fandomhigh | The Philosophy of Food | Wednesday, 3rd Period

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The Philosophy of Food | Wednesday, 3rd Period

There was no food on the table today.

"First," Hannibal began, "let me say that as we are now halfway through this session, I encourage you to discuss your project with me now or during office hours, as we will need to schedule time." He eyed them all.

"Now, so far we have been mostly discussing how we conceive of and address food because of other influences such as culture." He settled in his chair. "Now, we turn that around. How is food itself an influence?" He raised an eyebrow at the students.

"The types and amounts of food available to a culture, the sorts of foods that are valued as delicacies and the sorts that are discarded - these all can help to dictate the development of society, not to mention arts and leisure activities. We still evaluate earlier cultures on the basis of whether they were hunter-gatherers or agricultural, yes?

"On a note closer to home for most of you, how much a part of your routine is food? When you go to the movies, what food do you expect? The picnic to welcome us here - what would you have thought if it didn't include food? What about the fact that I've set out no food today - have you come to expect it? How has that expectation altered your behavior and thinking?"

He sat back and waited.

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Unless you got eaten by or beaten over the head with a shark.

Sholeh Zeela a Zhahar

(Zhari)

Atton Rand

Emily Thorne

Emma Swan

Rilla Blythe

Mavis Dracula

Shane Gooseman

Of course there was food. Hannibal brought it out once the point had been adequately made. There were shark kabobs

shark fin soup

shark jerky

and roasted shark with olive pesto over warm radicchio and brussels sprouts salad

"I should point out, as we are being conscious of our food here, that the soup is a delicacy that has nevertheless caused some very poor practices of killing sharks purely for their fins and overfishing the populations; I suggest you not attempt to order it anyplace that hasn't recently had a rain of sharks. And Mavis, there is garlic in that last one; I've saved you a bit of shark blood instead."

Zhari was very relieved to discover that there was food after all. She helped herself to a little bit of everything--and a lot of the roasted shark with pesto. It looked delicious!

"Of course I missed the one class with actual edible, delicious food," Emily muttered under her breath.

The use of shark was...ingenious, she supposed.

Her experiences in the Kwik Stop quelled any (admittedly non-existent) qualms Emma might have had about eating shark.

Shark blood. That was... hunh. Something Mavis had never tried before.

"Thanks! I think."

"Please let me know if you enjoy it," Hannibal said. "I wasn't certain, but I wanted you to have an alternative."

What aspects of your life and culture revolve around food?

"Well, my baby sister has a tendency to faint whenever she goes too long without eating something," Zhari said, poking at her soup while she replied. "So we've gotten used to carrying small, easy to carry bits of food around, to make sure she eats every few hours. Does that count?"

"Of course." Hannibal nodded. "You are adjusting part of the way in which you live, due to a need for food. What about traditions, rituals - do you always eat breakfast or dinner a certain way? Are there certain times or places you would be startled if there were no food, or if there were?"

"People in my culture like eating food, it keeps us from dying," Atton said.

Like you were ever getting a genuine straight answer out of him about anything.

Edited 2013-08-07 11:34 (UTC)

"That is a start," Hannibal acknowledged. "What if you didn't need to eat - if there were perhaps a pill that would fully sustain you. Would you still eat? Or drink?"

Atton shrugged. "Depends on what kind of drink," he said. "Juma juice has got more going for it than nutritional value."

In that it made you very drunk so you could forget about doing terrible things to people.

"Some inebriating or mind-altering properties, I presume?" Yes, he had mentioned drink for a reason. "So, what traditions persist around this juice - do you drink it any time, any place, with any people?"

Hannibal dealt with patients that were far more reluctant and hostile than Atton. He'd manage.

Edited 2013-08-07 18:29 (UTC)

"You drink it in a cantina," Atton said, sounding... well, not as grudging as his earlier behavior might have intimated he would be. "They serve the best kind on Nar Shaddaa, but I wouldn't really recommend it as a tourist destination."

"What makes it the best - the taste, or the effect?" Hannibal asked. "Do you think it has anything to do with the fact it's not recommended as a tourist destination?"

"Well, sometimes is not just the food, but the whole act of eating that carries some significance," Emily said, remembering her meals with Takeda. When Takeda was around, at least. "So it's not just what you eat, but how you eat it?"

She was so lost.

"Very good." Hannibal smiled. "There are many long-held and treasured traditions surrounding food. They may be as simple as insisting a family eat a daily meal together, or as complex as the sumptuary laws in Renaissance Italy. What are some of yours?"

"Well, back home it's usually just me and my tutor, so it's usually accepted as a rule that neither of us can start eating until everything is set on the table. There are also set positions on the table...and the guy's Japanese, so using anything but chopsticks is basically sacrilege," Emily said, as well as other usual Japanese customs while eating ~~that the mun is presently not well informed about~~.

Also aw yeah she made the teacher smile.

"There are many Japanese customs to observe when using chopsticks," Hannibal noted. "Of course, there are also many involving forks and knives, but these days they have become limited to more formal meals. If you're more comfortable with chopsticks, I will bring them in the future.

She was lucky to be making a good impression after missing class so much.

"That would be...interesting. I suppose I kind of miss using them," Emily said.

Her good girl act was pretty darn good after all.

"Chopsticks it is, then. They can serve as a practical example of cultural differences. As well as a bit of nostalgia."

Hannibal bowed slightly and gave her a little smile. He was very well acquainted with acting good.

[OOC: If anyone wants to RP teaching Hannibal to cook something from your character's background, that would be awesome. Otherwise, hand-wavy essays are hand-wavy. :) (And ridiculously hard for summer term, if your character wants to bitch about that.)]

"We should talk about herbs and spices," Zhari said with a smile. "You still want me to cook a fish in clay, right?"

[I have a treatment today, so major, major SP warning]

"Please." Hannibal nodded. "I have brought a selection of herbs into my office to grow, which should be an excellent place to start, if you would like to drop by. And I have sourced a number of types of clay; I'll let you determine what will work best."

"Um, about this project..."

Here, have a student you haven't seen in any of the past classes before looking just a tad uncomfortable.

Hannibal looked over the unfamiliar girl.

"You are either lost, or my missing student, Miss Emily Thorne. As you participated quite adequately in the discussion, I am presuming the latter. I was beginning to think you had dropped the class and forgotten to tell me." Which would have been very rude.

"I'm Emily Thorne, yes. As you might know, the island has a tendency to toy with people...although it usually doesn't turn the students into plants for an entire month, which is what happened to me," Emily said, trying to keep a straight face. It was a pretty ridiculous story, but she hoped it was sincere enough.

Hannibal sighed. He was good at finding out lies, though, and she did seem quite serious. "I suppose a doctor's letter is out of the question." This island was a challenge teaching in ways he'd never anticipated.

He pulled a syllabus (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Y9z4RmI_n1lbplbJ93bo5eLAF4xNkP2bdcErAw3w1iY/edit#) out of his bag and handed it to her. "The project is as it says there - I will expect you to teach me to make some food of significance to your upbringing, and to explain that significance and the reasons for choices you make in preparing it." Or you could write an essay if you must, but he wasn't going to encourage it.

"Unless it should come to light that you intentionally turned into a plant in order to avoid classes, I suppose we will consider these excused absences, and I will judge your class participation on the basis of the classes remaining. If you wish to meet independently to make up for some of the missing time, we can also arrange that."

Yum - Hannibal!

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The Philosophy of Food | Wednesday, 3rd Period

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