More Than Food

Some of the best times I've had in life with friends and family has been around the dinner table. Whether at home or a restaurant, I've spent hours with them ... and eating the food is secondary.

My friend Rod is a chef and he taught me a lot about this. In his eyes, meals were a catalyst for intimacy, conversation and friendship. He once asked me, "You never see people who are mad at each other going out for dinner, do you?" Meals are a pathway to friendship.

This is important to consider as a follower of Jesus. He was always sitting down at a table with those on the "moral fringe" of Israel. His meals were scandalous, which is why many thought him to be a glutton and a drunkard. He wasn't just grabbing a bite to eat with them. In his day, eating a meal was a sign of identification and kinship.

Sadly, we have lost a lot of this today. I don't know many people who make time for real meals anymore. I recently came across an interview I had heard a while back with Maya Angelou and she speaks directly toward this. Below is a brief excerpt. If you'd like to read or listen you can do that by clicking here.

GONYEA: What was dinnertime like growing up?

Dr. ANGELOU: Well, dinnertime was generally boiled. If it was an old rooster, it might get boiled. And we'd have boiled chicken and maybe dumplings, and vegetables during the spring and summer, and even fall - vegetables from my grandmother's garden: carrots, beets, turnips, potatoes, parsnips, rutabagas. I'm going back a long way to remember that.

GONYEA: And meals back then, we think of the dinner table as a place, not just for breaking bread, but also for family stories and community. Was it that for you?

Dr. ANGELOU: Yes, indeed. It was. And I'm concerned that Americans are losing that place of meeting. I had a young woman who came to work for me a few weeks ago, and we had sandwiches. So she had a sandwich, and I had one. And I sat at the kitchen table, and she stood at the counter. So I said oh, no. Please come and sit down

She said: No, Ma'am. I feel most comfortable standing here. And I realized in that second that we have raised a generation of young people who have eaten their main meals at counters. Not to sit down at the table is to lose something that is essential to community, essential to family.

GONYEA: So food cannot just be about food, you're saying.

Dr. ANGELOU: And no, it is not just about food. Food is very important, because there are very few times we can be more intimate, as to share food together.