What a trip

Mia, Sophie the giraffe, and a plate of pasta in New York, Summer 2010.
Photo by Nalin Bhutt.

"We all just do what we want to do to make life worthwhile." This line was spoken — in translation — by one of the "cast" members (I believe it was the 91-year-old head priest of a Buddhist temple if I remember correctly) in the glorious documentary Eatrip. After our own culinary delight of Nalin's homemade cassoulet and a glass of Granache, we sat down to watch this little Japanese film about the relationship between humanity and food. I've rarely seen something that so richly encapsulates what I believe to be an ideal in life. As another in the film says, "Eating means knowing your ingredients." But more than that, it is forever a communal undertaking. Whether we grow, raise, or kill our own food or rely on others to do it for us, we are bound together in a process of dependency on people and nature. And even if we do it all ourselves on a plot of land in the country with a river nearby as our main water source, the true satisfaction is in how we share our bounty and privilege with those we love.

This film is food porn in the highest degree (that is, if you are committed to a more natural or organic way of gathering and preparing food). Interwoven with the interviews of actors, singers, homemakers, fish wholesalers, priests, etc., is the captivating preparation of a single meal, from the selection of the healthy and active chicken in the beginning. The editing and cinematography are sublime, and I couldn't help but feel that I must move to Japan straight away. One segment features an older woman in a shop near the fish market (it was her father, she says, who began of the process of shaving dried bonito flakes), speaking about the "old" or traditional ways of cooking and relating to food. She wishes the younger generation would relish the things of the past rather than relying on fast food. After all, she says, "even simple foods can be delicious." Even if you don't cook, she goes on, use a good stock and make a simple broth, miso, etc. Nothing is better than soup. With that same reverence of the past, another comments that "we used to be discerning — that was admirable."

The most articulate voice in the film is a housewife with two young children living in Okinawa, Naoko Morioka, who has cultivated a life of natural farming and motherhood that inspires (and that is an understatement). She grows her own food, brings her own water from an nearby river (no tap water in this home), processes her own rice and grain with a bevy of baskets and cloths, and does so with one child on her back and another running about alongside her. Without even the slightest hesitation, she remarks about her life, "doesn't it make you feel rich?" And as her daughter and her friends sit down at their chabu-dai with the expanse of food within reach, you can't help but whisper to yourself, "yes."

The crux of the film is that the partaking of this ritual, called eating, something we do day after day after day, is essentially about mutual respect. It is about awareness. It is about conversation. And that is why the way we relate to food is such a symbol of so much more in our lives. We may not be able to get everything just right, but we can certainly enjoy the trip.