Despite our shared upbringing, my siblings and I are very different people. You only have to put us in the same house, over a short period of time, to discover that tastes, beliefs, habits and attitudes vary wildly between us. But this is not unusual. After all, family arguments would never arise if everyone in the same house responded to the world in the same way.
When it comes to the relational differences in the family Diot, they are never starker than when it comes to the way in which we each view, prepare and eat food. My older brother, likes guidance, referring to any number of cookbooks for the range of recipes he will follow throughout the week. Each meal will be planned from an extensive collection of titles and the required ingredients sourced through a widespread search of local, and occasionally distant, food retailers and specialist providers. If he is unable to find a required ingredient, that dish will be struck from the week’s menu and a new one added in its place, necessary procurement pending. There will be no substituting or compromising the recipe, with each meal prepared as if he were conducting the most delicate of experiments. I have always felt that a lack of kitchen scales that measure to the microgram, has frustrated his attempts to get things exactly as they are intended. Once prepared, the food is cooked for the specified amount of time, at the correct temperature. Following this, it may, or may not, be rested, depending on instructions, before it is consumed at a table, within the most suitable of receptacles, using a set of relevant cutlery. All of which had been carefully prepared beforehand.
My younger sister, in contrast, would only open a recipe book to look at the photos. She would rather wander the local markets buying whatever she stumbles across that day, either because it looked nice, or because she happens to have got into conversation with the person selling it. She gives no thought to how it will be eaten, focusing more on ‘the energy’ she is picking up from the vendor or shopkeeper. This means that every breakfast, lunch or dinnertime, is an exercise in improvisation as she wanders into her kitchen, selects what she fancies there and then tries to make a meal out of it. Although every creation is unique, they are all consumed seated on the floor, from the same bowl, using no more than a spoon. In comparison to those two, I, the difficult middle child, generally order home delivery and eat it in front of the TV, normally out of the container it came in, using a plastic fork, if one has been provided.
I am sure that many of you reading this, will reflect on their own family members and identify with such food and diet disparities. It would seem obvious that there is something that resides within us, that distinguishes us from each other, even those of similar nature and nurture. With these internal characteristics affecting how we view, consider and consume food. If you are reading this blog, it is possible that you feel that your personal factors have been leading you down a path of unhelpful consumption. But fear not, just because you can’t see it, does not mean it cannot be overcome. In this series of blogs I discuss attributes that reside in all of us, I describe how they may be affecting you and explain that although these factors make up the people we are, they weren’t necessarily of our creation.
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