http://www.thekitchn.com/feedburnermain
With its strong flavors of curry, garlic, and black pepper, you’d assume the inspiration for this ultra-savory baked potato would be a dinner at an Indian restaurant. As it turns out, this is a combination I grew up eating for breakfast, and still continue to make this day, loving that my mornings begin with the fragrance of cooked spices and lightly wilted greens.
http://www.thekitchn.com/feedburnermain
2015 was a good year for vegetables — especially cauliflower. While we certainly hopped on the cauliflower rice train, it didn’t stop us from showing love to the plethora of green side dishes that popped up over the year. This year saw a new take on the green bean casserole, a savory pot of greens topped with biscuits, and a few vibrant salads we made over and over again.
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From the intricacy of Japanese tea ceremonies to the ornateness of holiday dinners, food related customs hold big sway in every culture. They all reflect in some way an element of that culture’s values and common story—whether long inherited or deliberately chosen. While some of our rituals can be traced to particular religious traditions, others are more secularly instituted, family oriented or even individually constructed. Those grander social customs might evoke more conscious nostalgia, but science suggests even the small practices we enact around our eating can have surprising results.
Food ritual, of course, is literally written in our genetic expectations. In fact, how meat in particular was cut and shared over hundreds of thousands of years has been a central clue in how anthropologists track cultural evolution. Relics of early human culture highlight the magnitude of it. From the use of certain kinds of dishes for particular foods and drinks to the thoughtful, extravagant spreads for communal feasting, for example, shared food ritual came before the Agricultural Revolution, serving then (and today) as a integral tool for establishing and maintaining social cohesion.
But the impact isn’t just social….
Instructing subjects to perform a given ritual before eating University of Minnesota researchers constructed experiments in which they instructed one half of people to perform a simple ritual before eating an assigned food and gave the other group no such instruction except to relax for a time before eating.
Those who performed the ritual (literally just dividing and unwrapping a chocolate bar a certain way) reported more satisfaction from the eating experience. They not only assessed the chocolate as more tasty, but they took longer to eat it and reported being willing to pay more for it.
A second experiment revealed that a longer delay between ritual and eating enhanced the experience of the food further still. Even with carrots, the subjects reported enjoying the taste more after the longer ritual-delay interval. (Maybe Aunt Sylvie’s drawn-out prayers over the holiday dinner aren’t so bad after all.)
It’s important to note is that participation in the ritual was necessary as is “intrinsic interest.” It’s not enough to observe someone else do something (e.g. carve the turkey) or to do a ritual expecting an extra reward (e.g. “If I make myself bless the food I’ll let myself have an extra dollop of cream on my pie.). We have to let ourselves perform the practice for practice’s sake. This means letting go of the incessant distractibility, our reductive utilitarianism and our modern cynicism.
In fact, research on ritual suggests the more elaborate our rituals, the more effect they have on us. It’s just a hallmark of the human mind. As researchers explain, “[T]he characteristics of ritual are the product of an evolved cognitive system.” What appeals to our imagination often has more power than what addresses our intellect. Ritual, scientists have observed, is used by both animals and humans to alleviate anxiety.
Our modes of engaging with our experiences include more than strict empirical reasoning. They call upon eons of human history in which ritual evoked peace, belonging and safety. We’d do well to learn from traditional societies’ (and some contemporary religious groups’ flow experience with ritual. It’s not about the particular stories behind these but the universal forms our species evolved with.
And it has the power to reframe our relationship with food as well as pleasure.
Interested in seeing what they can do for your enjoyment, ease and fulfillment? (That’s the good life after all….)
Start simple by appreciating the ritual you already practice. Do you set the table a certain way? Do you make your coffee or tea way? Do you bring certain habits meals or meal prep? There’s a reason cooking can be a meditative art for some people. For all our focus on convenience food, we deny ourselves more than we know by scarfing down sandwiches in parking lots or grabbing plates so everyone can retreat to their separate corners of the house.
