What meals may come! (with an informal recipe)
A soul-nourishing, sweet and savory, fruit and cheese salad worthy of your taste buds... after some thoughts about embodied eating and nutrition.
While in here I talk about nutrition briefly, this is not a post about nutrition. This is about tasting and eating food that will be nourishing because you enjoy it and savor it. This is about being a gourmand - someone whose relationship with food expands beyond nutritionism and social expectations, and that transcends the physical.
I am talking about embodied eating! Meaning, being fully present in the moment and aware of how you feel when you eat (sensations, emotions, needs). No rules, just listening to your intuition, and satisfying your palate.
Quite frankly, the recipe I am sharing today - while it is mind, soul, and body harassing (even better if you share it with you intimate one(s) - it doesn’t really matter what it contains. It could have been any recipe.
I could have been sharing a recipe for a nice Puerto Rican meal made of Arroz con gandules, tostones, lechon asado, y huevo frito; with cold a beer, and a coffee with a quesito at the end. Glory on a plate!
If you translate and see what those foods are (the ones I just mentioned) you might be disgusted. I’ve seen you! “Oh my god! All the carbs, and fat, and fried egg - and coffee with sweet bread at the end?” And you generally forget to the part where we dip the bread in the coffee.
If you are thinking about nutrition, no matter what I share, you will most likely place it into a category (health, unhealthy, or “Maybe if they served a bit less, and cooked it with less fat, a salad on the side, or sugar free…!”).
On the other hand, if you are thinking about food, flavor, and “Oh my god… Puerto Rican food? And the smell of cafe con leche… And lechón? And mayorca? Yes please!” I see as well. You are my favorite kind of eater. You might not feel like a gourmand, but somewhere in you there is one.
Because when you eat (no matter what it is), you taste love, passion, lust, desire, tradition, history, and nostalgia. You experience an emotional aroma that comes from a combination of blood lines, cultures, and generations that leaves your body and soul fully nourished. You taste the food but you also feel it!
The recipe? I’m getting there!
Food is something that we all need, period. I get it. Calories, nutrients, micro this and macro that; and fiber here, and antioxidants there. And the charts, and the numbers, and the obsession with measuring everything. Believe me, I know!
But all those nourishing components are in food whether we know how to pronounce them or not, and whether we are even aware of them or not, or even if we know (or we don’t) how much of each thing is in every bite.
Knowing those things won’t make food taste better, or make it more or less nutritious; and in my years in the fitness and wellness field I have learned that knowing those things hasn’t helped most people make healthier choices either.
Food is more than the chemical components it gives us!
It is about connection with the self, with nature, with people, and with history. I am also a food and cooking romantic, which means that I don’t really (entirely) give a shit about all that. Yes, those things are present (self-control, nutrients, benefits, etc.), and I talk with my clients about those things. However,…
I am the weirdest fitness and wellness instructor you might never meet! Although I know I am not alone. I don’t like sports, I hate competition, and if you are looking for me, you will most likely find me around the kitchen - more likely than around the gym. More likely, I will be talking about the pleasure of kneading bread and explaining the mechanics of it, instead of about how to squeeze your ass to do a better push up. And yet I can teach you how to do pushups, and make bread… and ice cream… and about living fit and generally well!
“The recipe… please!” I know, just a sec.
I recently started reading Jim Harrison’s The Raw and the Cooked: Adventures of a Roving Gourmand. I want to share and lead you to the recipe with something he mentions - about what I was saying in regards to measuring everything:
“How easily we forget that the life overexamined is also not worth living”.
OK, here’s the recipe, with a bunch of pictures!
A sweet and savory, fruit and cheese salad.
Ingredients (for quantities get creative, go little by little, and taste as you prepare the dish):
Grapes (whichever you like)
Cherry or grape tomatoes
Balsamic vinegar
Salt
Gouda cheese (or any other cheese you like) cut in little cubes
Black ground pepper
Paprika
Cinnamon
Ginger
Honey
Process:
Put all ingredients in a plate and arrange them as nicely as you can. A presentation, even if it is for you from you, is important.
Drizzle the honey and the vinegar all over.
Sprinkle all the other ingredients evenly over the fruits and cheese, making sure that each piece has a little bit of each condiment.
Enjoy!
Notes
I want to try this recipe again, but adding freshly crispy fried garlic, and rosemary infused olive oil (drizzled all over).
What else would you put in this recipe? Leave your comments below!
The balsamic vinegar I used.
