Pollan describes the pleasures of cooking and sharing a meal (roast…

ProfessorSkunkMaster789 Pollan describes the pleasures of cooking and sharing a meal (roast…Pollan describes the pleasures of cooking and sharing a meal (roast chicken and vegetables), referencing Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826), author of a famous work on gastronomy, who said the satisfaction of hunger is quite different from “the pleasures of the table,” such as “facts, things, and persons accompanying the meal” that are “the brightest fruits of civilization.” Pollan muses about the transformation of food and how a “sublime bite” begins in a pasture.”I don’t mind saying the chicken was out of this world,” Pollan tells the reader, noting one of the guests has described the Polyface Farm meat as “chickeny.” The chicken is everything it ought to be, a creature that has given up its life so human beings can live theirs. This chicken is not a production unit bloodying its breast against the wires of its impossibly overcrowded pen while it awaits slaughter.Following the philosopher Brillat-Savarin, the author shows how eating is so much more than a survival mechanism or the satisfaction of hunger. Human beings, both burdened and blessed with consciousness, cannot help but assign meaning to everything. Without meaning and an aspiration to transcend the limitations of the corporeal form, human life is worthless. Eating is a primal urge and a necessity, but it is also an occasion for connection and a promise of transcendence. No doubt intimacy and verbal communication developed around the cooking fires of humanity’s ancestors. The meal occasion—even from the beginning—was a place to remember history, to invent stories, and to dream of what had not yet come into being. The pleasures of the table are what separate people from their animal cousins. “Every meal we share at a table recapitulates this evolution from nature to culture,” says Pollan.As he recalls the nasty business of composting chicken guts on Salatin’s farm, Pollan thinks about how there is a line from that scene to the lovely meal he is enjoying with his friends. It is important to remember that connection and to consider the lives of the animals who are destined to become food.Question for the Discussion Board:One of the three pillars of sustainability is the social element as explained above from Pollan’s book. Does making the effort to shop, prepare, and share a cooked meal together with family or friends change or deepen our human relationship to food. Does the act of shopping, cooking, and sharing food together impact the way we think about sustaining and protecting our natural world – the landscape, water, and air? Explain your answer.Arts & HumanitiesEnglish