Food and Love

On the eve of Valentine's Day, a holiday that celebrates love, passion and romance, and of course chocolate, my thoughts have wandered to the role that food and eating play in a relationship. The courtship process often involves fancy dinners out on the town, boxes of candy and home-cooked meals. I have wooed women with heart-shaped ravioli, heart-shaped pancakes, truffles, and fine wine. But when the courtship is over, it comes back to day to day life. And we all need to eat every day. How do we match up with our partner? Some couples have it easy- they share similar tastes, palates, philosophies. Others have to contend with a union of omnivore and vegan, bland versus spicy, take-out versus made from scratch. My wife and I do pretty well- we share a lot of similar tastes, and we both eat pretty much everything. I lean towards the savory, and she is definitely sweet. I read labels more carefully, tend a garden, and have joined the locavore revolution. She battles 2 and 3 year old palates that lean towards candy and hotdogs.

I have some friends where one of the partners has significantly altered their eating habits to maintain marital harmony. Meat lovers have become vegetarians, casual drinkers have climbed onto the wagon of sobriety. The things we do for love, and for ourselves.

The New York Times has a great article in today's paper- I love you but you love meat- For the full feed bite here.