Just go with what you believe would add to the enjoyment of your food that’s about your own behavior rather than the food itself. Another irony of modern life: we’ll pay insane amounts of money to bring home five star food but give ourselves a zero star eating experience. Everyone’s personal taste varies, but this principle holds: bring mindfulness to the table first. It’s the difference between letting yourself receive the food versus unconsciously inhaling it.
As you sit down with family for the holiday, why not resurrect old (and funny) mealtime patterns from your early years. Take time for whatever prayer, blessings, story sharing or pre-eating custom has meaning for you and your family. If the typical religious practices aren’t your thing, hold hands and ask each person to go around and say something they’re grateful for this year (do we seriously need to limit gratitude Thanksgiving?) or read a poem, sing something or even simply observe a minute of silence together. What practice would get everyone involved and celebrate the community preparation to eat?
Thanks for reading, everyone. What food rituals have you observed—in the everyday sense or within holiday celebration? I’d love to hear your thoughts and practices. Have a good end to your week.
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Once you’ve had your fill of cookies, candy canes, and hot chocolate, try these Swedish lussekatter, or saffron buns. Rich and slightly sweet, these raisin-studded buns are sure to become a favorite holiday treat.
Originally Posted At: https://breakingmuscle.com/feed/rss
Eggs are one of the healthiest proteins on the planet. They are easy to make and super portable when cooked. If you are an athlete following a paleo lifestyle, eggs are probably a huge part of your diet. It’s not uncommon for paleo athletes to average three dozen eggs per week per household of two adults.
http://www.thekitchn.com/feedburnermain
Here at The Kitchn, the holidays give us the opportunity to think about gratitude: about how fortunate we are to be able to obsess over holiday menus, relish the joys of cooking and share festive meals with the people we love. This is a big deal. One in seven Americans and one in five children — more than 48 million people — face hunger in our country. And so, at this time of year, we’re especially grateful that we can help non-profit groups like Feeding America, which works hard to make the holiday table, and the nightly dinner table, bountiful for all families. And you can help, too.
http://www.thekitchn.com/feedburnermain
There is a raft of common ingredient pairings that not only seem to be similar, but practically beg to be substituted for one another in a pinch. But when is this safe, and when will it produce unintended results? Can sweetened condensed milk be swapped out for evaporated? What about bleached and unbleached flour, or active vs. instant yeast?
In the interest of being a better-informed home cook, we tackled some of these common ingredients and finally answered the question: What’s the difference? Here are our top 10 ingredient intelligence explanations from 2015.
Originally Posted At: https://breakingmuscle.com/feed/rss
Dave Castro has come up with some pretty solid competition workouts. “The Pool” in 2013 (swimming and bar muscle ups) was a beautifully simple test of multiple layers of fitness and skill. The 2014 “Muscle Up Biathlon” (400-meter runs and muscle ups) was a fantastic and uncomplicated couplet that tested skill under fatigue.
http://www.thekitchn.com/feedburnermain
• $15
• Etsy
Think it’s too late to plan a Christmas party and send proper invitations? Nah — you just need one of these classy invitations from Etsy artist Kinvite. Send her your information and she’ll customize any of these invites with your name and address. Print at Kinko’s or your local print shop, and ta-da! Soirée is served.
I especially like this first design, with its gold script, but if that isn’t your style, check out the following two designs.
Originally Posted At: https://breakingmuscle.com/feed/rss
We’ve all seen it. A line of athletes drags through a circuit of agility ladders, mat drills, and an endless succession of 20 yard shuttles as coaches scream about toughening up and being strong in the fourth quarter. Athletes stumble through drills looking at their feet, standing up straight, not using their arms. Put simply, they are in survival mode.
For now classes are 6pm and 640pm at 2840 Wildwood st in the Boise Cloggers studio.
Book your class NOW!
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