The Philosophy of Food | Monday, 4th period

[sharp_man]

Class had been asked to meet in the Danger Shop; when they arrived there, they would find Hannibal leaning up against a table at the front of the room; the table had a number of dishes on it, each neatly covered with a lid or cloth napkin. He nodded and smiled at the students he knew, and made note of the ones he did not. The room was set up with a number of comfortable chairs, some at tables and some not, a couch or two, and even a beanbag. When they had all arrived and settled in, he began.

"Good afternoon. I am Dr. Lecter; this is The Philosophy of Food. I trust you are all in the correct place." He called up a syllabus on a screen at the front of the room. "I will send you each a copy of this. You may sit in a chair, or on the floor, or wander the room; whatever makes you comfortable, so long as you pay attention." You could tell a lot about people from how they chose to interact with their space.

"You will not need to take any notes, although you may do so if you choose. As you can see," he nodded at the syllabus, "there will be a final project, no exams or quizzes. I have only two requirements for our classes: one, you must participate." He indicated the dishes. "You may choose to eat or decline anything presented here. You may choose to eat none of it; while I might be disappointed, it will in no way affect your grade. However, you must have opinions and speak them, and possibly be prepared to defend them." He smiled.

"The second rule – there will be no judging. There will undoubtedly be things you do not think of as edible, or even that you may have a cultural or religious bias against. There may be practices in the raising or creation of food which you may find objectionable. I expect you to say just that, and to be prepared to explain why. There will be no use of the term 'disgusting', no 'ew's or 'gross'es." He frowned. "That will affect your grade if I hear it, and quite negatively."

He made sure they understood, and nodded. "Now, introductions I believe are traditional, but I would appreciate a little more as well. Please tell me your name, where you are from, and any allergies – food or otherwise – and dietary restrictions you may have. It is my goal to make you think about your food and to expand your horizons, not to kill you from anaphylaxis." Though he did have medicines just in case; he'd never lost a student unintentionally yet, and had no plans of starting now.

Comments

Re: Listen to the lecture

[hashtag_chocobro]

Prompto was honestly quite the study in telling a lot about a person by how they interacted with their space, really. He was generally already feeling a little weird about things just sort of going back to normal after last week, while also feeling fairly desperate for it, and he was usually pretty fidgety in general, so that really didn't help. So, at first, he grabbed a chair, slumped down into it, leaning back, with his foot bouncing a little on his knee as he crossed one leg over the other. And that seemed to be comfortable for about three second before he thought maybe the couch would be better? So he moved over to the couch nearby, sinking in...and then feeling a little bad about maybe taking up the couch if other people might prefer it? So he moved again, back to the chair, turning it around backwards to straddle it and leaning forward as he folded his arms on the back of it. And then he realized if he kept shifting, he wasn't really paying much attention, was he? So this was where he would stick and try to focus on the lecture, a focus which he was able to maintain enough that he probably didn't even notice his bouncing knee.

Sitting still and not awkwardly was hard for Prompto on even his best days; and he was far, far from his best days as of late.