Food Fight

The fleshy side of half a tomato smacked a young woman squarely between the eyes.As gelatinous seeds and sticky juice crept down her face, bloodlust filled her voice as she hollered, “Game on!”

At that, she took a pre-scored fresh ripe tomato and, according to the rules, ripped it in half with her bare hands for maximum messiness. With the insides of the tomato halves gushing all over each hand, she threw them with all her might, first with her right and then her left at her smirking attacker.He responded in kind. Her teammate defended and threw her tomato halves at his teammates.

Rip, throw, smack!

Over and over again – at him, at her, at him again, at that one too, at that other one who looks too clean, at the one trying to get away!

Rip, throw, smack!

“Get them!” “Get all of them!” “Get any of them!”

Rip, throw, smack!

The women screamed of delight masked as pseudo-terror, while the bros roared of victories filled with bravado.Ultimately empty victories, but still victories within their world brimming with self-importance.

When the tomatoes ran out and the formerly pristine verdant bocce ball field was covered in red muck, they pumped their fists in the air and gave each other hearty congratulatory pats on the back as though they’d vanquished a formidable enemy. They cried, “An event for the ages!” They crowed, “A memorable experience!” They bellowed, “Great fun!”

The women tittered, the bros puffed up with feelings of manliness.

So what if the bocce ball field is now littered with tomato seeds that may sprout unwanted tomato plants in the future? Their actions said: “We’re rich . . . we’ll just throw money at the problem!”

So what if the tomatoes were not rotten and still very much edible? Their attitude implied: “We’re rich . . . we paid for the privilege of wasting those luscious tomatoes!”

So what if there are hungry people everywhere begging for food? Their Marie Antoinette-esque unspoken response: “We’re rich . . . let them eat cake!”

Then, the host and hostess posed this way and that with great big self-satisfied smiles for Instagram-worthy posts telling the world of their triumphant display of wanton excess, the blood-red carnage on the grass underneath their feet.

She saw those posts and shook her head, horrified and sad. That some of the participants were not rich but merely wannabe hangers-on didn’t make them less disgraceful. In her eyes, they were more so by enabling the rich in that way.

She was reminded of an incident during her freshman year at her elite Ivy League university. While she was enjoying her meal with friends in the dining hall, some rich boy at another table suddenly shouted: “Food fight!!!”

Immediately, meat, bread, fruits, drinks, and other foods became airborne, hitting the beautiful mahogany walls, tables, floors, other kids. Oh, what fantastic time they had, laughing and frolicking in their “Masters-of-the-Universe” way.

So what if they made a huge mess? “We’re rich . . . the staff and scholarship kids will take care of it.”

To distract herself, she turned the television on . . . just in time to see a celebrity chef drop-kick a piece of undercooked chicken in a cooking competition. A cooking show that doesn’t show how to cook, but rather a show that more often than not wastes food for the sake of entertainment. The judges take little bites of full meals prepared by the contestants and decide what’s worthy of their self-proclaimed fine-tuned palates and what should go straight into the garbage, even if the food is otherwise edible. She turned the television off.

Just as she was about to conclude that the tomato-throwing, the food fight, and the drop-kicking of the chicken were wasteful things only the rich do just to show they’re rich, she remembered dealing with people living below the poverty line who also had callously rejected and disrespected food.

For many months several years ago, she filled a paper bag with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, an apple or banana, a hard-boiled egg, and a bottle of water whenever she left home for work or errands.Hardly Michelin-quality stuff, but packed with protein, carbs, fiber, as well as vitamins and minerals. It wasn’t her own lunch. Rather, it was for the less fortunate sitting on sidewalks of New York City in all kinds of weather, asking for food or money from strangers who mostly chose not to see or hear them.

She usually approached the first person she saw sitting on the pavement.

“Would you like some food and a bottle of water?”

Most accepted her offer, often without any verbal acknowledgement or even eye contact. Just an outstretched arm, which was okay. She didn’t want or expect gratitude because she knew that for many, accepting charity is an embarrassment. She wasn’t rich, but had enough to share and so she did.

“Here. Enjoy.”

Unfortunately, there were also many who refused her food simply because they didn’t like what she was offering. She would’ve understood if they were allergic to nuts or gluten. Or, as is the case with one of her friends, they experienced a gag reflex with certain food textures. But that wasn’t it at all.

“I have some food here. Would you like it?”

“What’s in the bag?”

“A sandwich, fruit, an egg, and a bottle of water.”

They’d make a face of disgust and say something like, “Oh – I don’t want that!” Then, they’d turn away, dismissing her.

Though she didn’t care that they were rude to her, their rejection of the food puzzled and stung.

