There is eating. Then there is having a meal.
You must eat to survive. But to thrive, that requires having a meal. While both involve food, a meal is much more nourishing.
A meal involves not only food, but fellowship. A meal is food shared. It is food lingered over as the conversation flows. It’s that connection with other people that builds as you talk between bites, often with a full mouth, that makes a meal so much more nourishing.
I have had quite a few good meals in my time. And a variety at that. Each one nourishing in its own unique way. You see, there is no particular formula that makes sitting down to eat more than stuffing your face. You just need food and people to share it with. Beyond that, you can be as creative as you like. There is no particular setting or menu. You don’t even have to know the people around the table all that well. In fact, meals with strangers can be some of the best as you each learn about and from the other.
This concept of meal versus eating bubbled up to the top of my brain while I was reflecting on some of my favorite meals. Many of these I can’t even remember the menu, but I remember the fellowship, the laughs and in some cases, the tears.
One such meal was the one I shared with my wife on our first date. We still talk about it. She invited me to lunch one summer afternoon shortly after we first met. She said the menu was steak on the grill. I’m good with that, but she had also popped a batch of chocolate chip cookies into the oven. They arrived on the cooling rack about the time I walked in the door. It’s a natural law that cookies should be eaten when they are fresh from the oven whenever possible. Who were we to go against the laws of nature? We ended up eating most of them before the steaks were ready. We were so full of cookies that it was a struggle to get the steak down.
The nervous conversation that is part of a first date was just as delicious as the cookies and steak. A true meal. But honestly, she didn’t have to say anything. She had me at “the cookies are ready”.
I wouldn’t mind sitting down to one of those Sunday night snack suppers shared with my father. The tradition at Maine Manor was a big Sunday dinner after church. My mom worked hard early Sunday morning so she could put on a spread by one that afternoon. After that the kitchen was closed. It was her night of rest. We could either have leftovers or snack on whatever we could find. She wasn’t cooking again until Monday.
Often Dad and I opened a fresh sleeve of Ritz crackers, the best cracker ever in my opinion. Salty, crunchy and a nice buttery taste. We’d put lunch meat, cheese, and mayo on them in various combinations. Often, I just put on the mayo. From a culinary perspective, the holes in the Ritz crackers are the best feature. Slather on some mayo and press the crackers together. When the mayo oozes out of those little holes, you know you did it correctly. I’m certain that’s why those holes are there in the first place.
Dad and I could lay waste to a sleeve or two of Ritz in short order. All the while, he would tell me stories of his time growing up on the farm in South Georgia. There were also tales of his time in the Navy during World War II along with a few from his work as a revenuer chasing bootleggers. If I could just be six again, I’d slip a tape recorder under the table and let it roll while slathering and munching.
We did a good bit of camping when I was a kid. It was a tradition my wife and I tried to carry on when our children arrived and were successful at it for a time. However, the one trip and all its meals I’d like to enjoy again doesn’t involve her. Sorry Kate, but we’ll always have those chocolate chip cookies.
She was out of town for work and I was left to wrangle a four and six-year-old. This meant taking a week of vacation and heading for a park near our home for a little camping. The cold cereal breakfasts followed by marathon rounds of Candyland were fantastic and filled with all sorts of silly talk so important to children (and their childish dad). Being that we were camping just outside of town, lunch was McDonalds. One afternoon we took in a movie and then headed to Chili’s. We feasted like royalty and laughed like…well…like the children we were.
Speaking of camping recalls a meal I thought would never make it to the table, at least not fully cooked. It was spring break of my senior year of high school. I and three friends packed up a pickup truck and a camper for several days in the woods. Our provisions included steaks and potatoes. The intent was to build a big fire for cooking. We wrapped the potatoes in foil with a little butter and salt. Once the flames died down, we buried the taters in the coals and waited….and waited…and waited. It takes longer than you think to bake buried potatoes. When they were finally close to being edible, we slapped the grate over the fire and began cooking the steaks. Unfortunately, the coals weren’t as hot as we thought. Here again more waiting. It took over two hours to cook the food and under fifteen minutes to devour it. This was a fact pointed out by one of our troop to much laughter. I haven’t had buried potatoes since. Believe it or not, one of that gang of four became a chef and a very good one at that. The rest of us married women who can cook.
I could go on and on, but there’s a sleeve of Ritz and some chocolate chip cookies calling so I must go.
