Eating to live or living to eat?

Ah, the age old question. My immediate response, of course, is "living to eat!"  Afterall, I'm Italian :-) We eat well, as a people.

Food is the epicenter of most of my memories. I can remember holidays when my grandparents were still living. We would celebrate Christmas Eve at my grandmothers.  A feast of seafood, 7 fishes. This is a Roman Catholic and Italian tradition. I hadn't given much thought to the origin of this tradition before tonight. According to Wikipedia,  this is a tradition in Southern Italy and is not known throughout Italy. The feast celebrates waiting for the birth of Jesus, Vigilia di Natale.   Seven is an auspicious number possibly relating to the number of sacraments in Catholicism.  Another theory is that seven represents Jesus Christ, the sum of the divinity (3) and Earth (4).  Jesus is God on Earth (7).

All I knew growing up was that the food was fabulous.  My grandmother and mother were amazing cooks. Our family's Italian-American interpretation of the Feast of Seven Fishes usually started with an appetizer of shrimp cocktail followed by a homemade clam chowder and baked scallops.  A main course of homemade linguine with clam sauce was accompanied by an array of side dishes such as octopus salad, baccala salad, and pickled herring.  Baccala salad (cod fish salad) was my absolute favorite! And no holiday meal was complete without artichokes. A Mediterranean tradition.  My siblings were not fans of the more "exotic" dishes, which meant more octopus and baccala for my Dad and me! Yum.

As this holiday season approaches, these gastronomic memories remind me of my Grandma. I wish I had invested the time to learn all of her recipes when I was younger. To actually stand side by side with her at the stove and learn to prepare her baccala salad.  And I wish Gandma P. could have met Paul. She would have loved him, he's a good eater :-)

As an adult,  food continues to be part of my identity.  My favorite form of entertainment is seeking out a new restaurant and trying wonderful new tastes and smells. I pride myself in being able to decipher the recipe, breaking down the complex flavor into its component parts. Making guesses as to the ingredients, herbs and spices, used in preparation.  Enjoying a new bottle of wine recommended by the sommelier.  Ah, the good old days.

Imagine my heartbreak to learn that as I approach 50 I no longer possess the metabolism to support my food obsession. I had heard others complain about gaining weight in their 40s and 50s, but I assumed it would never happen to me. I thought that by continuing to be active outdoors I would be able to avoid any weight catastrophe. Boy was I wrong!  These days, I can gain 5 pounds just taking a deep breath. It's not that I was ever "model thin," but I have typically been a healthy weight somewhere within the weight range for my height. As I watch my BMI approach the right side of the "range," I feel like I'm losing control of my own body.  I suppose the only response is a "lifestyle" change.  Sigh. But what's a 49 year old Italian-American woman to do without a food obsession?? I wish my Grandma was here so I could ask her, but I suspect she would just tell me to "finish what was on my plate."

Write-on,
Faith