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!
