Brillat-Savarin said, “every…sociability can be found assembled around the same table: love, friendship, business, speculation, power, importunity, patronage, ambition, intrigue…” It becomes clear that, particularly in the present season, it is unusual to find oneself dining alone.
This winter I have broken bread (honey flax-seed from the wood-burning oven, to be exact) with those I love best and I have relished in observing how our human clans continue to celebrate each other through the true love of food. It was only this evening, though, that I stumbled upon one of those rare, interstitial moments amidst the holiday powwows with friends and beloveds, acquaintances and strangers, that I found myself alone.
Delightfully so.
There is nothing more hyper-sensorial than eating alone. Just moments past, I sat down to satiate a craving that revealed itself to me without rhyme or reason making their usual appearances. In my experience, when such cravings arise – these nameless, mysterious echoes from within – you’ve no choice but to listen. Tonight it just so happened to be beer and persimmon. To be more specific, that would be a Stone Ruination IPA and a Fuyu persimmon, in it’s raw, unadulterated form. This is not to say that this edible manifestation of my desire is particularly special it its own right. What makes it so is the ability to identify it and the willingness to bring it into fruition – literally. More often than not, when I am alone, my mind and body are quieted to the point that even the most acute of cravings can make themselves heard.
My persimmon was remarkably large compared to its brothers and sisters at the market, but it was not its size that struck me so much as its waxy, California poppy-hued brilliance that so defied the corresponding season’s insistent grey outside.
In the season of absolute togetherness, I am reminded that these instances of solitude present us with an opportunity to reenter into the company we keep with a renewed sensitivity. Edible or otherwise, our essential hungers pang for us to hear.
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