Ivan Brunetti writing about Charles Schulz’s comic strip Peanuts is a perfect reflection of any culture, be it food or comic strips.
I especially liked this bit:
Peanuts has no discernible scale, because it exists simultaneously as small increments and a fifty-year totality, an epic poem made up entirely of haikus. Then again, maybe that’s also what life is: short, packed moments of intense, concentrated awareness, minuscule epiphanies that accrete as we age, an accumulation of efforts, some meaningful and some meaningless, moments all too real that unsettlingly feel somehow also not real, jottings taking note of everything, within and without. One life, all life. An isolated four-panel comic strip of Charlie Brown and Linus debating a philosophical point can be appreciated just as it is, humorous, insightful, compact, and perfect; one strip a day documenting one man’s thoughts for half a century has the weight of a full life. Peanuts endures, both from the closest micro-view and the farthest macro–vantage point.
Good meals exist forever. A perfect evening never fades. We’re all Marcel Proust falling through our memories with our version of a Madeliene cookies dipped in tea. Each bite can be much more than a bite. A bite can feel like a whole meal, make a restaurant, melt a city, build a culture, and create a new version of ourselves. Food is another wonderful opportunity to be ourselves, find ourselves, and change ourselves.