Eating with full consciousness

In the third part of The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan narrates his experience of cooking a meal entirely made by himself, that is with hunted meat and gathered mushrooms, fruits and vegetables. From the salt -yet the experience was unsuccessful- to the wild yeast for the bread to the bones-made broth, the journalist tried to cook what he qualifies as unrealistic in the daily life: a real homemade lunch.

This experience went beyond the learning of hunting and the knowledge of the fauna and flora. It was first a human adventure. The sharing of Angelo's skills in natural life, the common risks taken with a friend to fish abalone, the patience endured while waiting for the prey to hunt,… Nothing, from the starter to the dessert of Pollan's perfect meal, could have been made without the help of his accomplices. The perfect meal, as the journalist qualifies his dinner, does not have so much to do with the food itself but with this gathering of friends passionated by nature and food and with the accomplishment of something "real".

On page 391, he writes this: "I seriously doubt that any of my guests, assuming I was out of earshot, would declare this a 'great meal'. But for me it was the perfect meal, which is not quite the same thing." And later on, "No, little if anything about this meal was what anyone would call 'realistic'. And yet no meal I've ever prepared or eaten has been more real." Indeed, despite the difficulty of the task, nothing could make you more aware of the process of eating than a full preparation, from the hunting/gathering/gardening-harvesting to the cooking in itself, the human sublimation of Nature.

"Cooking doesn't only distance us from our destructiveness, turning the pile of blood and guts into a savory salami, it also symbolically redeems it, making good our karmic debts: Look what good, what beauty, can come of this!"(405) 

However, what was probably the most striking about the reading is the attention paid to consciousness while eating. Michael Pollan, with this completely -or so- homemade meal, got aware of what it actually means to eat, and in particular to eat meat. The killing part involved in eating meat is ignored for most of us. We buy our steaks at the supermarket without thinking a single second to the beast, alive, full of hair and with sad eyes (that's just for the dramatical tension) whose flesh made our lunch. The honesty of the journalist, when he describes the succession of feelings after shooting the pig (joy, disgust), refreshes the reader and underlined this fact: would we eat meat if we would have to kill the beast that it comes from ? Probably not. To meditate.