Out of the Frying Pan
Introducing Breadcrumbs, a new section dedicated to culinary and dietary adventures
I’ve been fairly cut off from inspiration these past few weeks, something I chalk up in large part to the astrological weather.1 Riding out the doldrums is part of life; things change, though, and now that Mercury’s through the lemon squeeze and I’m feeling a spark of life returning, I figure it’s high time to get back on the Substack horsey.
Only thing is, I don’t have a neatly packaged essay or a teachable tidbit. What I’ve got is a bit messier, probably half-baked at best, so don’t forget to chew. Or something.
Clearly, I’ve got food on the brain.
Comestibles.
Victuals.
Alimentation, if you will.
The stuff you can’t live without it (breatharians notwithstanding) but that it’s sometimes hard to live with. For some of us.
Aww, you see, it were food struggles that first put me on this weird and winding path. Food struggles that gave rise to this Substack and to the belly-themed pilgrimage on which it was conceived. (Strange story, that, but one you might find interesting.)
Some people simply eat, you see, and don’t think twice until it’s time to eat again. Others of us have to go and make things all complicated. Or our bodies do, rather.
Some engines demand 94 octane fuel, while some cars have a tiny gas tank that requires filling six times a day. These kinds of physiological quirks can end up putting food squarely center stage in one’s life.
Who ordered that, one might ask? No one. But there it is. Deal with it.
In my case, “it” has meant seemingly endless questing for what to eat (when to eat, how to eat). Weirdly swinging blood sugar. Searching for a lost appetite, or searching for ways to satisfy a suddenly rampant one. Plumbing every extreme, all while searching for the sweet spot in the middle.
It’s not that I—we—insist on taking an over-intellectualized approach to what we put in our mouths. It’s that our bodies demand we pay that much extra attention.
If you know, you know.
And if you spend long enough in this boat you begin to notice ideas floating around. Theories—endless notions—on food, nutrition, dietetics and health. Maybe someone has got this stuff figured out already.
So you come across Sally Fallon’s gospel of nutrient-dense carnivory (reminiscent of James Joyce’s character Leopold Bloom, he who “ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowl”) and Sandor Katz’ fermentation fetish. The Ayurvedic obsession with the digestive fire and the macrobiotic love affair with brown rice and pickles. Michael Pollan’s musings and Marc David’s soothings.
Without even counting new-fangled, flash-in-the-pan dietary fads, there’s a lot to reckon with once you start to wrap your head around the perplexing, vexing and above all intimate question of what to eat.
Spoiler alert, no theory I’ve found is a be-all end-all. There’s no Grand Unified Theory (GUT) of food, ironically. But each of those systems, always provided its roots have some depth, has its share of wisdom. Its particular revelation, however partial. Each has something, anyway, worth knowing about. Something to sustain you for the next leg of the journey.
The road has been long and winding. From fermenting bagels into kvass in a college apartment to living on khichari and ghee for a month in Nepal, from raising (and slaughtering) goats in Vermont to getting tipsy chez a bunch of uproarious nuns in Italy, on and on it goes.
Empty, full, and back again. Satiation found and lost.
Body and soul are still together. Much has healed, plenty of knowledge gained. Yet there’s room for more growth and a deeper understanding. And I’d like to start writing about it more: food, that is, but with a personal angle.
It seems that I already have.
To that end, this long-marinated but quick-fried little piece is the first in a new section of Seeds from the World Tree that I’m calling “Breadcrumbs.” It may come to encompass anything from recipes to failed experiments to grapplings with new (or very old) ideas about food. We’ll see what evolves.
I hope you’ll join me as we follow the trail, crumb by crumb.
I promise you won’t end up in the witch’s oven—or if you do, that there’ll be something tasty in there with you.
Up next: reckoning with Korean constitutional medicine and a hard-line take on salt
A footnote already? I know. But for those curious what’s been so stormy in the heavens, I point you to the miserable state of Mercury, who happens to rule my current mahādasā period. This is per the sidereal zodiac of Jyotish, the Indian astrological tradition I’ve been immersing myself in.
Mercury’s been going through it: when he not afflicted and debilitated, he’s been roving to and fro through one of the zodiac’s most difficult fault lines between Pisces and Aries, where fire and water meet: think less “cozy pot of tea” and more “undersea magma-spewing fault.”
Maybe the magma thing is a bit dramatic. But fleet-footed Mercury has certainly been hobbled of late, and damn if he didn’t take some of my mojo with him.