For some time now I have been considering a blog about food and eating, since they are subjects that I am experienced in. I've been hesitant, mainly because those of you who know me, are most likely fed up of me banging on about it already. Reflecting on this I decided to go ahead, based on the fact that if you don't want to read about it, you can vote with your feet.
Let's begin with my early relationship with food. My mother was a woman who loved you with food. She would cheer you up with an extra dollop of lovely mashed potato or give you a hug with some home made chips and a fried egg. We didn't really do physical hugging, so this was our way of doing it. Our Sunday lunch would take the form of a small mountaineering expedition, roasts potatoes, mashed potatoes, three veg, half a cow and a Yorkshire pudding teetering on the top like a brown crispy base camp. The largest conceivable dinner plates were too heavy to lift with one hand once loaded with one of these bad boys. If you moved anything on the plate even slightly, a sea of gravy would slip over the edge. I have to confess, that I do the same thing myself sometimes, my husband complains there is too much, but strangely manages to eat everything on his plate!
Waste was not permitted when I was a child, and I still detest it, as there has never been money to burn in my wallet. Cleaning your plate was also the only way to get to an apple crumble and custard dessert, and as such, everything put in front of me, I ate. In truth, given this fact, it's a minor miracle that I'm not the size of a castle, never mind the small semi, with conservatory and garage extension, that I've now become.
My family were not wealthy, we had hand me down clothes and a rusty car, but food was the one thing Mum could give us in large quantities, relatively cheaply. She would not economise with meat. Our regular butcher must have rubbed his hands with glee when we turned up once a week and spent a small fortune on the best meat he had. I'm guessing we paid for several of his new cars and the odd holiday.
As I grew older, fourteen or so, I would prepare my own food. With the advent of the microwave oven, leftover cold mash, became cheesy mash in no time at all. McCain microchips were being consumed at a vast rate and as for crispy pancakes, well, just call me Findus. I was old enough to eat all the stuff my mother had previously banned! I grew up helping mum and both grandmothers to make cakes, pies and bread, my grandparents also loved me with food! I got so much of this love that I ended up rather overweight.
There really is something to be said for cooking and the joy that it brings me, and thousands of others. The smell of baking bread is something that authors describe in novels, always to give the impression of homeliness, cosiness and security. Estate agents even tell us that the smell of baking bread and fresh coffee help to sell a house, making it more welcoming. This had to come from somewhere right? To me, a good meal means that you are being looked after, you are safe and cared for. It runs so much deeper than just the eating.
In the evenings, when you really don't need to eat anything else, there's the TV problem to deal with. I swear to God that you could be as full as Mr Creasote, (post mint, pre vomit), yet still, an episode of Masterchef can have you convinced you have eaten nothing for a week and if you don't get a pistachio macaron in the next five minutes you might actually die. The Great British Bake Off is even worse! I only need to see Paul Hollywood now and I get cravings for a profiterole mountain and half a dozen marshmallow teacakes (don't even get me started on the other things I crave when I see that man)!
The thing that is weird though, is how food can give us all of these feelings, positive, cared for, feelings, but then bring so much guilt and misery to so many people. Like most things in life, it's about balance. My balance is wrong. If I get down in the dumps I cheer myself up with food. If I feel really happy for some reason, I celebrate with food, thinking, 'sod it, you only live once'. When you are overweight though it's a very viscous circle, and with a mindset like mine, it's a really tough battle.
One time I lost weight. Quite a lot of weight. I was almost a size ten. How did this happen? Husband number one cheated on me with a tall skinny blonde. She was supposed to be my best friend. In a way I suppose she was, she after all, made me sit on my sofa for a fortnight not eating anything and losing my body weight in tears for the whole duration. She also made me convinced that if I were thinner like her (she turned out to have an eating disorder, the irony) my husband would once again love me. This also proved to be untrue, but I did it anyway. All that happened was I got a lot of interest from a lot of men, several married ones, that hadn't wanted to know me when I was chubby. I can't say that this did anything to improve my mistrust in men.
I find myself sometimes thinking, that if mine were an addiction to alcohol, I would be able to find help? I think people must think that I'm greedy, have no self control, the same things that make drug addicts take drugs, I do with food. I suppose there are self help groups, those fat clubs that make you eat dust and then suffer the humiliation of a public weigh in. I just can't subscribe to all the overly cheerful and very American feeling that it all has. I'd rather sit in an under stairs cupboard secretly binge eating crisps (I once did that until my mouth bled, seriously, I need help) than sit in a village hall, patting strangers on the back because they managed to take a massive shit before the meeting and hence lose three pounds.
I'd love to say that writing this particular blog has in some way made me feel better or had some positive conclusion. Sometimes I wonder if it's just in your genes, and there is some science behind this theory. I may be genetically disposed to eating too much, or having a slow metabolism. I may even have a thyroid problem, but all of those things sound like poor excuses. Boredom is my biggest problem, coupled with a love of food. We can all lose weight if we want to, but I don't want to eat fibre bars made of shrapnel or spend two days of the week eating nothing. It would make me miserable, and when I'm miserable...... I EAT!!
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