Antonella Baccaro (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
«NoWe cannot separate taste from morals. Everything we eat makes sense in the world. Telling you “I like organic carrots” means telling you what I vote for».
How right he is Adam Gopniksagacious writer of the New Yorker. It must have happened to you too to invite you to dinner and find yourself in front of a jumble of vetoes. «I don’t eat meat, sorry», «I don’t have dinner after 6pm, thanks», «For me only organic vegetables, can you?».
I can. I can do anything: I’m celiacI disturbed half the world before understanding that mine, which is a disease, must be declared in time, so as not to embarrass the inviter.
I understood it one evening, going to dinner with a very nice couple to whom I could have easily communicated my problem. I didn’t. The lady performed all kinds of fried and stuffed pasta: wonderful. There wasn’t even the joker I cling to: the salad. The landlady, blushing up to her ears, opened a can of tuna for me and served it to me with peanuts.
Since then, when I invite, I ask: «Do you have any preferences? Are you on a diet? Do you want to bring food from home?”. Yes, this too is now allowed: slipping a pack of gluten-free bread or a tin of boiled rice into your bag has saved many dinners. The point is that it is no longer enough.
The issue is not just a practical one, as Gopnik warns: it is a political one. Try preparing a roast pork and serving the vegetarian a separate dish. A wave of frost will accompany the arrival of the meat at the table and will remain in the air until the food is barbarously consumed.
Between the vegetarian and the carnivore the distance is philosophical and it will soon manifest itself in some verbal confrontation which, perhaps starting from food, will lead to politics, religion and God knows what else.
So I have a rule when I go to dinner: I don’t ask questions about food, just as I don’t ask about politics. It’s my way of not sabotaging my invitee’s dinner.
I was born into a world where food was joy and united. I suffer to see that today is one more reason to divide us. But at least now you know you can invite me to dinner. I will come in peace (I don’t eat cooked fish, though).
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