Have A Bite (I Love You)
My best friend from home is not a hungry girl. Throughout our almost decade long friendship, filled with the ups and downs of early adulthood, wild memories from late nights, and many more mundane memories from simply coexisting in our shared living spaces, we’ve really only ever had one argument.
“I made this new recipe,” I’ll say, “It’s really good. Have a bite.”
“It looks good! But I’m not hungry,” she’ll reply.
To the untrained eye, this may seem fairly innocuous. But those of you who are Jewish or who hail from a similarly food-centric culture will understand the subtext. For anyone confused, let me translate how this exchange can be taken:
“I made this new recipe. I love you, so I want to share this with you.”
“It looks good! However, I reject your love and therefore you.”
I’m being hyperbolic, of course. My friend cannot control her metabolism, and no one actually thinks that a refusal to be fed is an outright rejection of them personally. Still, it can sting a little. For many, food is a love language, and a layered one at that. On the surface, this urge to feed a loved one is as simple as making sure they have had enough to eat today. That part isn’t hard to understand; however, the deeper meaning might be.
Sharing food, much like any other shared experience, is a practice in knowing someone. Whether it is learning that your girlfriend’s favorite spice is cumin or hearing about the chocolate chip pancakes your roommate’s dad used to make for them every morning, by eating something that someone else has made you consume not only food but also the story and intention behind it. As such, saying “Will you have a bite?” is often a quiet, humble refrain that is really asking, “Will you understand me better?”
In a society that commodifies food and eating to such a severe degree, it is easy to lose sight of the intimacy behind fulfilling one of our most base needs. Eating at one’s desk, subscribing to meal replacements, eliminating entire food groups from one’s diet without any real cause — the detachment from our meals doesn’t just drive a wedge between ourselves and our bodies, but also between each other. The only way to change that is by making a conscious choice to acknowledge the intimacy and act accordingly.
So, take this as your reminder. Have lunch with a friend this week. Bake cookies for your neighbor. And if a loved one asks you to have a bite… see if, just maybe, you can find that little bit of hunger to indulge them.
