What would YOU most like to eat?
I’ve been reading the Chronicles of Narnia, and just got to the end of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader (please excuse me…I never retained the information on how to properly mark book titles/etc). For those of you unfamiliar, or just a time away, this is the one where, at the end, Aslan essentially goes “oh, and by the way, I’m supposed to be an analogue for Jesus. In case you hadn’t gotten that yet. Seriously folks, are you paying attention?”. I’ m going to refrain from commenting on that bit right now, as I’m honestly pretty torn about it. One part of me agrees with the school of thought “what a waste of a good story, cramming in all that heavyhanded proselytizing, but another part of me is trying to use that part of the books to confront and understand my own faith. SO….
What I really want to talk about is this: At one point in the book, they encounter a wizard who invites the all to dinner and serves them each the food they like best to eat. Which strikes me as a really crappy meal, you know? Maybe one night isn’t so bad, but even that has its drawbacks, sinc everyone has their own individual favorite food. And I’d probably let it go, but I see this crop up in fantasy and science fiction all the time, and it’s time that this particular convention be addressed.
A Few of My Favorite Things, and why that’s not what I want to eat:
Think about your favorite food for a minute. Think about, say, your top 5 favorite things to eat. Consider this. Now add the next 5. And the next. And so on. When you get to about 50, stop. Now. Those are the 50 meals you have to live off of for the rest of your life. No problem, right? you could go almost two whole months without repeat, and it’s all stuff you like. Now this isn’t really a problem – and we’re assuming that you get that kind of choice (Because the repetition of meals would kill it, and that’s a known value, and generally only gets done when there’s supposed to be a *moral* to the story). Even if you *do* get to choose from 50 or so meals, though – I’d be very very frustrated. I mean, I like what I like. I can become very fond of a particular food. But I love even more to explore new food. And while I’m not necessarily “normal” by any stretch, my basic sense of exploration *should* be normal for the kind of people who like to read fantasy and science fiction. If you’re stuck with things you already know you like, what about the wonderful things out there that you’ve never *had*? I mean…what about chupaquesos? I bet you don’t even know what that is. And you never would, if you were stuck with things that were already your favorites! Maybe you wouldn’t even like it – but you’d never know!
What about your favorite things?
Here’s the other part of my concern. Food, to me, is a very social thing. If left to my own devices, I’d just eat Oreos and macaroni with cheese. Or various cheeses. I never said I’d be around very long. The point is, though, that without that social aspect, food just doesn’t matter to me. When my family goes to a restaurant and orders, it’s a given that everyone’s going to get something different, and everyone’s going to share. It’s fun – and everyone gets to try a little of everything. Partially this is because we don’t go *out* to eat all that much, so we never go to any one restaurant often enough to each try everything. Partially it’s because we’re very social people. I don’ t know why, but sitting down at a table were everyone had exactly what they most wanted to eat just sounds so…boring. Who would want to share? I’ve got exactly what I want. Why would I want any of yours? Why would you want any of mine? There’s no anticipation, no excitement.
If I were an enchanter, and I could magically make food appear, I’d conjure up things you never even dreamed of. Know what? I’m going to go home, drag out my cookbooks, and try and do just that.
