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Food Too Often Overlooked At Thanksgiving

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 22, 2007

Thanksgiving is not just a time to break bread and share warmth with family and friends. It is a time to honor the cook.

So when the table is set and a quiet resplendence fills the room, let the senses take over for a moment. Enjoy the aroma of rich broth simmering since morning; the twinkling candlelight on crystal stems; grain breads puffed fat and speckled brown; the fruity head of wine; and that plump, noble bird dressed in garden herbs, simple but dignified on a table choreographed for celebration.

Honor the cook on this day of praise and gastronomic delight. Raise a glass to good fortune, health and peace of mind. For the cook on Thanksgiving blesses us with a larger picture we too often ignore and underscores a lasting ritual: sitting down with family and friends, and taking the time to reflect on the harvest of our labors.

No, the importance of this gathering needn't be restricted to a holiday, wrapped up and set off from the norm. Its message should ring consistently throughout our lives - beginning, evolving and culminating at the table.

For the dinner table is the meeting place to share and nourish, to express love, to grow from childhood to old age. It is a sacred place, designed as much for reflection as digestion, momentarily immune to profane surroundings. It also is where we nurture respect for others, learn manners, compliment, build patience, discover the art of soothing discourse, laugh and inevitably cry.

It is where small histories unfold.

Whether the menu boasts rack of lamb or cream of wheat, the table holds the harvest, and the harvest is the fruit of all toil. It is what separates us from beasts; it brings dignity to our lives. Only at the table can we genuinely bask in the harvest, unaffected by the day's anxieties, bills to be paid, disagreements. It is where we relish the marriage of mouth and mind, the intricacies of preparation and presentation, the euphoria of subtle sensations.

It is where pride beams from the face of the cook, who creates a centerpiece for the soul, companionship where there otherwise was none, and a sense of family when needed most.

Unfortunately, we live at a time when the harmony of food, table and love so often falls sour, and the ritual reduced to near impurity. Dining has dwindled to eating, to satisfying a need, to the inconsonant flash of fast food. Pity a society that fails to make time to share at the table. Pity those who excuse themselves from a meal before it begins.

So, on this Thanksgiving, take time to finish the meal, reflect on the harvest, raise glasses in harmony and, by all means, honor the cook.

Kurt Loft is a Tribune reporter who can be reached at (813) 259-7570 or kloft@tampatrib.com

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