“Lord, for the erring thought
Not unto evil wrought:
Lord, for the wicked will
Betrayed, and baffled still:
For the heart from itself kept,
Our thanksgiving accept.
For ignorant hopes that were
Broken to our blind prayer:
For pain, death, sorrow, sent
Unto our chastisement:
For all loss of seeming good,
Quicken our gratitude.”
Quote by William Dean Howells
“I highly recommend getting older! There's less tendency to people-please.”
“Salt represents the civilized: it requires know-how to get it, and a sophisticated combination of cooking and spoilt, jaded appetites to need it.”
Source: Much Depends on Dinner: The Extraordinary History and Mythology, Allure and Obsessions, Perils and Taboos of an Ordinary Mea
“Animals are murdered to produce meat; vegetables are torn up, peeled, and chopped; most of what we eat is treated with fire; and chewing is designed remorselessly to finish what killing and cooking began. People naturally prefer that none of this should happen to them. Behind every rule of table etiquette lurks the determination of each person present to be a diner, not a dish.”
Source: The Rituals of Dinner: The Origins, Evolution, Eccentricities, and Meaning of Table Manners
“Eating is aggressive by nature, and the implements required for it could quickly become weapons; table manners are, most basically, a system of taboos designed to ensure that violence remains out of the question.”
Source: The Rituals of Dinner: The Origins, Evolution, Eccentricities, and Meaning of Table Manners
“We use eating as a medium for social relationships: satisfaction of the most individual of needs becomes a means of creating community.”
Source: The Rituals of Dinner: The Origins, Evolution, Eccentricities, and Meaning of Table Manners
“One can never be too rich or too thin' is an aphorism attributed to the Duchess of Windsor. Being both rich and thin is a difficult enterprise, indeed almost unprecedented as an ideal. Into the paradoxical gap between the capacity to spend money and the need to eat less steps a brilliant solution: 'light' food. In buying 'light' food we can pay more for what costs less to produce in the first place.”
Source: Much Depends on Dinner: The Extraordinary History and Mythology, Allure and Obsessions, Perils and Taboos of an Ordinary Mea
“food is never just something to eat.”
Source: Much Depends on Dinner: The Extraordinary History and Mythology, Allure and Obsessions, Perils and Taboos of an Ordinary Mea
“It is the nature of human beings not to be able to leave nature alone.”
Source: The Rituals of Dinner: The Origins, Evolution, Eccentricities, and Meaning of Table Manners
“Salt is the only rock directly consumed by man. It corrodes but preserves, desiccates but is wrested from the water. ... It preserves things from corruption - even as it corrodes other things with its bite. A little of it fertilizes the land; a lot sterilizes it.”
“The extent to which we take everyday objects for granted is the precise extent to which they govern and inform our lives.”
Source: Much Depends on Dinner: The Extraordinary History and Mythology, Allure and Obsessions, Perils and Taboos of an Ordinary Mea