Sudden food-related realisation

[anna_wing]

I lurk on the the sub-reddit "Fatlogic" basically for encouragement and entertainment, but have just had a sudden realisation about a phrase that I've seen there, off and on: "eating for pleasure".

I'd always just skated over it, and assumed that it was simply an idiomatic version of "enjoying what you eat", which obviously is something one should try to do if one has that luxury, which not all do (even leaving aside societies with major poverty problems; my years in a UK boarding school, eating food that I wouldn't give a compost heap, and which has left me permanently at risk of mad cow disease, certainly taught me that...).

Then I suddenly realised that I had had completely the wrong idea about it all along, and it actually appears to refer to something quite different. It's not about trying to make your meals as tasty and pleasant as you can, or even the pursuit of interesting gastronomical experiences essentially as a hobby, which many people do. It seems to refer to eating as a completely separate source of enjoyment, like reading, or listening to music, or playing video games, unconnected with hunger or nutritional needs or sociability (I don't go for tea with my friends or eat pineapple tarts at their houses at Chinese New Year because I'm hungry).

Feel free to tell me that I have misunderstood, or indeed that I am an idiot for not realising it before, but in my defence this is not something that I have ever come across in real life. Is this just an internet thing, or a media trope, or is it something that really exists, like the US thing about eating huge quantities of ice-cream to get over one's boyfriend problems (which I thought for years was just a media/literary trope, until an American acquaintance in New York told me that it was real and that she had done it herself).

Comments

[lauradi7dw]

We don't know each other - this post showed up on my "network" list.

I'm having a little trouble distinguishing between "the pursuit of interesting gastronomical experiences essentially as a hobby" and "eating as a completely separate source of enjoyment." Unless the former is about people who are bored with what they already ate and are looking for new things. At any rate, rapidly aging USian here, well off enough to buy good quality ingredients (I don't like fancy restaurants, though), vegetarian. I definitely do eating as a source of enjoyment in addition to eating for fuel or as part of socializing. Even if I'm not hungry, a thought of a specific food will flit through my head, and if it's convenient, I'll eat it, whether it's meal time or not, for its own sake. I would have expected that this is part of the human condition more generally, so I'll think about it some more.

I live in New England, where the joke (based on truth) is that people eat lots of ice cream year-round, instead of saving it for a summer treat. I don't know that I've met anyone who did it for break-up recovery, but I remember an episode of the TV show "Judging Amy" (aired from 1999 for several years). The two main characters were the family court judge in question and her mother, a social worker, who lived together (with Amy's young daughter). At the end of the episode, during which both characters had had very disheartening days, there was a wordless montage of them getting ice cream out of the freezer and adding toppings, grimly. No pleasure on their faces. Just drugging themselves with sugar.

[anna_wing]

Thank you for replying! I wasn't quite sure about what exactly was meant either. My hobby-gastronomy friends regularly go in search of new and interesting things to eat, yes. The sort of people who plot their holidays to take in the local star restaurants and food specialities.

I think that "drugging themselves with sugar" may come close to what was meant, in the contexts where the phrase tended to show up. So something like "eating as consolation, or eating being the only source of pleasure in their lives" kind of thing. It seemed rather grim.

[sartorias]

I've never heard the expression used in the way you describe--I thought it meant eating stuff like dessert that isn't good for you but tastes good, or else eating gourmet food.

I also thought the whole ice cream after breakup was a film trope meaning to signify women who normally diet constantly in order to be fashionably thin going "To hell with it, I'm so depressed I won't count calories" and that is symbolized by the ice cream. Which is prettier to film than a woman scarfing a double-cheeseburger with bacon.

That doesn't mean it isn't a thing, I just don't know anybody who eats a half-gallon of ice cream after a breakup.

[minoanmiss]

This is also what I was thinking, pretty much.

[anna_wing]

Yes, this was mostly in the context of various eating disorders, so it could have described an unhealthy state where eating became the only source of pleasure.

[oursin]

I don't know whether this answers the question or just complicates it: Nigella Lawson Wants Everyone to Experience the (Thoroughly Guilt-Free) Pleasure of Food: An Argument for Culinary Enjoyment. I suspect that the idea of 'eating for pleasure' springs from the concept of 'guilty pleasures' around food, and trying to get away from that mindset. But what do I know.

[anna_wing]

Could be. It was used in multiple contexts, but quite often around the various kinds of eating disorder.

One should be able to eat food that's enjoyable to eat. I think the problem is when eating becomes the only pleasure.

[flemmings]

I eat for pleasure when I have a food that isn't taken to satisfy hunger or (lately) to fill a nutritional requirement. Crumpets with butter and jam. Peanut butter sandwiches. All pastry. I eat them because the eating itself brings pleasure, in the way that sugar and starch does.

[mindstalk]

"It's not about trying to make your meals as tasty and pleasant as you can, or even the pursuit of interesting gastronomical experiences essentially as a hobby, which many people do. It seems to refer to eating as a completely separate source of enjoyment,"

I don't understand the distinction.

[anna_wing]

I think perhaps when it becomes an obsessive thing.