“This is the kind of food I personally would eat . . . and I could pretty much eat whatever I want anywhere in this expensive city. I’d gladly make myself a PB&J sandwich or boil an egg, if I’m busy or too lazy to make something complicated – which, by the way, I can also do because, thankfully, I have the means to do so. So, why would someone who supposedly has very little and is begging on the streets reject perfectly good food? They may as well have thrown the food at me.”

It was like the time she used to volunteer at a food pantry. Every other Saturday morning, she woke up early whether the sun was shining or snow blanketed the ground. She’d pay the taxi fare to and from a church basement in a not-so-great neighborhood because it was too far to walk and there was no direct public transportation.

There, she and others would organize the donations and pack them into blue plastic bags, ensuring that each one contained at least protein, carbs, and fiber. No one sat down to rest. Instead, she and the other volunteers were on their feet the entire three-plus hours, going back and forth from one table to another to get the correct foods until all the tables had been cleared.

When everything was properly packaged and stacked for distribution, people streamed in. Most took whatever they were given and left. But, without fail, there were the ungrateful entitled ones who didn’t seem to understand that they were getting foods donated to a food pantry, not from a grocery store with unlimited inventories of various items.

“Why did you put this can of corn/peas/whatever in here? I don’t like it. Give me something else, like a can of beans.”

“Don’t you have the X brand of soup you had last time instead of this one? I want that brand.”

“I don’t like short pasta. I like the long kind like spaghetti.”

“I don’t know what to do with this cheese. Don’t you have another type?”

And on and on . . .

When she explained that was all that was donated for the week and she had no control over any of the donations, they took out the offending items from their bags and left them willy-nilly on tables that she and other volunteers had already cleared. They discarded free edible food.

Really no different from – or any less tone-deaf than – the rich.

Not only that. They created additional work for the volunteers to re-clear the tables and re-stock the rejected foods for the next giveaway day.

After a while, she decided she just couldn’t take it anymore and stopped volunteering at the food pantry.

“I don’t understand how those people could reject free food for no good reason. It’s unforgiveable. If someone gave me free food that I didn’t particularly like, I’d still eat it because I was hungry enough or give it to others who may have a greater need. Those people repeatedly disrespect us who give up our Saturday mornings for them and those who donated the food. If I continue to volunteer, I might fight back and say something that could escalate things. Better to let others with greater patience and bigger hearts deal with them. I’m done.”

She was outraged at the cavalier way that those people – who ironically were experiencing enough food insecurity such that they needed to go to a food pantry – were willing to forego eating for no reason other than brand or type preference.

“Whoever said beggars can’t be choosers is completely wrong, or at least wrong in the context of present-day circumstances and expectations. In fact, not only are many of them choosers, but they also affect an intolerable sense of entitlement.”

She couldn’t understand their high-and-mighty manners because she herself grew up poor. She remembers when, as a child, she sat at a dinner table with her parents and six sisters. Their meal consisted of rice, tomatoes, and one fried medium-sized fish.

Mother: “The best part of the fish are the eyes. They’re so delicious with the rice and tomatoes."

Father: “I like the crunchiness of the tail and fins. They’re also really good with the rice and tomatoes.”

And each older sibling claimed their alleged favorite part of the fish so that she and her youngest sister would be left with the softest and most delicate parts to enjoy with their portions of the rice and tomatoes. She still remembers the sweet-savoriness of the tomatoes mixing so well with the saltiness of the fried fish against the blank canvas of the rice. The tomatoes provided sustenance for her and her family by supplementing their meager meal. So seeing tomatoes being used as mere projectiles for the sake of amusement and sport by smug millionaires and their sycophantic hangers-on was despicable to her.

“It was depraved and sinful, but not necessarily in any religious sense. More like a sin against humanity and a violation of the social contract. A thoughtlessness rooted in arrogance. A huge middle finger to the millions of hungry people in the world.”

Thinking back, she now understands her mother probably didn’t like fish eyes at all and her father probably cut the roof of his mouth with the sharp shards of fried fish tails and fins, but they wanted to ensure that their children enjoyed the best parts of the fish. The same was likely true of her older sisters who left the best parts for her and her younger sister. Because of her parents’ and older sisters’ generosity, she came to believe that food in whatever form and in whatever amount should never be taken for granted or wasted.

As an adult, she underwent a tonsillectomy that prohibited her from eating solid foods for about a week. She was miserable in every sense of the word.

“I can’t really eat anything because nothing tastes good. And it hurts to swallow even puréed foods and liquids. I’m so hungry. Yes, I’m also irritable because I’m hungry. And I feel so weak because, yes, I’m hungry.”

