Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Is Food the New Sex?


An interesting piece by Mary Eberstadt

Here's a snippet,

The rise of a recognizably... morally universalizable code concerning food — beginning with the international vegetarian movement of the last century and proceeding with increasing moral fervor into our own times via macrobiotics, veganism/vegetarianism, and European codes of terroir — has paralleled exactly the waning of a universally accepted sexual code in the Western world during these same years.

Who can doubt that the two trends are related? Unable or unwilling (or both) to impose rules on sex at a time when it is easier to pursue it than ever before, yet equally unwilling to dispense altogether with a universal moral code that he would have bind society against the problems created by exactly that pursuit, modern man (and woman) has apparently performed his own act of transubstantiation. He has taken longstanding morality about sex, and substituted it onto food. The all-you-can-eat buffet is now stigmatized; the sexual smorgasbord is not.

Here's the link to "Is Food the New Sex"

1 comment:

theritzman said...

Larry:

Interesting read.
I'm old school and haven't made the leap to food yet.

I am fascinated by this generations absolute fascination with eating out and all of the pleasures that experience.

I'm just a meat & potatoes guy.

MJR