fandomhigh | The Philosophy of Food

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.

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Introductions day!

Sit, wander, whatever. Ask questions if you've got them.

Once everyone is introduced, Hannibal will take the covers off the dishes.

"Everything here is considered food by someone, and considered inedible by someone else. Please, taste whatever you like and offer us your opinions. Do you consider these things food or not food? More importantly, why or why not? Why do you think others might or might not?"

Fried tarantulas, about hand-sized

Homemade head cheese

Huitlacoche, "corn smut", with homemade salsa verde and tortillas

Durian fruit

Big macs

Ethically raised organic pork, home-smoked to bacon

Organic coffee from a small roastery, vacuum-brewed, with nice coffee cups and organic sugar and cream

Sherry, complete with tiny wine glasses.

Ask questions, try some, (just don't be rude)!

He's really very approachable ~~for a cannibal~~.

I will be in airports and airplanes and then a strange city (Chicago-ish) for most of today, so SP until tonight, probably.

Prompto Argentum

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.

Prompto went into this thinking that he was definitely going to try everything, and then they started out with fried tarantulas, and, suddenly, his palate was very discerning, and maybe he wouldn't try everything. It was a lot of food, after all, and even though he spent the morning in the gym and planned on spending the rest of the day there, too, once he was done with this class, he shouldn't, like, be a glutton or anything, right?

Right.

But he was raising his hand to indicate that he had a question.

"Dr. Lecter? Is it okay if we take some pictures of the food? I have a friend back home who might be interested to see some of this stuff."

He was honestly a little wary about sending said pictures, in case it wound up only giving Iggy some bright new ideas, but he also felt Iggy had to see fried tarantulas.

"Oh!" Prompto shook his head. Right. Introductions, too! He was a little distracted. Food was distracting. Life was distracting right now. "And I'm Prompto. Prompto Argentum. I'm from a city called Insomnia in a country called Lucis on a planet called Eos. And no allergies that I can think of..." His face broke into a grin. "Unless it's convenient."

Edited 2019-05-06 13:34 (UTC)

Billy Batson

“Welcome, Prompto.” Hannibal smiled. “Please, take as many pictures as you like, and I am pleased to answer questions for you or your friend. No allergies, but you are always permitted to forego any food you like.”

It was going to take a lot of conscious effort for Billy to avoid saying "gross," which was kind of a reflex for him. And he very nearly failed at that right off the bat, when the fried tarantulas made an appearance.

As it was he made a little choked noise, hoped he hadn't turned green, and went on to try most of the other things. Except the durian, because no.

"I'm Billy," he said in between bites of Big Mac, "I'm from Philadelphia, and as far as I know I don't have any food allergies?"

"Welcome, Billy." Hannibal nodded. "That's good to know."

He saw that effort and appreciated it, Billy. "So, you consider most of these things to be food, but not the spiders or fruit?"

He was initiating discussion, not judging.

"To tell you the truth, sir, I might've tried the spiders if they didn't look like, you know . . ." Billy gestured vaguely at their legs. "Obvious spiders? It's not that I doubt they're food. I just don't think they're my thing. Does that make sense?"

"Absolutely," Hannibal said. "Not every food appeals to everyone. So, it's their appearance that makes them not your sort of food. What about chicken - if it appeared to be more of an animal, perhaps with its head and feet intact, would you be less inclined to eat it?"

"Probably, yeah," Billy said quickly. He didn't even have to think about that answer.

"So, if something still appears to have been alive, it is less 'food' to you," Hannibal summed up. "And yet you know that it was once alive. What about being faced with that that makes you less likely to eat it?"

Nell Ingram

Nell was pretty open to new things. They'd never gone through real hungry times, but her family had certainly hunted and eaten things that others might consider gross. Head cheese was not unknown to her, though it wasn't something she'd have much of. She'd try at least a tiny bit of everything.

She had to admit, if only to herself that the coffee with cream and sugar was incredibly decadent and delicious.

"I'm Nell Ingram," she said, "and as far as I know I don't have no - any - allergies to anything."

"Welcome, Nell." Hannibal gave her a warm smile for trying everything. "I'm pleased to hear it, and it's good to see you again."

She ducked her head and smiled. "Thank you. It's nice to be in another of your classes."

The Philosophy of Food | Monday, 4th period

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