Honduran Cuisine and the Practicality of Working to Eat:

I’ve always had a deep appreciation for rich ethnic food.  Lately, I’ve been desensitized by “the American diet” that flavors, seasonings, and recipes originating in other countries enrich my culinary experience now more than ever before.  The fact that food serves as the root of all culture makes me rethink the practicality of working to eat.  In self-sufficient communities, cultivating native food remains the major source of capital.  Coffee, corn, sugar, and tobacco provide many small, rural, Honduran communities with the means to live.  Without daily attention to farming and innovating agriculture, their micro-economics would fall apart.  I noticed that food was the product of their work, the reward if you will.  Can you imaging working for the sole purpose of feeding your family; the thought of a weekend getaway completely evading your mind.  The thought is so primitive, so simple, and so practical.  What greater pleasure exists than food?  I guess one could argue that love, shelter, and the necessities for survival linger in that range, but food sustains us more than anything and I strongly advocate the resurgence of the minimalistic diet and a reinvention of the food industry.   We take the abundance of food for granted in America, and we’ve succumbed to gluttony with the fast food market at our beckoned call.  I’m not asking you to stop indulging in Tuesday wing night, or the end of the year pig roast.  As Nietzche writes in Gay Science, “to diminish and lower the level of human pain, you also have to diminish and lower the level of their capacity for joy.”  The grueling process of farming thus heightens the joy of the product tenfold.  Maybe one would appreciate a Carl’s Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger more if they had to raise the calf first, or maybe they wouldn’t eat it in the first place.  Be aware, read the news, savor every bite and work for what really matters.