Shall we say Grace?

The food arrives.  Mum loads us with spuds and steaming veggies, I slice the crusty bread, dad charges our glasses.  Now - let’s get stuck in.

Wait!  

I gently take Katja’s hand, and we clasp those of our neighbours.

Concern flashes across the hungry, tolerant faces of my parents.  Has his beautiful German girlfriend lured him into some kind of dodgy cult?

“Piep piep piep” we chant, “Wir haben uns alle lieb.  Wir wollen keinen Krieg.  Guten Appetit!”

Phew.  We all love each other, and we want no war - can’t say fairer than that.  We can all now tuck in; mum and dad are both nourished and relieved.

Saying grace before meals has gone out of fashion, in much the same way as church on Sundays or prayers at bedtime.  But whilst I’m happy with our modern, secular society, I still believe we can find value in traditional rituals. 

After all, the desire to give thanks for having enough food on our plates doesn’t have to be linked to religion - it is universal across all societies and throughout the ages. 

Whilst we are less religious, we also seem to have become less thankful.  We think a full plate is a right not a privilege.  Yet the parents who load my portions saw food rationing in their younger years - not just during the war, but well into the 1950s. 

In contrast, as a spoiled child I was sometimes allowed to choose my latest breakfast cereal fad.  When, after a day or two, I was distracted by the next packet’s coloured stickers or plastic toy, my father didn’t complain - but neither would he let ‘good’ food go to waste.  He’s probably still dutifully chomping through choco-animal-sugar-pop hoops.

But he’s the exception.  As a nation we are becoming ever more wasteful.  The Waste and Resources Action Programme revealed earlier this year that in Britain we throw away a staggering one fifth of the food we buy.  That’s 3,600,000 tonnes, costing over £10,000,000,000 (ten billion quid!) every year. 

Waste on this scale is truly shocking.  In a world where millions of people still don’t have enough food to eat, it’s unspeakably scandalous.

Perhaps we wouldn’t be so profligate if we took a moment to reflect on how lucky we are to have enough to eat?  The fact that I’ve been drawn out of my temporary blogging retirement is thanks to today being ‘blog action day’, calling on people across the world to write about food. 

So here’s my promise.  From now on, before I tuck into my meal, I will say grace.  I’ll use my own words, and don’t worry, I’ll not cause upset by speaking it aloud in a public place. 

“For what I am about to enjoy, may I be truly thankful”. 

That’s all.  Now we can get stuck in!