the blanched greens that I cooked on Saturday and ate the remainder of the pumpkin brownie, sat it the sun. It made eating alone not so bad and clean up was easy.
