RIFLE RANGE BOY

Spoilt for choice! We say so many things about food. That we eat to live, not live to eat. That food be treated just as we treat medicine; not to overconsume, over-indulge or abuse. Like the Tamil proverb says, in excess, even honey turns poison. When we have the stomach to taste, we don't have the means; when there are the means, we don't have the stomach for it! Some would insist that eating to satisfy the senses is a sin. It is viewed as disrespecting Mother Nature, who provides and protects. Why go far? Gluttony is listed as one of seven deadly sins that Man should not commit. Various food abstinence regimes are considered highly by many religious beliefs. Fasting during Lent and Ramadan is recommended. So do Hindus during their multiple prayers. Then there are the Jains and Pythogorians with their dos and don'ts about eating and the types of foods that can be consumed. Tubers and root vegetables are avoided by Puritan Jains as ingestion of these foodstuffs kills under...

We had a bad gene pool. On the maternal side, our grandfather single handedly in a single generation, brought his family to the streets through his liking for culinary excellence. He pawned and leased to his last piece of property to hold feasts to commemorate the flimsiest of occasion. He enjoyed being doused in merriment without a care in the world, living only for the day like there is no tomorrow. He lived to eat. His antics and penchant for gustatory gratification literally brought down a reputable and respectable upper middle class family to its knees spiralling the ladder of social class all within a decade of the demise of his old man. On the paternal side, the extremely large family with 16 over offspring (give and take, that is excluding many stillbirths and children given up for adoption), food (lack of) was always an issue. They always seem to be drooling for food. With this background, my mother took it upon herself to put things in perspective as far as her children we...