Chew Your Food, I Dare You.
I am a notoriously slow eater.
Servers attempting to take my plate are waved off until I’ve enjoyed every morsel. Once, on a dreamy date, my insides did a little happy dance when she put her fork down for a pause to match my pace and lengthen the meal. I felt seen and I fell in love with her. A leisurely, engaging dinner date is the kind of pleasure that releases stored tension in the belly and allows time and space for intimacy to plant its tiny seeds. And if I’ve joined you for a meal, that’s exactly what I’d like to be - closer to you.
I can’t say if I became a slow eater through nature or nurture. My mother is a quick eater, my uncle adopts a methodical, brisk pace - but not my Sitty (Sitty is one word for ‘Grandmother’ in Lebanese). My busy single mother would leave me with her mother and we’d spend gobs of time together enjoying the stretch of the day. She began most meals by frying onions in oil. That smell still settles around me like her unmistakable embrace. When the air was pungent, the onions nearly burned to nothing, that’s when you knew it was Mujadra for dinner. A lentil ‘stew’ I wasn’t wild about but was the first recipe I called home for. She said things like, ‘Do the oil and the onions,’ and I smiled remembering, she cooks by rote, not recipe. Sitty was a slow eater. Maybe it was monkey-see, monkey-do imitation. Maybe my habit is a rare jag of obedience after her scolding over me each meal saying, “Slow down, chew your food.”
When I was blessedly laid-off from a job in a disorganized tech startup - one where I slept in my car once to hit a deadline, frequently worked thru weekends and always ate lunch hunched over a laptop - the first thing I did was go home and make a beautiful meal. I ate it slowly, savoring the texture, and tasting each bite of freedom dressed as a smoked chicken breast over roasted vegetables with tahini sauce. I remember the feel of the fork pressed into the tender breast, the texture of lightly roasted root vegetables adding crunch to each bite, and the fatty, filling tahini smothering it all. I promised to never again eat in front of a laptop, and I’m releived to say I’ve not reached for a Red Vine or opened a package to eat anything since those days.
After making that promise, meals became increasingly ceremonious. I was a remote worker before the great lockdown. Since I left that hectic startup the cadence of my days revolves around lunch - served on real plates with cutlery and food that was cooked, not just assembled. I take in the colors and textures, really looking at my plate with curious joy at beet juice mingling with lemon juice. Each season brings a new bounty to my bowl shifting from collard greens in Winter to dandelion greens in the Spring, roasting veggies warming the house in the fall until finally - soup season! Poaching eggs over and over until I nail the choreography for jammy yolks but sturdy whites, a dance that changes a bit with each kitchen I move into. The gift of honoring that single promise tumbled out of the kitchen and into a life of sumptuous self-care, boundary setting, and giving less fucks.
I eat like a Sitty and I sleep like a baby.
Sitty didn’t just eat slowly, she cooked slowly, and spoke slowly - she took her time with everything. She would say, “It takes hours to cook, and 15 minutes for the family to eat and go back to the TV!” I longed for longer, more jovial mealtimes that stretched into the afternoon so badly for her. She couldn’t match the pace of the quickening world around her but she didn’t seem to mind. Sitty belonged to seven siblings and an interconnected community of immigrants. Each week of her childhood saw small homes with too many people stuffed into them bonding over food, laughter, and a shared experience. That huge Lebanese community eventually shrank into my family’s Sunday Dinner. Every Sunday she would have dinner on the table by 3 pm and her children and their children gathered around. We called it “Sitty Food.” My whole world revolved around that table. It would be packed with kibbe - raw and baked, homemade labneh, kousa, Syrian-style green beans with extra potatoes since they were my favorite, and a tiny orange Tupperware filled with minced onions in olive oil. In an age of microwaves, meal kits, and door dash - means of getting full and getting back to work - carving out a day for food and family sounds like a privilege but shouldn’t it be the norm? Taking the time to build out a pantry, cultivate recipes you know by heart, and cook by feel aren’t just endangered practices - they are rebellious ones.
Alice Waters changed the way America eats with the slow food movement, and I am waging a slow-eating movement. Eating isn’t just getting food into your body, it’s growing your food - and wilted herbs on a windowsill counts. Eating is dressing for dinner while looking forward to the conversation. It's happily adding an extra plate at the last minute. It’s learning about seasonal produce at the farmer’s market, and letting the butcher teach you about meat. It’s leaving the kitchen a mess so you can eat while the food is hot. Eating is understanding your cravings and knowing how to meet them in the best way possible.
Do you know what eating isn’t?
It isn’t fighting; it isn’t consuming, and it isn’t producing. Chewing causes alterations in our autonomic nervous systems. It helps us leave the ‘fight or flight mode’ we enter from overworking, under-sleeping, and overeating.
Chronic stress, generalized anxiety, and the expectation to produce constantly and consume conspicuously have us forgetting to eat and unable to feel our hunger. My niece is part of the fight for a union at Starbucks and I hope she wins the kind of life she deserves. I wonder what would happen if all her colleagues simply closed up shop for two hours to cook for and serve one another mid-day. To feed themselves on the tables they clean for customers and really look at one another between bites, learning who needs hot sauce on the table and who sprinkles salt on everything. Eating is rest and rest is power. Eating is relational and we are stronger together.