When she thought she could finally eat something more solid, she knew to be careful with her first meal. She couldn’t immediately dive into her favorite types and brands of food.

“What can I have that’s solid but also soft that would taste good without upsetting my empty stomach with any harsh flavors or acids? That egg would fit the bill!”

Normally, she didn’t particularly like boiled eggs but she was hungry. So, she boiled the egg for a little over 6 minutes, resulting in what’s now known among foodies as a “jammy egg” – so called because the yolk is neither completely set as in a hard-boiled egg nor completely runny like in a traditional soft-boiled egg. The yolk has the consistency of jam.

Concerned that any seasoning, even salt, would scratch or irritate her recovering throat, she decided her real first meal after the surgery would be a plain unseasoned jammy egg. The sunny unctuous yolk generously coated the soft-yet-solid alabaster albumen, making each bite memorable in its exquisite simplicity.

To this day, it remains the absolute best meal of her life. That humble egg eclipses all the fancy culinary concoctions she has had to privilege and pleasure to have eaten before and after the tonsillectomy – not exactly because it tasted better (although she still remembers how good it tasted while all the other terrific foods just get muddled under the umbrella description of “yummy”) but more because of what it represents.

Of course, she realized her post-tonsillectomy hunger was vastly different from a hunger caused by the absence of food, but it was still an involuntary food deprivation that needed satisfaction. Chuckling to herself, she thought of the beauty pageant contestant who was asked what she would do if she could do anything. While hilarious, the response revealed that even voluntary food deprivation demands satisfaction:

“I would eat everything in the world. You do not understand. I would eat everything twice.”

The first meal after an extended period of any food deprivation is like an oasis in the middle of an endless sea of sand. It’s an end to something that literally jeopardizes one’s life while simultaneously holding the promise of a brighter new beginning.

No question her first post-surgery meal of an unassuming unseasoned egg sated her hunger. It also signified the beginning of the return to her normal life – which was the reason she always included an egg in her bags of giveaway food. The egg represented her private message of hope for some kind of a new beginning, however small, in the lives of the people who accepted her food. More importantly, it gave her a profound respect for and understanding of what food can do for one’s body, spirit, and sense of life.

“To disrespect food is to disrespect life itself.

The squandering of edible food in pursuit of an Instagram-worthy post, a college frivolity, or television “entertainment” by the rich and the rejection of free food by the poor are two sides of the same ugly coin.”

The next day, she decided to honor the denigrated food. For breakfast, she put peanut butter and banana on her toast to enjoy with a jammy egg. Lunch was a chicken quesadilla. Fusilli sauced with fresh tomatoes and mozzarella pieces drizzled with freshly-made chili oil was dinner. Dessert? Gâteau, of course!

* * *

The perfect jammy egg:

1. Fill a small bowl with room temperature water and place egg in bowl. Set aside.

2. Fill small pot with enough water to cover the egg and bring to a boil.

3. Gently place the egg into the boiling water.

4. Let boil for 6 minutes and 15-30 seconds (depending on how much of the yolk you want to be solid).

5. Immediately take the egg out and run cold tap water over it to stop the cooking.

6. Peel and enjoy.

Short pasta with fresh tomatoes and mozzarella pieces:

Ingredients:

1 cup extra virgin olive oil

2½ teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes

6 medium tomatoes

6 crushed (not minced) garlic cloves

1 tablespoon dried oregano

1 cup loosely packed hand-shredded basil leaves

1½ (or to taste) teaspoon kosher or other coarse salt

1 pound short pasta with shapes to hold sauce like fusilli (corkscrew), rigatoni (ridges), or

orecchiette (bowl shaped)

Fresh mozzarella cheese, cut into cubes (amount as desired)

Parmesan cheese (optional, amount as desired)

Directions:

1. Make chili oil by stirring together ½ cup of oil and 2 teaspoon of red pepper flakes. Let stand at room

temperature at least 2 hours (2 days maximum).

2. Make sauce:

a. Cut tomatoes into bite-size pieces

b. Add garlic, remaining ½ teaspoon pepper flakes, oregano, basil, salt, and remaining ½ cup olive oil.

c. Mix, lightly crushing everything together with a wood or silicone (not metal) spoon or spatula.

d. Let stand at room temperature for at least one hour (8 hours maximum).

3. Cook pasta according to package instructions.Drain.

4. Discard garlic from the sauce before adding the hot pasta. Lightly mix together, coating the pasta well.

5. Gently fold in mozzarella pieces.

6. Serve with Parmesan cheese, if desired, and chili oil for drizzling.